Tanpopo Ramen and Sake Bar

I found Tanpopo Ramen and Sake Bar while searching Yelp for places to eat the last time I was in Albany. I live in Vermont and drive over to Albany for a “mini vacation” on my days off from running my own restaurant. So it took me a few weeks to make it to and I drove directly from Vermont to Tanpopo on a Monday night after I was done working. I knew when I drove up that I was going to LOVE IT inside this restaurant. Tanpopo is located in Albany’s Warehouse District, which is quite full of restaurants (strong representation from the “pub” sector). The Warehouse District is fabulous. I LOVE authentic, old urban. Not fancy, not pretentious. Life and history happened here and people are still here. That is precisely what we want in our cities. Wide street with plenty of easy, on street, free parking. I arrived at 6:30pm. Tanpopo is located inside a diner car that is on the National Registry of Historic places. Think 1920s diner, NOT 1950s diner…). The building is wood not the shiny metal

This rates up there with the Ramen shops we used to eat at when we lived in Japan. The broth is bananas! Noodles were perfect! Chashu was great!

Amazing ramen at reasonable prices. The restaurant has a rusty feeling. We got Tanpopo ramen and vegetarian ramen. Both tasted good. We also got the spicy pork buns and shumai dumplings. The spicy pork buns were delicious. Definitely recommend ordering them. The ramen was good and the portion size was huge. Highly recommend the tanpopo spicy over the vegetarian one. Vegetarian ramen was bland is not usually something I prefer. We were there on a weekend and didn't have to wait to get a table. Service was quick. I definitely recommend this place for the ramen and spicy pork buns. Features: No safety practices.