Review # 1. Ichiran Sakae, Nagoya. Near Nadiya Park Loft Building.

A guy called Josh who I used to brew beer with once told me how much he liked going to Ichiran ramen in Sakae. After a long day face to face with students, he enjoyed the privacy and solitude of eating ramen in his own private wooden booth. His description of the place, a long ramen bar divided every meter or so by brown wooden barricades had long intrigued me. I went looking for it on several occasions to no avail. All I knew was that it was 'near the Loft building'. So is half of Sakae. And I don't live in Nagoya and I still get lost in the back streets of down town even after 4 years.

On Friday night I was wandering, nearly delerious with hunger after a 6 hour stint at our Company's La Chic school, LC basically being another posh mall for the Nagoya fashionista with disposable incomes to burn.

And there it was! A beacon of ramen-goodness in the cold night.











I was greeted with a familiar looking ticket machine along with a rather unfamiliar abundance of both photos and English to help me along. There was only one 'ramen' button. I also purchased an egg and kaiedama, extra noodles to replenish my soup after scoffing the first lot, a Kyushu institution.
My photo of the ticket machine isn't the best, but here it is anyway for what it's worth.













My imagination based on others' descriptions usually far exceeds what I end up finding, but this joint pretty much lived up to what Josh had described.












A long line of booths, each with about as much space as one gets with a cramped cattle-class plane seat. Whilst standing it's easy enough to survey the place, but the booths have been laid out in such a way that when sitting, you are in your own sharp cornered ramen eating coccoon. Looking up all I could see above the dark wooden panneling was a sea of legless red crabs cruising about. Actually, they were the head scarves of the busy Friday night kitchen crew.











Through the opening at the back of the booth I handed over my tickets and was presented with a tiny oblong metal dish for claiming my extra noodles when required. I also got a piece of paper and which was basically a ramen augmentation sheet. A red pen on a metal chain was there for me to circle my selections. Everything was bi-lingual. I could choose how my noodles were to be cooked (I chose 'hard') The strength of the broth flavour, how much garlic and signature spicy 'special sauce' was to be added.












There was a promise that whatever combination I selected, the cost would be ¥790. Sweet!

After pressing a small flashing square button to return the form to a face-unseen ramen preparing droid, a softboiled egg in its shell was delivered, complete with a small piece of paper featuring visual instructions for optimum peeling success.












Also a sachet of salt along with a small bowl for discarding the egg shell.

A few minutes later my ramen arrived. This too was an odd, almost magical experience. It was not carried to my booth's window, rather lifted from under it, as if it had slid in on a different level or perhaps a conveyor belt. I think these guys must use the same cabinet maker as Seifried and Roy.




As a final theatrical flourish, a small bamboo blind was lowered to further enhance my privacy.

The special sauce was nice and spicy, next time I'll order twice as much. It was a similar colour to the Korean kotchujan, but with more of a red peppery taste (a bit like the French/Moroccan harissa paste in a tube you can buy for adding spice to cous cous dishes; though less firey). The noodles were good and firm but softened quickly in the hot broth. The medium flavour was perfect, as was the medium amount of pork fat I'd requested. The whole clove of crushed garlic was just about right too. I have 2 criticisms. There was a stingy amount of pork. Next time I'll pay the ¥160 or so for an extra serve. Also, I like about 1/3 more soup than was given. After the kaiedama I polished off the bowl and probably could've eaten another one, but decided neither my wasteline nor arteries would benefit. It was also approaching last train home o'clock.

On the Joel-O-meter I rate the bowl of ramen 8 out of 10. With the quaintness of the dining experience scoring a 9.5.

Very high praise indeed. I thought it was much tastier and better value than Ippudo, where I have eaten around 10 times. But I did miss being able to people watch from within my booth. I also suffered from leg and knee cramps, but at 6'1" this is par for the course for me in Japan. Give Icharan a try and post your thougts in the comments.









Copu! (Cups) I laughed at this Bat Cave-esque sign.













So many instructions...

Another bowl downed.