Ichiran - Heaven in a bowl

Some 2 months after Ichiran first opened in Hong Kong in July 2013, I was excited to have the opportunity to try it for myself.

 

Knowing that the restaurant is open 24 hours and anticipating long crazy queues, my friend and I chose to avoid typical meal hours and reached there past 9pm. There was a long line of people nonetheless and we were given queue tickets.

The wait turned out to be about 50 minutes - which was actually shorter than I expected, so it was a relief. Upon entering the restaurant, we saw the signboard indicating where empty seats were. However, unlike in Japan where one has to rely on the signboard to find one's own seat, the restaurant servers here allocated us our seats. The signboard turned out to be quite redundant.

What was similar to Ichiran in Japan though, was that we were allowed to customise our ramen using an order chit. We could choose how strongly flavoured and how oily we wanted the soup base to be, how hard or soft we wanted the noodles to be, whether or not we wanted the garlic, green/white onion, char siu, spicy red sauce, and so on.

At Ichiran, each diner sits in a booth of sorts, so that he can enjoy his bowl of ramen without distractions. So it's not the place to catch up with friends over a meal if that's what you were thinking.

Empty booths or booths where the diners have not been served will have the blinds drawn up. Once the ramen has been delivered to a booth, servers will roll the blind down. It is then just you and your ramen and nothing else.

So here's my heaven in a bowl. The first time round, I ordered the normal soup base, which I found to be slightly too bland (compared to what I tasted in Tokyo).

So my second time there during the same trip to Hong Kong, I opted for "strong" for soup base. Much more flavourful and similar to how I remember my Tokyo Ichiran ramen to be. And just look at those beautiful wobbly yolks! So yummy I had to order 2 eggs.

If you manage to finish your soup, you will see a thank you message at the bottom of your bowl.

And if you haven't got enough of Ichiran, their instant ramen is available for sale too. There are 3 kinds - soup, dry and cold. I bought the soup version to try. At HK$230 per box, this was expensive instant noodles!

Each box contains 6 packets of noodles and 3 packets of soup base. This means 3 portions, as the extra noodles are for kae-dama. In Japan, many ramen joints offer kae-dama, which means extra noodles (chargeable). You cannot refill your soup though, so if you intend to order kae-dama, you need to ration your soup. Kae-dama is available in Ichiran.

I have since tried a portion of the instant ramen, and unfortunately, they taste nothing like the ramen offered in Ichiran restaurants. Well, naturally, otherwise what will keep you going back there?

I actually returned to Ichiran Hong Kong in April 2014, 7 months after my first dining experience there. I'd gone there at about 12pm, close to lunch hour, and the queuing time was only about 15 minutes. Looks like the crazy queues have died down, and it's easier now to enjoy a bowl of heavenly goodness.

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Ichiran (天然豚骨拉麵專門店一蘭)
http://www.openrice.com/english/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=140523
Add: Shop H ＆ I, Ground Floor, Lockhart House, Block A, 440 Jaffe Road, Causeway Bay
銅鑼灣謝斐道440號駱克大廈A座地下H及I舖
Tel: 2152 4040
Open: Mon-Sun, 24 hours