ICHIRAN — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

(From my Yelp review, abandoned for Google Guides)

Sometimes, you just want to go to a nice, clean restaurant. Sit at your personal booth, order your food and eat in peace without interruptions.

This is the perfect place for that!

Four stars! One for each of the things that do it for me, Service, ambience, food and "Will I come back?" Zero stars for the price. Expensive for a small selection and noodles.

You get your own little booth, and your interactions with the service staff is MINIMAL. Though the times when you HAVE to, the service in this place is efficient and very polite.

There is a tap right in your booth for your drinking water needs. A little label above the tap says "Try the delicious water". It is delicious.

You order by circling what you want on a slip of paper. When you are ready to order, press a bell in your booth and a hand will magically appear to whisk the slip of paper away and prepare your order.

It took barely 5 minutes for my noodles to appear. And it took barely 5 minutes to finish my ramen.

Burp.

Now, the ramen!

The pork broth is thick and tasty. For some, the broth might feel a bit oily. However, for me, I found it just fine.

The broth was on the slightly salty side and the drinking water tap in the booth served its purpose well.

I like my noodles not too mushy, so I circled "firm" on my order slip. The noodles I received was perfect, not soft nor hard. Chewy with just the right texture.

I also ordered an egg to go with my noodles. Came in a separate bowl and was chilled. When I bit into it, the yolk was still runny. Yum.

Cost:

Basic ramen in pork broth - HK$89 Extra half portion of ramen - HK$16 Egg HK$14 Mushroom topping HK$22 Seaweed HK$12

I grabbed some instant ramen packets to bring home too.

Pork broth and ramen (3 servings) HK$240 Soy and citrus sauce and ramen (5 servings) HK160 Pork broth and ramen (5 servings) HK$160

Overall, a very pleasant experience. I have come back a few more times after this.

It is pricey for ramen, but for the anti-social diner, this is a small...

TL;DR: It's fine. Just fine. Would I go again? Maybe if I'm in the area and everywhere else is packed. But like, don't cancel your plans just to eat here. 3/5 stars - it's giving "when your mom says we have ramen at home" vibes, but make it fancy.

Another day, another Ichiran. Like literally everyone and their mom has been hyping up this spot in Causeway Bay, so I finally caved and checked it out. You know the drill - got my little introvert booth (honestly the best part), filled out that weirdly satisfying order sheet, and settled in for some solo ramen action. The whole antisocial dining vibe is pretty on brand for my personality, ngl. The ramen itself was... fine? Like, not bad, but also not writing home about it. Got the classic tonkotsu with all the extras because YOLO - soft boiled egg (decent), extra chashu (kinda meh, bit dry), mushrooms (solid choice), and seaweed (can't go wrong). The broth was rich but honestly a bit one-note. Added some garlic and spice to jazz it up. Grabbed a beer because why not make questionable financial decisions. Was it worth the hype and the wait? Probably not. Was it terrible? Also no. It's basically the vanilla ice cream of ramen - reliable but not mind-blowing. Those isolation booths are perfect for avoiding human interaction. Customization game is strong. Beer was cold (the bare minimum, but still). Queue was longer than my attention span. Price tag is a bit extra for what you get.Chashu was giving...

Eating Ichiran at 6:30pm on weekday night, we can enter directly without long queues. There’s only one type of ramen: Natural Tonkotsu Ramen 🍜 ($98)

The char siu (roast pork) is thin and tender, without many other toppings. The portion of noodles is also quite small. Only that the soup is very delicious. 😋

🐻 also ordered one Semi-Soft Salted Egg 🥚 ($18). The egg has the salty taste and a runny yolk, but is rather expensive. 🤔

In fact, Ichiran's greatest advantage lies in the small details within the restaurant (such as the specially designed spoon that can rest securely on the ramen bowl) and the "private booth" experience. You can order and pay using a QR code, and the food is served without having to have eye contact with the staffs. It's actually quite comfortable to dine without having to say anything. 🤣

However... even with this "private" experience, there is still a service charge added to the bill. What do you think of this service charge? 🤔

🐻‍❄️: Actually, there are still staff members providing service behind the scenes (such as guiding to the seats), but when most of it is self-service (🐻: even the egg comes with the shell... 🥹), should they bill this "service charge"? It's worth discussing.

To conclude, both 🐻 and 🐻‍❄️ feel that there are better ramen options available for the same price.

—————————— 🐻🐻‍❄️ have an Cantonese Instagram @bear.couple.food. 歡迎香港人睇吓🐻🐻‍❄️情侶點評價呢啲餐廳（廣東話架😝），食評Instagram...