Ichiban Chinese and Japanese restaurant — Restaurant in South Hadley

My wife and I have been patrons of this restaurant for over 20 years and have never had any major complaints. However, we ate lunch there today (9/11/2025) and the food quality was terrible. I asked the waitress who didn't have much of a personality if they recently got a new cook and she said no. I'm not sure that I believe here because the food was remarkably bad compared to all other times we've ordered from this place. I had the lunch special: Beef Chow Mein with pork fried rice and a bowl of wonton soup. The wonton soup broth was the worst I have ever had in my life! It had zero flavor and basically tasted like hot water poured over the wontons. Horrible! I couldn't eat the broth at all. Next came the Beef Chow Mein. The sauce we used to get on it was always very flavorful and nice consistency. This sauce was extremely watery and thin. It made the chow mein soggy tasting, with no flavor! Unbelievable!! My wife had shrimp and vegetable tempura lunch box. I tried her shrimp tempura and dipped it in the sauce they provided in a small plastic container. The sauce was like watery and had no flavor at all. It made the tempura taste crappy to say the least. Unfortunately, we left very disappointed with the meal. The waitress did not say I'm sorry it wasn't good and did not offer any replacement. This place has gone down hill to my dismay. It used to be my favorite Chinese restaurant. We won't be patrons any more due to this change. Maybe you'll like the food and have a better experience, but we didn't. This is an honest review from a long...

Not sure what changed in the past few years been ordering from same location over 18 years on a weekly basis either dine in or delivered its always over a $100 dollar I usually don't complain about food I'm a business owner and I know sometime the employees make Mistake few time I had missing salad or soup not a big deal this week it was my friends birthday I told her about this place she asked me to order 10 meals i also order for my kids it came up over $150 as soon as we got the order the kids open the meal box and started having dinner I noticed the kids were not eating the dumplings and that's there favorites they said it didn't taste good when it tried one it tested uncooked and suggy so I called back the owner to let her know I explained that I had one missing free roll and the dumplings didn't test right she started raising her voice and saying I always complain about my food and asked me if I was eating it I told we are but I'm just letting you know about the dumplings she replied will if your eating is there nothing wrong with food I told her thank u and made sure not me or my family order for there again. This is my first time ever giving anyone 1 star I know how hard every one stragglers to keep their business going but this place could have handled it differently I wasn't looking for any money back or any freebies I just wanted to let her know...

The service was fast, the servers were friendly and attentive, and the food was great. Not "Western Mass Great" which translates to "passable but flavorless to appeal to as many people as possible", but actually GREAT. (I'm originally from the Lowell area. You want authentic food in Massachusetts, you go to Lowell. Chinese, Lao, Khmer, Thai, anything. So trust me when I say this place is great no matter where you hail from)

I got the PamaMama, EggDrop Wonton mix soup, Crab Rangoon, and General Tso chicken. The drink was strong enough you could tell it wasn't watered down, without being overpowering. The EggDrop Wonton soup was fresh and hot, just the right thickness, and the wontons were small like tortellini, but flavorful. The Crab Rangoon were of the style that have the thicker crunchy shell, and more cream cheese than crab flavor. (Nothing wrong with that. There's different styles, if you're looking for the thinner shell with more crab than cream then you might pass on this. I like both styles). The General Tso was flavored nicely, I prefer it a little spicier, but even still it was a very nice flavor. Even the steamed broccoli was exactly right. Not to crispy, not too soft. Clearly care was put into every aspect.

Just give this place a try. You...