New Ramen Spot In Waipahu, Hawaii

New Ramen Spot In Waipahu, Hawaii

[Music] Hey guys, hope you’re having a great Aloha Friday. 
Today is another viewer request by Jason. I saw his comment a week ago or so, recommending 
Aji Ramen. This used to be a different named ramen shop. It’s in the shopping center with Seafood 
City right to the left if you’re looking at it. And it’s about two businesses down. They 
specialize in ramen, udon, dry noodle dishes, and they have some boba teas, some appetizers as 
well. And they also surprisingly have combo sets, which I think is a bang for your buck. With 
the ramen set, you can pick your ramen. They also have a rice dish. And on the side, you 
can pick different things such as fried rice, chicken katsu, curry rice, or beef curry rice 
among other things. There’s other choices as well. And you also get a set of gyoza. So, thank you 
Jason for your recommendation and we are here to try it. Alright, so I’m here with my son and
he ordered the Combo A, which is a mini ramen and you get to pick a side. His side was the chicken 
katsu curry rice and he is gracious enough to let me take a bite. That’s the taxes you pay to come 
eat with me as a child. Just joking. But anyway, the chicken katsu curry looks pretty big 
for a little side meal with your ramen and you get gyoza. Remember that. So, it looks 
very crispy and delicious. You get some rice on the bottom with a lot of curry sauce. It’s a 
fairly big amount of chicken. So, let’s try it. It’s very hot temperature- wise, 
which is great. Everything’s steaming, so it’s made to order. Nice and 
hot and fresh. Very crispy chicken, not dried out on the inside. Love the curry 
sauce, but you know, it’s a typical Japanese curry. But the chicken katsu is done very 
well. Everything comes out really fast. So, my son also got his ramen. And, I’m not 
a ramen person. I personally…I mean it’s not bad, but my favorite is saimin. I love saimin
more. But you never know. Maybe the noodles are cooked to my liking and I like the broth. 
Every place is different. So let’s try it out. You know what? Proved me wrong. That’s not bad. 
But the noodles taste more like a saimin Sun noodle. Maybe that’s why I like it better. 
I like the chew to it. The way they cooked it, it’s not too soggy or too firm. The 
soup, I didn’t take a sip of the broth, but the soup coats the noodles and it’s very 
flavorful, quite different, and reminds me of the only ramen I really enjoyed was in Kyoto when 
we went there. I did do a film series in Japan, and that was really good. And it reminds me of 
that. I will take a sip of the soup of the ramen. Yeah, it’s pretty good. I would order that 
even though I usually don’t like all the other ramen places I’ve tried here on the island of 
Oahu, but that is pretty good. It suits my taste and probably would suit local tastes as 
well. If you like saimin, that kind of leans more towards that. The broth is really rich and deep 
and flavorful. And with the tonkotsu ramen you get that big piece of meat – the pork. And 
again, the broth is very, very rich in that pork broth. And you get a piece of fishcake and green 
onions. Pretty simple, but that is the mini ramen. For a mini not too bad. You 
get that and the chicken katsu, and the gyoza also came out. This is the gyoza. Nice and crispy. 
Jason said he didn’t really care for it, but let’s try it out and see what’s different about it. So, 
here is the gyoza. Going to dip it in the sauce. You know what? I rather like it. It’s got 
some cabbage in it, but I don’t know. It kind of reminds me of a mandoo because of the cabbage. 
It reminds me of like the kimchi you would put in a mandoo. I think it’s rather flavorful. 
I like the meat in there. I don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s crispy on the outside in 
some parts as usual in a gyoza. It has that soft dumpling wrapper feel to it. The texture I rather 
like it and I like the sauce. Thank you. Alright. I got the tonkotsu udon instead because I like 
udon noodles. It comes with lots of toppings. We’ve got an egg split in half. It’s soft boiled. Bamboo
shoots, black fungus, a piece of fish cake, green onion, and the slice of pork. 
Here are the noodles. Of course, I like udon noodles. I like the texture of 
it. This one has a different flavor to my son’s ramen tonokotsu. I think it’s the bamboo shoots 
that give it an earthy flavor. But I like it. It’s very tasty. Also has a rich broth. 
