Lan Ramen & Aqua Tea

Edit: New chef, new recipes (more salt and oil), not as authentic. Higher prices. Still pretty good, but not as uniquely excellent as before. THEY’RE BACK. New place looks great. Just to clarify, they do not serve Japanese ramen (for now). They serve Chinese hand-pulled noodles (拉面 "lamian" which can only really be transliterated to "ramen") in bone broth soup and stir fries, plus great Chinese appetizers. All are super authentic. Get extra noodles with your soup! Bubble tea is really good too, fresh and not powdery, probably the best in town. We went probably 10+ times last year before they closed to relocate, and we will probably go 10+ more times this year…

Really bad. First time ever walking out of a restaurant still hungry. I ordered the roujiamo, scallion pancake, and beef noodles — honestly, all of them were terrible. The bread for the roujiamo didn’t even taste like the real thing, more like a plain steamed bun. The scallion pancake was just dense dough with zero scallion flavor. The noodle soup had a weird taste, and there was nothing "hand-pulled" about those noodles like they advertised. The cabbage they put in wasn’t pickled at all, and it didn’t even feel fresh. Definitely not the same quality as when they first opened next to "Da Vinci." Super disappointing

Nestled in a cozy pocket of downtown Bloomington. Close enough to the college vibe that can be hectic on game day. The atmosphere is socially intimate and warm. The ramen was perfectly seasoned, the broccoli was the perfect combination of not raw but not too mushy. If you are visiting you kids in college but want to see what the college vibe is downtown and avoid all the madness. This is the spot!

After moving locations it seems the cook changed. The food tastes so good and is really authentic. Drinks are amazing as well. Highly recommend!

Just had a great experience at Lan Ramen's new location. Stopped by for a lunch-to-go. Was in and out with my food in less than 10 minutes. The to-go ordering was very streamlined and the employee was extremely helpful and friendly. I couldn't stay for dine-in, but the atmosphere seemed very pleasant. Food was amazing as usual, and I just want to praise the way they packed the food to ensure no spillage! Selfishly glad they moved closer to my office!

Got a chance to experience this place after knowing about it for over a year. Ordered an appetizer and beef noodle with the addition of mutton. The appetizer meets my expectations but it was tooooooooo little for its price. Plus the meat coming with the noodles is minimal. I don’t eat cilantro (Or parsley) so I asked the waitress to take it off but keep the green onion as the garnish. She said we always put the cilantro and green onion together and cannot just give you either one of the two. I was not happy with this no-option option. They cannot even customize to meet individual customer’s needs. It’s a downside. The store looks organized, clean, cozy and minimalist. The dish is salty indeed and I needed to drink a lot of water at night. May come back again but won’t do it too frequently.

That was unfortunately disappointing. Up first, have say that the service is impeccable and the staff was very friendly and attentive. Kudos for them. And Thank You for the small birthday suprise to our party member. It was a pleasent suprise. The Ramen/Soups were disappointing as the flavor profile is very bland. While Boba (I had a Orange Smoothie, our party had Strawberry Smoothie with Cheese and Watermelon Smoothie with Cheese and Matcha with Cheese) was great and the Pork and Lamb bun Appetizers are great, Ramen was very bad. We had House Special, Pork Belly, Beef and Brisket Beef Ramens and all had the same broth which was very bland. While the meats were well cooked, they doesn't taste much. It was more of a Noddle soup than a Ramen and not recommended. Three stats are for the Boba and Appetizers. Took away the two stars for the Ramen.