Day in the Life of a Hungry Food Explorer: Best Classic Tonkotsu Ramen I've ever had so far!

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Best Classic Tonkotsu Ramen I've ever had so far!

I had another local friend take me to one of his favorite places to eat his Ramen and I have got to say it exceeded my expectations. This place in English is called Ichiran. Coming back to my previous post about how Japanese enjoy being alone or perhaps raised in a culture like this and keeping to themselves with little interaction around the world, notice the arrangement of this place! You also have to order using a Vending Machine here too! There's no concept of group eating at all. It basically feels like a bunch of individual photo booths and you can't even see the chefs making your meal! It's absolutely dead quiet in here aside from people slurping on their noodles which is customary as a sign to the chefs that you enjoy the food (quite the opposite in the Chinese behaviors when it comes to consuming noodles). You just are given a piece of paper and pencil in each booth and you just simply slide the paper in front and all you will see is a hand to take your order. Luckily enough we had our local friend ask for English translated papers so we could customize our Ramen without any struggling. You can customize your Ramen any way you want, these were some options:

Flavor Strength - was recommended Medium as a first timer
Richness - was recommended medium as well for first timer
Garlic - how much do you love Garlic?
Green Onion - how much you love Green Onion?
Sliced Pork
Secret Sauce - was recommended regular as a first timer
Noodle texture - up to you!

Once you have placed your order and your food comes, they close the drapes all the way down to leave you in peace to eat your food. Even getting your tea is self serve. It's really quite the experience, I've never been to a place that runs like this before.

I don't usually drink the broth but it was so good that I drank the whole soup! My friend told me to either finish it because they is some writing at the bottom of the bowl for the ones that finish the broth! Unfortunately I forgot what it said but I'm sure it was something cool like how fortune cookies work! I really want to believe that their broth was MSG (mono sodium glutamate) free because I did not feel sleepy or too thirsty after my meal which are usually obvious indicators on whether and how much MSG was in my food.The noodles were cooked to perfection as well and they were home-made! It was super bouncy which is usually a term to describe how good the quality of the noodle is aside from cooking it. If someone says that the noodles were super bouncy, it's high appraisal! The sliced pork was marinated and cooked really well. They focused on the natural sweetness of the meat. I also ordered a whole egg (100 YEN or $1 USD dollars extra) which was cooked perfectly! The yolk was bright orange and had amazing flavor and texture. Tasted much better than what I have had in the USA. Some other worthy notes about this place is that there's ZERO trans fat in their food and contain Natural Collagen in their broths which is a type of protein fibrous in nature that is good for skin strength and elasticity (or health and beauty)!

This place reminds of how KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is very hush hush about their secret ingredients that Colonel Sanders came up with. Ichiran's original red sauce has 30 types of spices that were aged and cooked slowly for nights and days. The secret recipe is only known by 3 of their experts.

Definitely for all the Ramen lovers, this is a MUST try! You will not be disappointed!

Name: Ichiran (一蘭)
Website: http://www.ichiran.co.jp/english/html/map.html
Phone: 03-3796-7281 (Roppongi location)
Address: Roppongi GM Building 2F, 4-11-11 Roppongi Minato-ku Tokyo-to 106-0032
Google Maps: Click Here!