The Mesquite Online News - Texas A&M University-San Antonio

FOOD: The normalness of Suck it! The Restaurant

FOOD: The normalness of Suck it! The Restaurant - The Mesquite Online News - Texas A&M University-San Antonio

Ramen is a sacred dish, a Japanese delicacy that is well within a college student’s budget. When most decide that burgers and burritos just aren’t what they had in mind for dinner, this dish is the perfect choice for getting out of a routine. That said, there has to be some sort of spice and mystery to the dish, a sense of adventure, if you will. While many ramen places in San Antonio certainly offer that, Suck it! The Restaurant, sort of doesn’t. 

The restaurant opened in 2010 and fuses Vietnamese, Japanese, Mexican and Texan flavors in their entrees. Their menu goes beyond  ramen and includes pho, sushi and rice bowls. They’re also popular for their bubble teas and for incorporating chamoy in some choices. 

Compared with places like Nama Ramen, which offers a true ramen bar experience and extends the aforementioned qualities beyond the bowl, or Tenko Ramen that focuses these qualities within it, Suck it! does neither. Note that I’m not necessarily saying that the experience was terrible; more so, it just felt ordinary. I didn’t experience the subtle thrill of feeling like you’re elsewhere when trying a more exotic dish — Exotic being, out of the burger and burrito routine.

It’s Friday night and according to payday ritual, a night out with a friend after a long day of work was an appropriate use of that particular evening. Chosen for its proximity to the workplace and decent pricing, we arrived at Suck it! a few hours before they closed at midnight and immediately went to work critiquing the experience from the moment we walked through the door to the moment we walked back out. 

I like to write about the ambiance of a restaurant like it’s a movie. It’s such an important aspect of the dining experience, much like lighting and editing of a film. If Suck it! were a movie, it would feel like an amateur student film with a high budget;  there was certainly potential for greatness but the layout and the vibe of the space just didn’t feel exciting enough to me, or rather, it felt too right. Nothing fancy, it felt like eating at a Chili’s where instead of a steak, I’m ordering ramen. This is not a good thing. 

The wait time was not long; we were immediately seated and were served promptly. Service in general was commendable, especially considering it was a Friday night. Because I’ve been to the restaurant before, I’ve established my safe choice as the “Surrender Nights Ramen,” your typical shoyu-style ramen including pork tenderloins with the option, although with ramen, it’s a necessity to add a soft-boil egg for an extra dollar. 

For the purposes of this piece, I decided to order the “Omnia Ramen” dish, similar to the “Surrender Nights,” a miso broth blend with pork belly but with the addition of bamboo and rice cakes. I understand that of the menu choices, this is still a pretty safe choice. My dining companion chose the “Drunken Vietnamese,” which includes a shrimp, corn, scallions and several other vegetables fused with a popular Vietnamese dish known as bun bo hue, which includes spicy pork, chicken and shrimp broth. 

Personally, I liked extra textures and flavors introduced with bamboo. It gave me something new that I was looking for, but it wasn’t enough to call the dish as a whole a new experience. The bowl itself had a good balance in terms of presentation. It’s not overly crowded with meat and vegetables, but it also wasn’t bare like the instant ramen we cook at home. 

The meat was another mediocre feature of both dishes. It didn’t add much flavor to the rest of the work. However, the meaty texture worked well with the softer ingredients. The rest of the dish was typical; braised bamboo served as a nice palate cleanser while much of the flavor was coming from the broth, which itself really didn’t need to have a palate cleanser mixed in. Everything was well cooked, and overall, as I said, wasn’t terrible or lacking, but wasn’t as new or adventurous as I’d have liked. 

For a low price range of $10-$12 per bowl, with a dinner for two totaling around $30 including taxes and a good tip for good service, the experience was slightly above mediocre, but by no means bad. I’d recommend it to friends for a cheap casual night out, but not for a new experience in terms of ramen. If you haven’t been, I certainly suggest going before the nights become warmer, and to come back for the bubble tea once summer is in full effect. 

7220 Louis Pasteur Drive #185, San Antonio

210-560-2113

 11 a.m.- midnight Monday-Thursday

 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Friday-Saturday

 Closed Sunday

3.5/5 stars.

About the Author

Liandre De la Uso
Leo is a junior business administration major with a minor in communications. While writing for several student-led publications, he has won awards from the Texas Community College Journalism Association, Texas Intercollegiate Press Association and Columbia Press Association. Now writing at the Mesquite, Leo is interested in covering national and state issues and their effects on the Southside community of San Antonio. He plans to write for a large metropolitan paper after graduating.

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