When you ask anyone who’s been to Tokyo
recently, the name “Ichiran” invariably comes up. According to many travel
sites, Ichiran’s reputation is among some of the best in Tokyo and sets the
standard by which other ramen places are compared to.
So, the question is, does Ichiran really
lived up to its hype as the nicest ramen in Tokyo? We just had to find out.
After check-in at our hotel on the first
day, we headed to the Ichiran branch at Shibuya. Fortunately, it was 3pm and
there wasn’t much crowd and we were seated down immediately after placing our
orders via the vending machine. The process is simple: You toss money
into the machine, choose your desired toppings and pass the dispensed token to the staff.
Ichiran sets up individual-seating style
with dividers on both sides of your table. This would mean complete privacy
with your ramen. Well, you can literary slurp up your noodles however messly you
want and nobody will judge. Pretty interesting concept I would say. But this
would also mean no pinching of your friends’ leftovers.
A form will also be passed to you to choose
the richness of your broth, texture of your noodles, and thickness of the
spring onions. I decided on --medium richness, firm noodles and moderate chilli
powder, topped with an egg( extra-charges may apply).
I like the broth, but it wasn’t the rich
broth that I had expected. However, it was good enough to slurp down spoonfuls
of it on its own without feeling that it was too greasy. That said, it still lack
the ommmphh factor for me. The 2 pork cha-su slices were too thinly sliced and
I would prefer it to be of a thicker cut. Also, the egg which I added 100yen
(S$1) was just a plain hardboiled egg and not in the hanjuku style.
Overall, we were not very impressed with the
ramen. However, I feel that it could be a matter of inconsistency between
the different branches. Would I think that this is the best ramen in Tokyo? Probably
not. But it’s still worth a try.
Words by Ms XS
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