Over the weekend we celebrated TS’ birthday and we decided to brave the queue at Ippudo Ramen at dinnertime on a Saturday. We arrived at about 6pm and queued for something around half an hour for a party of 5.
This is the akamaru tamago ($17). The soup base is made with blended miso paste. As with all ramen establishments that serve egg, I requested the girls to break open the eggs so that I can (hopefully) capture a shot of the gooey yolk.
There you have it – fans of salmonella rejoice at the sight of uncooked egg yolks. I never understood the lure of egg yolks and how people can tahan the fishy iron-y taste.
This is the shiromaru tamago ($17). This is the pork soup base.
I had the shiromaru chashu ($18) which has more portions of pork belly chashu, which are purported to melt in your mouth.
Look at the fat pork belly, which I assume to be the highlight of every ramen place. The chashu at Ippudo is indeed very decadent and lovely, but the soup broth is just not to my taste. I felt that it’s not deep enough. There wasn’t a “wow” when I tasted the broth, instead I kept tasting dried shitake mushrooms in it, which I hate. I am not sure if they added that to the soup, but it felt like it. I don’t claim to have superb taste bud, so I may be wrong. In any case, I was fairly disappointed with my meal at Ippudo. I suppose the queuing had a part to play; by having to queue for food my expectations went up and hence harder to meet. The funny thing is, even though I was hungry, I didn’t find the ramen particularly tasty. Which is anomaly because isn’t food suppose to taste best when you are hungry? Interesting.
Hence my verdict is – this place is not worth the queue. Even on a queue-less day, I won’t want to eat there.
Ippudo Ramen
333A Orchard Road
Mandarin Gallery #04-02/03/04
Tel: 62352797