But if you don’t like the bamboo shoot aroma, it goes into your nostrils as you’re eating it 
and tasting it. You may not like that earthy taste. But I like bamboo shoots. They’re very good. I think 
the bowl is pretty big, too. So this is regular. And this is pretty huge. It’s a little bit bigger 
than the mini ramen, but for a mini, that’s still a pretty big bowl. So, let’s try a piece of the pork. 
It’s got a nice ratio of fat and lean meat to it. The pork has a really good seasoning flavor to it. 
It’s not too salty, but sometimes I go to places and it’s very bland. That one is seasoned well and 
it has a lot of seasoning on it. It’s good. Okay, The lady was super nice. I just dropped in with 
no warning. I came right at opening. They open at 10:30. And I guess she sees my little camera. So, 
I don’t ask for anything really, but she came out and says she’d give me this garlic chicken 
to try. So, the service is really nice. She didn’t really say anything about filming, so 
I guess she noticed. So, we’ll try it. Oops, I dropped it. This is a crispy garlic chicken. 
Looks really good. It has sesame seeds on it. Holy moly. That actually is the star of everything. 
Even though this is not ramen. If you like garlic chicken from Mitsuken, this kind of reminds me 
of the original Mitsuken on School Street. I don’t really care for the new Mitsuken. I find it’s 
different. This one is delicious. It’s sweet. That garlic shoyu sauce… Even though you don’t 
really see too much sauce on it, but it’s very flavorful. It’s sweet, a strong flavor, but in 
a pleasant way. I think if you eat this, you wouldn’t have like breath or anything comparing 
it to Sugoi’s, which is super strong on the garlic. This is phenomenal. I like this. I’m glad
she gave it to us to try. I would eat this up in a plate lunch with rice. Super good. Okay, last 
thing (I’m jumping around all over the place) to try in my udon is the soft boiled egg. It’s 
good. It’s an egg, but you do taste a little bit of soy flavor in it. And you can tell it was kind 
of boiled in it because it’s kind of darker. The egg whites got little bit of shoyu on it – soy 
sauce. Pretty filling. Got all kinds of things and goodies in there. Tasting the broth, it’s not bad at all. I actually like it. But if I were to 
compare this to tasting the original ramen broth, I rather like the ramen broth better. It suits 
my taste better if you’re comparing the two. If I were to get something again and come back 
here, I’d go with the ramen just because the flavor in the broth is so jam-packed with flavor. 
It’s how I would like it. The noodles are the way I would want it cooked in terms of chewiness and 
texture and you know, it’s a little bit more plain. You only get a slice of the meat and 
fishcake. You don’t get the egg or anything like that in the mini ramen, but simplicity 
is great. It’s really good. Alright, and lastly, they have boba drinks. I got a mango 
smoothie with boba. Aiden got the lychee with boba, but I don’t want boba in mine. So, let’s try 
that. That’s really good. It’s an artificial mango flavor, but it’s really nice and sweet 
and refreshing. So, that is Aji Ramen recommended by Jason. Thank you for recommending 
this restaurant to me. It’s fairly new. It took over the other ramen shop supposedly 
after it…I guess went out of business, they took over. I think the food was absolutely 
great. I’d definitely come back here again if I’m craving for ramen and seems like it started to get crazy. We came 
here right at opening at 10:30 and now there’s two other parties sitting down. So if you are craving ramen
on the western side of the island, you don’t have to drive to far. It’s in Waipahu. For those that live 
on the west side – Kapolei, Waipahu and those that live on the westside Nakakuli / Waianae side. It is closer than going to town for some good ramen. So thanks for joining me. 
Have a Happy Aloha Friday and press the like button if you like it. Subscribe if you’re new, and I’ll 
see you next week on my other food adventure. 🤙🌈✌️🌴

Today’s video was a viewer request at Aji Ramen in Waipahu. Located next to Seafood City, Aji Ramen is fairly new and took over the old ramen spot. They serve delicious ramen, udon, combo ramen that includes your choice of chicken katsu curry, beef curry, fried rice and more!

Aji Ramen
94-050 Farrington Highway
Waipahu, HI 96797
(808) 677-8887
https://ajiramenhi.square.site/
Open Tuesday – Sunday 10:30 am – 9:00 pm
Closed Mondays

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