Published by Angie. Last Updated on April 3, 2025.
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Kyuramen is a fast-casual lunch and dinner spot in East Liberty, serving up ramen and other Japanese food like omurice and yakitori. Although the chain has dozens of locations around the US, the location in Pittsburgh was the first in Pennsylvania. With casual vibes, a great price point, and Instagram-worthy dishes and decor, it’s easy to see why this is a popular spot that often has long waits.
So we put our name into the virtual queu, spent some time at Tous Les Jours, a French-Asian bakery chain located around the corner, and waited until our table was ready.
Ramen With a Great Ambiance at Kyuramen
When our table was ready we were seated inside one of their signature honeycomb booths. There are only a handful of these, though, so you have to be pretty lucky to end up in one. We browsed the menu which has some breadth and is more than just ramen. Dishes like takoyaki, okonomiyaki, yakitori and veggie skewers, and gyoza tempted us. For drinks, although they don’t have a liquor license there is a full menu of bubble teas and smoothies.
We decided to order the pan-fried gyoza and pork bao buns to start. Although the sauce on the pork belly bao was quite flavorful, the buns were probably our least favorite item of the night. The size of the pork belly was tiny compared to the monstrous bun size, so most bites were just bread which was on the chewy and dry side. The meat itself was fatty (even for pork belly) and also a bit chewy, resulting in a pretty lackluster appetizer no matter how you look at it.
The gyoza fared better in terms of both texture and flavor. The pan-fried dumplings had a crispy fried top side (coming out as practically a single piece that can be broken apart), a moist chicken filling, and a good soy-vinegar dipping sauce.
The ramen options are pretty broad here, with shoyu, miso, or curry-flavored broths and different meat and vegetable toppings. We love a good pork broth so we opted for two bowls that featured this one, the spicy tonkotsu ramen and the tonkatsu curry ramen.
The spicy tonkotsu included a chashu pork slice, a marinated egg, corn, bamboo shoots, wakame, scallion, and nori. You can also choose your spice level for this one, and we opted for middle of the road which was just spicy enough for us. There are also delicious spicy chili condiments on the table to amp it up even more, if you like, which were perhaps our favorite part of the meal outright.
The broth was pretty rich and flavorful, the noodles nicely cooked, and the marinated egg was delicious, but the meat was fatty and a little hard to eat.
The tonkatsu curry ramen started with a mustardy pork-based broth and was topped with a substantially sized deep-fried pork cutlet, bamboo shoots, corn, wakame, marinated egg, scallion, nori, and togarashi. The meat in this one was again a bit chewy and difficult to eat, but otherwise we liked the flavor of the broth in this one, especially when kicked up with some spicy chili at the table.
The service was fast here, and the portions were decently sized; we finished our ramen and were content but not stuffed. We didn’t get to try any of the bubble teas or the famous omurice- those will have to wait until next time.
We love ramen and are always happy to see more options to get our fix in the city. With a casual vibe, approachable price point, and just an overall fun dining experience, Kyuramen is a good option to satisfy your ramen cravings in the East End, even if we’ve perhaps had better ramen elsewhere.
Kyuramen is located at 6204 Penn Avenue in East Liberty. If you visit when they have a long wait, consider grabbinga drink at the excellent Lorelei nearby!
