Ichiten-Ichimen — Restaurant in Kobe

This restaurant has a fast food style ordering process. You are supposed to buy a meal ticket with coins from the vending machine outside and then take a seat inside.

There were good reviews from a certain YouTuber so we thought it was a must-try when we came to San Plaza.

The service level was just lacking. While we went inside the restaurant and were shown to our seats, one of the crew abruptly took away our meal ticket without uttering a word. He then took out a piece of paper from our table, put it in front of us and walked away with just a grunt. We then used our mobile camera to Google translate it and then understood it was a preference sheet for the amount of chili oil and type of noodle. There was no explanation, and somehow his actions made us feel unwelcome.

We ordered a Dumpling + Beef noodle, a Chicken Biang Biang Rice for 350 yen, and a cold side dish of 3 Shred Mix. I'm in no way trying to be cheap as I have gluten intolerance and that was the only rice item on the menu. I then heard the crew holler in Mandarin to the chef "But they only ordered one noodle." If you have a problem with my order, just come and talk it out with me like a real Chinese, there's no need to give this sort of passive aggressive service attitude.

The food arrived and the noodles and rice were seasoned in a balanced manner. The ramen soup has a herbal punch and tastes more like Vietnamese pho with the coriander. It was quite warming and comforting and the Sichuan pepper gives a good numbing kick without being overpowering. The Chicken Rice was drenched in a sesame soy sauce dressing and was both sweet and savory in a good way. We ordered another cold dish of cucumbers to up our vegetable intake. The cucumber dish was a little too sweet and miso-like to have any authentic Northeastern Chinese flavour. I would've much preferred the vinegar-soy-laoganma chili style found in my home country, Singapore.

Throughout our meal, we heard one of the crew checking with a Caucasian customer if it was too spicy. The customer said that it wasn't. The crew then spoke amongst themselves that they always find it amusing when Caucasians can handle spice. They thanked the Caucasian customer loudly and seemed really proud of their food.

After our meal, we walked out of the shop and nobody thanked us for our patronage. We tried to speak to the crew in Mandarin while receiving our food so they would have known that we were some sort of overseas Chinese (though not from China). Perhaps this is the sort of treatment they give to members of their own race, while pandering to and licking the boots of other races.

Pls avoid them if you are Chinese. If you are Chinese, you would know that there are cheaper and more authentic Chinese cuisine found in China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan (the list goes on)....except...

Not just cooked to order, but handmade to order (from a choice of 7 thicknesses & shapes) Lanzhou Noodles ("real" Ramen if you will - though these were definitely not Japanese 'Ramen' - noodles, or broth). These are absolutely stellar bowls of noodle soup. With dumplings and great chili oil. Store staff seemed to be speaking in Chinese (not sure exactly what) and broke out into huge smiles when we said Xiexie after - and then even kindly discussed where to get cilantro (Higashiyamacho area) when I asked. I'll definitely go...

This place has a vending machine to allow us to select our food and right after we sat down, we were given a small paper so that we could select how thick our ramen would be. This is great! I chose the thick ramen and did no regret it. The hot oil was REALLY interesting and had a very tingly feeling when I ate from that part of the dish. I ended up buying some of it because it was so good and interesting! Almost numbing in a good way. Other than that, the dish was delicious and the tea eggs were...