IPPUDO Gurney Plaza — Restaurant in George Town

Honest and long review ahead.

Initially, I was very skeptical about this ramen shop. I've been to multiple Japanese places that sell ramen in Penang, and they've all been fairly disappointing. Having had great ramen from Hakata Gensuke in Melbourne city, I doubted the ramen in Malaysia would be any good.

Ohhhh boy was I pleasantly surprised. There is usually a long line with Ippudo in Penang as it just recently open (as of this time the review is being posted), so your timing is very important if you don't want to wait long. I was lucky and only had to wait 30 minutes before getting a table for 6.

The shop is divided into two sections, indoor and a small outdoor section (this is more of a bar-style layout; sorry no pictures. I wanted to eat my food). The indoor section is the majority of the shop. Here you'll have tables spread nicely throughout and you can even sit in front of the kitchen they make the ramen in. Very Japanese-esque, and I appreciate this.

Enough about the layout, let's get down to the food. There is a decent selection of ramen that you get to choose from. There are two types of ramen noodles, the thin and thick noodles. The thin noodles are your traditional go-to ones, where you get to select your hardness of your noodles - very hard, hard, normal, soft (I recommend hard noodles, as you'll get a great Al dente bite to it while eating your ramen). The thick noodles have only one texture to them so you don't get to choose how well done your noodles are.

I had the Akamaru special which is a tonkotsu (pork) broth with miso paste and garlic oil. When you first taste the broth, it's very mild. Kind of light even. But as you start mixing your ingredients, and continue on to your fourth and fifth and more slurps, the flavour gets even more intense and rich. It's like one of those Shokugeki no Soma (Food Wars) moments where the food is just that good. The charsiu pork slices they provide are incredibly juicy and beautifully cooked. Eggs were done to perfection and all of the ingredients blended well together. Simply incredible. I loved it. Please slurp your damn soup and noodles as you eat it. Oh, you can also crush as much garlic as you want to your liking.

Portion wise, it's a just-enough portion. You can order extra noodles if you want more for RM7 I think.

Now, we've talked about how good the particular bowl of ramen was, let's get down to the bad.

A bowl of ramen will cost you at least RM33. This isn't inclusive of the 10% service tax. The ramen is expensive, especially in terms of Malaysian ringgit. Thread wisely when you come to eat here as you probably wouldn't want to make this a regular affair. Unless you're balling then go ahead and do whatever you want. They also have other dishes and drinks (equally as expensive). But you get the quality that you pay for, so that could be your justification.

Price aside, I do not like waiting in line. Maybe the first time is alright, but on repetitive occasions where you'd have to wait at least 30 minutes or more... Yeah.. I'd rather not.

Overall, my RM38 for ramen was well worth. However, I wouldn't come here often as your wallet would cry as...

Love the ramen, kudos to the brand for maintaining a good standard across all franchises/branches. However, 9 out of my 10 dining experiences are tarnished by the service given by the waiter & waitresses working in this particular branch. I understand that we need a mutual respect between customers & servers, to treat everyone from all walks of life nicely but I don't think the servers in this branch understand this concept?

1. I was having stomach cramps & was not able to drink green tea. Asked for hot water instead, as tea is too "cooling" for my body, waiter said "no hot water, only green tea." to which I asked "then what did you make your hot green tea with?". He walked off with no reply & explanation, leaving me with ?????? circling my head up until today
2. I am not a fan of bamboo shoot, and asked for it to be replaced with spring onion (which is, more cost effective for Ippudo btw, no? spring onion is way cheaper than bamboo shoot), to which the waitress replied me in an EXTREMELY rude manner "no, cannot". You think you are a walking GSC NO CANNOT meme mascot?! I asked "oh, why cannot? I don't like bamboo shoot taste".. and she replied "we cannot replace for you. we can remove, no replacement". My name is Karen, but i can tell you that her attitude is way more Karen-like than the real Karen in front of her! Again, no explanation. The only explanation that makes sense was given to me after by my friend, which is not a staff of Ippudo. -_-
3. We sat and waited at the al-fresco seating area on a Monday evening at 6pm, waiting to order our beer & gyoza from the server for a long, miserable 15 minutes. Restaurant had only 2 tables, one of the server noticed us, but did not take his order & continued to chat with his colleagues non-stop.. until we walked to the entrance after a long wait to get a menu/order. He FINALLY came to us & said "outside area close"... HELLO?! YOU COULDN'T HAVE TOLD US THE MOMENT WE SAT DOWN? OR THE MOMENT YOU NOTICED YOUR CUSTOMER SITTING OUTSIDE THE CLOSED AREA?!

Ippudo, your food is amazing but if you can have a change of staffs, or perhaps a change of their attitude, I believe you'll be able to deliver a top-notch dining experience for all of your...

"Food undercooked" Earlier today, I ordered Chawanmushi at this branch. One of the waitresses told me that the Chawanmushis needed at least 15~20 minutes to be prepared, so I patiently waited for it to be done. It didn't come out the way I expected because at first glance they looked very watery. This was my first time ordering chawanmushi at Ippudo so I wasn't entirely sure if this was how it was supposed to look like. I took a bite and was very disappointed by the taste. The chawanmushi was very watery and almost soup-like. Every ingredient they used in the chawanmushi was undercooked. Unsure of whether this was prepared correctly, I ask the waitress about it again as I pay my bill. She refused to listen to my explanation (of the watery texture of the chawanmushis) and kept saying that the layer of truffle oil they added in it made it look watery. I repeatedly told her that it was undercooked and asked her to tell the kitchen staff about it. She refused to listen to my concern and continued to say the same things as she said previously. Afterwards, she told me she would tell the kitchen staff about it and left to do so in a rude manner. Her attitude towards this matter was unprofessional and unfriendly. I kindly ask the restaurant to improve their service and instruct their servers to consider the concerns of their customers. I don't want anyone to run into the same issue as I did when they come into this establishment. Your food is great, the ambience is nice, and yet there is something lacking in your business -- respect. Please fix this problem for the sake of your customers and the standards the restaurant upholds. Thank you for your...