Ippin Ramen — Restaurant in Ocean Township

Relaxed local Japanese restaurant that offers great lunch specials at very good prices. Great place to meet up for lunch meetings or just to get away and enjoy while listening to the latest pop music. They have expanded their menu. They now have desserts ranging from regular to exotic desserts such as tiramisu, New York cheesecake, chocolate souffle, exoti bomba, guava mango flutes and mango ripieno, just to name a few. Btw, it's a solid 31/2 stars but I rounded up to 4 Stars due to their friendly service.

I have come here for business luncheons as well as catching up with friends. It's a great spot because it right off route 35 and you can obtain free Wifi since Starbucks nearby. The place has the typical picture of The Great Wave off Kanagawa, the Lucky Cat waving as you enter and depart, and beautiful wall art calligraphy. Upon entering, a staff will show you to a table and you place your order with them. If you and your party are in need of paying with separate credit cards, let them know ahead of time.

Today, I had a luncheon date with my hubby and we ordered their lunch specials at $14.99 each. We were entitled to an appetizer and an entree. Please keep in mind, if you should be offered tea, they will charge you $2 per cup. They tend to forget to mention that when they ask if you would like tea or water after they seat you. We ordered aged tofu and ginger wings as our appetizers and tantan ramen and kakuni ramen. Our appetizers came out fairly fast and here's what I noticed. Their ginger wings were fried drummettes with ketchup with sriracha mixed in. It is deep fried and I was expecting wings and more ginger taste to them. Very disappointed and do not recommend. Their age tofu were delicately fried but I noticed the top was a whole sliced tofu block. The sliced tofu underneath were broken like a jigsaw puzzle. This dish lacked enough dried bonito flakes. I was disappointed with this as well because it's not that hard to slice blocks of tofu. This leads me to feel they used tofu that were broken from another dish.

For my entree, I ordered kakuni ramen. It had a generous amount of pork belly and black wood ear mushroom which gave it a very nice umami flavor. The spicy broth was very developed and the egg was not overcooked, thankfully. I only wished they would include some bok choy. Regardless, this was a win and highly recommended. My husband's entree was tantan ramen. That is ramen with spicy minced pork sauce. I found the bottom noodles to be gummy and stuck together. I used my chopsticks to try and really mix all the pork sauce, cucumbers, and scallions together but the bottom noodles would not come apart. Even when I used a fork, I could not separate these noodles. I finally told my husband to use my ramen broth to help soften the noodles up and hopefully be able to pry them apart. He was careful not to put too much broth in otherwise it would be a ramen noodle bowl instead. I tasted his dish before and then after the soup broth was added. I would honestly say if it wasn't for the broth from the kakuni ramen, I would have to say his dish was bland. His entree was said to be spicy. I didn't taste any spiciness at all. Personally, I don't recommend the tantan ramen. While everything was very priced for its quantity, some of their items were hits and some were misses. I have had their chicken kara age, pork buns, vegetable gyoza, edamame, chashu fried rice, ippin ramen, and kakuni ramen which were hits. Their misses which I have had were ginger wings, veggie ramen and their tantanmen.

Finally we presented with the check. The young lady apologized and indicated they were having problems today with their machine and asked if we could please pay in cash. If you pay in cash, you do receive a discount of 5%.

Whenever I am on this side of Monmouth County and in desire of ramen or charsu fried rice, I would not hesitate to frequent this establishment. I just know which dishes to order and...

Extremely rude staff.

Entered the restaurant at a nice weekend evening with a happy mood, came out with the feeling of being punched in the face.

Here is what happened:

1, Being my first time at this place, I politely asked my attendant for recommendation of a ramen bowl. Guess what’s the response ? “We’re busy , you have another half minute to decide what to order before we kick you out”

My experience wouldn’t be as bad if I could just leave the place at that point. But I decided to stay and give a try after reading the good reviews.

2, the ramen bowl ( Shoyu Ramen w/ pork ) was served shortly after my rushed order. Roughly 10 minutes after I started work on my ramen, attendant came to my table, I was expecting a “how’s everything ?” kind of question,

but guess what ? Attendant asked “Are you all done ?”

Unbelievable.

Despite being shocked, I politely responded with “I’m still working on it”.

5 minute later , another attendant came to my table and asked if I was all done.

This time I decided to ignore the attendant, which turned out to be a bad move , as it actually triggered the attendant and resulted in the attendant grabbed the chopstick right out of my hand , then took away the ramen bowl WITH CHASHU(pork chop) LEFT IN IT UNTOUCHED.

3, Immediately after my bowl was taken away roughly 15 minutes after it was served to my table , or 20 minutes after I entered the restaurant , a check w/ a pre-charged 20% service fee was thrown in front of me.

I paid with cash and left the place as fast as I could.

This whole horror show happened months ago, and I struggled to figure out the possible cause / reason of the hand-down malicious attitude the attendants at Ippin Ramen...

Ippin ramen is the perfect local spot for a nice bowl on ramen.Whether it's a rainy day or sunny day nothing helps like a warm bowl. The ippin bowl is your go-to if you just want a classic bowl with the delicious slices of tender fatty chatsu.The kakuni bowl is the perfect amount of spice with a slightly spice and delicious pork belly. I can't say the same about the tan tan men it's advertised as a spicy pork sauce on top of noodles. Plus it comes with an egg(I saw a comment mention that the it was brown. That's because it's marinated) and cucumber. It needs like a warning of spice or fire sign next to it or a couple. Indicating that cuz the cocoon is not that spicy but the Tantan men taste good but it was inedible do to the spiceness. If you're not looking forward the bowl, I want to try other things. They're a unagi don is pretty good. As well as there poor steam buns and a fluffy bun with a nice piece of chatsu and cucumber and a nice soft comes as an order of 2. The gyoza is good but most of the flavor comes from the dipping sauce. The age tofu is a good option as well. But if you like fried rice, the chhatsu fried rice should be your go-to. It's one of the best fried rice you Will probably try. They're Kani salad and shumai are excellent as well! However, if you're looking to order, I would suggest grabbing one of their menus So you can see accurately what you're being charged for because the pictures of the menu mostly...