Previously:
Ichiran ramen is a very popular ramen restaurant that full of innovations and they have successfully nailed their ideas too. Not only serving delicious thick tonkatsu broth ramen, they are also known for their originality to come up with such smart moves like solo dining booth, the use of a form like exam paper for ordering, Kae-Dama service where you can order the second serve of noodle and also their spicy red sauce is uniquely and originally created here. This chain ramen restaurant was born in Fukuoka in 1960. They have grown so much, with nearly 80 branches across Japan and have spread their wings to international markets as well, like New York, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
In this place, there will be limited human interactions. They try to keep it minimum for maintaining customer privacy as most Japanese are introverts where they tend to be a little shy in conversing.
As this was my first time trying Ichiran ramen, so I go with all the recommended options. Just staying on the safe zone. Turned out, the dish was delicious, the broth was rich of pork bone flavour. That spicy red sauce complimented the noodle dish perfectly. They also cooked their noodle as what I liked. To be honest, all ticked, it was a flawless dish. I ordered a classic tonkotsu ramen with half boiled salted egg and one extra sliced pork for 1,380yen or around A$14.
On another night, we had an ochazuke type dinner in at Komeraku restaurant in Hakata Station. It's a rice set meal that comes with ocha or tea broth in Japanese. Japanese commonly divide their rice into four portions, first to have it on its own, second part to have it with pickles and condiments, third part of the rice having it with pouring tea broth in it and finally, you can have the last bit of rice in any way you like out of those three trials earlier. Normally, ochazuke comes with an eel dish which is very popular in Nagoya. But in this restaurant, they also serve ochazuke set in a form of chirashi don or fresh seafood over rice dish.
For me, the best combination would be having that fresh seafood over rice and topped with some wasabi pickles and what is look like to me like tiny garlic balls then for the bonito broth, I like to slurp it on its own. Their bonito broth was really impressed, it has a strong smell of bonito yet not so overpowering, very aromatic and refreshing.
On this deluxe set, the rice comes with some minced tuna, sliced tuna, sliced salmon, ikura, tamagoyaki, onsen tamago and also some chopped cucumber and spring onions.
Sticking with their zero-speaking mode, you can use the wooden tag to request something like ask for kids' bowl or require help in placing order.
Try to avoid lunch and dinner peak hours as the place could get very busy. Although the queue sometimes could look a little daunting, but they move pretty quickly. Because the food served in jiffy and as most people come alone, there is no hanging around or spending time chit chatting. Most of them left soon after had finished their meal.
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| Cold drinking water tap |
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| Deluxe ohitsu rice with 3-type of seafood 1,485yen |
For me, the best combination would be having that fresh seafood over rice and topped with some wasabi pickles and what is look like to me like tiny garlic balls then for the bonito broth, I like to slurp it on its own. Their bonito broth was really impressed, it has a strong smell of bonito yet not so overpowering, very aromatic and refreshing.
Fun fact: my husband noticed that in the whole restaurant, there were only three men there, which was my dad, my son and himself. While the next door, the grill meat restaurant was packed with men. He mentioned that maybe because this meal is so healthy and mostly for women who want to fill full yet delicious but not effecting their waistline.
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| Grilled eel over rice in wooden tub 1,815yen |
One of the branches is Sun Plaza Underground Shopping
Open: 7 days from 10:00 - 22:00
Komeraku Hakata Deitos
Hakata Deito B1F
Open: 7 days from 11:00 - 23:00
Stay tuned for the next blog still in Japan:
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