Ichiran Ramen is a popular ramen franchise in Japan. It has also opened many franchise stores in other countries as well. It is known for serving amazing ramen with a single soup base and you can adjust ramen's flavor however you like.
Since it is so popular, we decided to give it a visit while we were in Japan. The Ichiran restaurant that we visited is at Asakusa. We got to the door of the restaurant around 10AM in the morning and it appeared that the restaurant is located in the basement. We were not sure whether the restaurant is open or not. We walked down stairs and pressed the button to open the automatic door and found that there were already many people in there. We were greet with a sweet smile from the server and she told us to buy food ticket from the vending machine.
The vending machine has all the menu items that Ichiran offers. All customers need to purchase the food ticket from the vending machine first and then give the food ticket to the server after filling out the form that indicates what kind of flavor that you want. We got our food ticket, and filled out the form to specify spiciness, saltiness, and noodle thickness.
The ramen was served quite quickly. We were guessing that they always had the noodle and soup ready, and just had to put them together in the bowl. The soup seems to be a pork bone flavored soup. The thickness of the noodle is about right. Not too thin and not too thick. On top of the noodle, green onions are spread on top of it, which is nice. The pork meat is good. It did not have too much fat on it. One thing that was interesting is the egg. When the egg is given to us, it was still in the shell. We needed to peel off the shell ourselves and then put it in the ramen soup.
We finished the ramen rather quickly and really enjoyed it. Before we leave, the server asked us whether we are interested to purchase the ramen and cook it ourselves at home. Apparently the restaurant also sell its ramen in the restaurant. So we could try to make Ichiran ramen in US if we purchase the ramen set.
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