If there's one noodle dish that has become universally known, it has to be ramen. From its influences on pop culture (think Brittany Murphy in The Ramen Girl), to its ubiquitous instant form (albeit being nothing like a freshly made version unless you're buying legit instant Japanese stuff; I was surprised to hear the Canadians have an instant "ramen" brand Mr. Noodle, which unsurprisingly, isn't like ramen or what instant ramen should be*), ramen is synonymous with a piping hot bowl of saaaaavoury goodness. The ramen experience is fuss-free and no-frills. Choose your soup, additional toppings and you're set. And maybe a "kaedama" or two if you're still peckish.
*It's fine if it's called instant noodles if it's abysmal at being instant ramen but it can never be an instant ramen and not be instant ramen, if that makes sense
In my region, ramen chains have long found their niche in the local food scenes in Hong Kong and Singapore. Good thing for us in Malaysia is that we're seeing a lot more ramen places, and Ippudo is one of them. From what I can gather online, Ippudo is a famous ramen chain from the Hakata district in Fukuoka, Japan. Having been to Fukuoka myself, I can testify that if there's two food items they take seriously, it's ramen and mentaiko. Hakata ramen is basically tonkotsu ramen and being a specialty of the region, it was named after Hakata.
Being from Hakata, Ippudo serves only tonkotsu ramen--ramen in a milky pork-bone broth. Having heard of Ippudo's opening in KL, I was never really hyped up enough to venture to the traffic-hell-hole that is downtown KL just for a bowl of ramen. Curiosity got the better of me, some half a year later. Reading promising reviews of the place raised my expectations and I genuinely thought I was going to savour a bowlful of Japan all over again. Knowing my luck with food, I should've steered clear of such thoughts. I don't eat a lot of ramen but I have had some good ones and terrible ones to have a fairly reasonable benchmark. And seeing this is all about tonkotsu, I will be comparing this with the one I had in...Japan. Go big or go home I guess.
I had the "Karaka-men" which is a tonkotsu ramen topped with a spicy miso mince of pork and cashew nuts. It came topped with two slices of pork belly (I'm not a fan of pork belly and would usually have lean chashu--Japanese for "char-siew"/ roast pork--loin). A table of two, we shared a serving of gyoza and it was pretty tasty but average. The noodles are apparently unique to the Hakata-style, being thinner than the standard chuka-men and they had a good bite to them. The spicy miso mince was flavourful and not very spicy. I have an affinity for meat minces and noodles, thanks to my upbringing. Pork or chicken minces are very tot-friendly. Not that I was ever a fussy eater as a kid.
My only problem with the dish is: 1. the broth; and 2. the fact that there was a hair in it. I'm slightly amazed at how frequent I find things in my food that shouldn't be within a 5-feet radius of the table. First things first, the broth--the life force of a good bowl of ramen, the "chi" of the dish, if you will. There was a distinct gaminess to it, like a stink you get from pork offal left out for a while. I know a good hearty broth may use uneaten bits of the animal (trotters, tail, skin; God forbid, head) and I have had soups made with far more gut-wrenching ingredients than what normally goes into a tonkotsu broth, but I couldn't get past that distinct smell I was getting from Ippudo's version. It almost reeked like a chicken broth I once had in China. Tonkotsu should be smooth, mellow with a hearty but not overwhelming porky taste-- just top notes of pork amid a blend of other stock(s) (lol, using top notes to describe it maaay be pushing it a little--don't mean to sound pretentious, sorry!).
Don't let this spoil it for you though. Knowing broths to be tricky, it may be the case that the Ippudo outlet at Pavilion was just having a bad day? Or that Ippudo Malaysia just isn't that great compared to the ones in other major cities. I have a sneaking suspicion it's the decision to alter the broth to "suit local tastebuds" that made it taste like it was made with offal-concentrate. I read this off of a food blog somewhere and even the writers think Ippudo Singapore's version is better and stays true to the original Hakata flavour.
Oh and there's the hair I found in my soup. It was a tiny strand and I'm somewhat perplexed at how I managed to spot the darn thing. But that I did and they got me a new bowl right away. Didn't help that the serving is huge and I was halfway done when tragedy struck.
Overall, I didn't find the reason behind all the hype and I wouldn't think the fault lies with Ippudo (I'm sure the one in Hakata is bangin') but just this one Malaysian outlet. They should really do away with the catering-to-local-tastebuds bullshit (an excuse to use cheaper pork perhaps?) and serve up honest, unadulterated tonkotsu ramen. To put it in a way Malaysians would understand, imagine serving Nasi Lemak without the santan in the rice.
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