I always wanted to try ICHIRAN Ramen, and when I saw the big round sign in front of the store in Shinsaibashi, I knew that this was it.
Outside, the line went past the door, and I finally got to enter after around 30 minutes of waiting. ICHIRAN is a chain of tonkotsu ramen from Fukuoka, one of the most popular ramen places in Japan, so the long line did not surprise me.
Ropes led every person into a single line, and the whole time I simply stood here, thinking of the yummy noodles.
Before sitting down at ICHIRAN Ramen, you buy tickets from a machine. I took tickets for the ramen and for Coca-Cola. That's very normal for ramen shops in Japan, where you pay first at the machine and later hand over the tickets to the workers.
Waiting 30 Minutes for ICHIRAN Ramen
A seat map showed which seats were open and which were taken. I still waited later inside before getting to my spot.
I sat and waited.ICHIRAN uses solo seats with walls between every seat, so that you eat alone, without looking at anybody else, which is their whole thing. It is different from my meal at Gyukatsu Motomura in Kyoto, where you sit at the counter, but can watch the people around you.
An extra order sheet was on the wall with choices for more noodles and drinks, if you want more. The tap next to it gave water.
Soon the ramen arrived through the little window. Sliced green onions, red chili, and thick pork pieces sat on top of the noodles, and the smell of that pork broth hit me right away. ICHIRAN serves only one kind of ramen, just their tonkotsu, so they perfected the same recipe over the years.
The pork slices seemed soft and fatty. Before getting your bowl, you fill out a sheet to pick the amount of spice, the strength of the broth and the hardness of the noodles, which I found a very good idea.
That picture shows the broth very close up. It's thick and creamy with a blob of spicy sauce floating right in the middle, and green onions sprinkled on top. The broth of ICHIRAN is made by the long cooking of pig bones, and you can see that because of its super thickness.
I ate every last bit. A bowl here costs around 1,080 yen, which seems fair for what you get. The last time that I ate ramen in a place that only does one dish was on a trip to the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum, but that was a very different thing, because many stores were under one roof there.
