I’m in love with ramen and it makes me so happy that there are so many new ramen places popping up around Seattle. Noodles are such an awesome food for kids and because the food usually arrives pretty quickly once you get in a ramen restaurant, they are pretty family-friendly places to eat.
Last week we were toodling around Bellevue so we decided to stop in at Kukai Ramen, a place I’ve been hearing about, but even at around 1:30 in the afternoon there was a half an hour wait.
We decided to spend the time at the nearby big box store picking up a few school supplies.
I hadn’t shopped at one for ages and I was curious to see some great deals. And it was fun for a few minutes-until I came around the corner and ran into a wall of pork rinds. Pork rinds for days.
And then I noticed the prominent placement of gun magazines on a low-level shelf in the middle of the store beside the toys. It either wanted to target adults’ knees or really young and impressionable kids and I’m a little sensitive to this lately with two young boys in our house.
And the more I looked around, the more it made me a little annoyed at all the bins of stuff they were pitching to me. Was I really getting good deals or was I being targeted to eat unhealthy foods and buy guns for my kids? Not cool. Not cool at all.
So despite really low prices, I won’t be shopping here again. I take pride in shopping in places that respect my health and respect their communities and I didn’t feel respected as a consumer in this store.
But we will be going to Kukai ramen where despite having to wait for ages (we ended up reading books outside after we left the big store) it was delicious and perfect for the afternoon. My ramen was a yuzu flavor and absolutely yummy and the kids loved the onigiri rice balls and chicken and rice bowl too. The restaurant even gave my guys really cute bowls and plastic cutlery to make eating easier. 
Apparently a Kukai just opened up in Northgate (thank you Tania from the yummy blog Hashtageat for the tip!) so that might be a better place to wait and I got some tips about other good ramen places in the area like Hokkaido Ramen Santouka from Colleen (thank you!) and Jinyaramen from Shirley who writes a blog lovelylanvin that I adore. Hopefully we’ll be trying out these places soon!
