Ippudo Ramen

Pork Buns - $3++ per piece

Ippudo's pork buns are delicious - so delicious that they overshadow their very average tasting ramen. A piece of stewed and well marinaded fatty pork enveloped within a warm steamed leaf bun, with japanese mayonnaise and lettuce. This is like kong bak pau, but with a dainter piece of meat, as well as lovely Japanese mayonnaise. Japanese mayo makes everything taste better. Ippudo serves hakata ramen, so their noodles are off white and thin (think something in between mee sua and yu mian), and comes with a rich and very oily tonkotsu (pork) broth. It's really very oily and I could see fat globules floating in my soup. Taste wise, it's rich and milky, and not to salty. However, I've tasted more robust broths (like Santouka and Tampopo's), so Ippudo's didn't bowl me over. I decided to go all out and try the $17++ Akamaru Tamago Ramen. It comes with the full works, which is miso paste (the red stuff), buta bara (pork belly), black fungus, lots of chopped spring onions, and with a generous douse of garlic oil. The stewed egg (can't see in the photo) was pretty much a dissappointment because it was slightly over cooked, and the yolk wasn't runny and soft.

Spicy RamenGyoza - 6 pieces for $6++

The gyoza tasted pretty good, but at nearly $7.20nett for 6 really small pieces (about 2/3rd the size of the usual gyoza) it's pretty steep. The skin was thin, slightly crispy and translucent; pork filling tasted pretty good - but not good enough that I'll eat it again.

Lots of hype and average ramen, nothing to rave about... if the queue's long, just walk over to Tampopo or something. I really don't think it's worth the queue.

Ippudo Singapore
Mandarin Gallery
333A Orchard Road
#04-02/03/04 Mandarin Gallery
Tel: 6235 2797
Daily: 11am–11pm