Yamato Ramen House also offers popular poke bowls | Grub Scout

The Grub Spouse and I went camping on Fort Loudoun Lake last week, and while we were in that neck of the woods, we tried to work in a visit to a Loudon County eatery that had been on my list for a while. We arrived to discover it was closed because the owner was on vacation. Our backup plan: Drive to Turkey Creek the following night to try out Yamato Ramen House. This resulted in my reviewing two Asian-food restaurants in a row, which I don’t prefer, but sometimes, you just have to roll with the changes.

Yamato emphasizes three types of Asian cuisine: ramen, poke bowls and hibachi dinners. We started, however, with the gyoza ($5.25), six fried Japanese pork dumplings. Other appetizers include pork bun, Japanese spring roll, fried calamari and cheese wonton. They also have a couple of soups available as an early course or a side dish.

If you’re interested in a poke bowl, you get to choose your base item, style of rice, toppings, sauces and anywhere from one to three proteins per bowl. I would have liked for one of us to try the poke, but The Spouse isn’t as big a fan of poke or ramen as I am, so The Spouse went with one of the hibachi dinners, which are served with soup, salad, fried rice and stir-fried vegetables. Protein options include chicken, salmon, shrimp and scallop, but The Spouse went with steak ($17.95). You can also order one of four combo plates, which offer different meat pairings (chicken and shrimp, for example).

Naturally, I had to do the ramen. Varieties include miso and spicy miso, vegan soy-based ramen and seafood ramen. I got the spicy tonkotsu ($13.49), the base broth of which is prepared with egg, corn, bok choy, fish cake, ramen (or udon) noodles and a choice of protein. I went with crab over shrimp or chicken, to name just a couple of the other possibilities.

For the record, Yamato has a limited number of side items available - primarily extra portions of different meats, vegetables, rices and noodles. They also have a brief kids’ menu, and they serve several flavors of bubble tea as well as a selection of both domestic and imported beers.

We were seated in a comfortable booth and found on our table sheets of paper listing all the menu items. We marked our orders and turned them in to our server. The gyoza dumplings arrived first, as expected. Based on their texture, they appeared to have been pan-fried only instead of also being steamed. As such, they were a little crispier than I thought they would be, but the shells and pork filling were still very enjoyable, both on their own and with the sauce, which seemed to be a teriyaki-ginger blend of some kind.

The Spouse’s soup and salad also came out early. The soup was a basic miso broth, while the iceberg greens topped in ginger dressing likewise delivered no surprises. The steak teriyaki dinner was fair. I liked all the individual components, especially the smoky grilled cubes of steak, but nothing about this dish elevated it beyond what one might order in any number of local Asian-food eateries. I should also note that while I usually really like most yum-yum sauces, I flat-out didn’t care for the “Yummy Yummy” sauce I found in the squirt bottle on our table. It was basically a variation on honey mustard as opposed to a mayo-based condiment.

My opinion of the ramen bowl was similar. With its diverse ingredients, the bowl made a distinctive visual first impression. And it was pretty tasty, too; the bok choy, the four crabmeat strips and the tonkotsu broth were notable. It was certainly a substantial portion — such that I wound up taking half the bowl’s contents home — but again, this presentation didn’t do much to distinguish itself from the pack.

On our server’s recommendation, we tried a new dessert item at Yamato — doughnuts. They were described up front as deep-fried balls of biscuit dough sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. I’m not a huge cinnamon fan, but the dusting was light enough to make these four warm, doughy spheres a delightfully sweet closer.

I don’t think any of you who appreciate a decent bowl of ramen would necessarily be disappointed by Yamato Ramen House. The items we sampled were respectable enough in their execution, and there’s certainly not as much competition out west in the ramen milieu as there is downtown. So next time you get a hankering for some Asian noodles, you could give Yamato a try. And perhaps one of these days, I’ll try their poke and walk away with a more favorable opinion.

Yamato Ramen House

Food: 3.75

Service: 3.75

Atmosphere: 3.5

Overall: 3.75

Address: 11527 Parkside Drive

Phone: 865-288-3181

Beer service only

Kids’ menu

Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday

This Turkey Creek ramen house serves several variations on noodle bowls, poke bowls and traditional teriyaki-style dinners.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knoxville restaurant review: Yamato Ramen House in Turkey Creek