Penang Restaurant | Ichiban Ramen
Another crazy food adventure! Well, Japanese food adventure to be exact. Instead of focusing on the Japanese restaurants in Penang, we took a drive during lunch last Friday to go all the way to Jusco Seberang Perai City for our Japanese food hunt and back to Penang island to our office.. hahaha
Ichiban Ramen is located at the first floor, inside the newly opened Jusco Seberang Perai City and we thought we might as well dropped by to “look see look see” the latest and biggest Mall in Seberang Perai.
The outlet was based on open space concept with some bamboos being erected to serve as walls between the premise and the walkway. Standing outside the outlet, we could actually see what was going on inside and also could see what other patrons where eating then.
The outlet itself was not quite big but it did manage to squeeze three tatami styled tables with each able to cater up to 7 people max , of course depending on the size lor. Huat Koay was so quick to choose a seat that he did not realize he was actually sitting directly under the air conditioned duct and was shivering throughout the whole session.
Poor Huat Koay! So, remember to choose the right seating place when you dine there!
The orders came quite fast without long waiting time. Chicken Katsu Don Set came first and it was time to savour!!! Wait, cannot eat yet as need to capture photos…
The rice bowl looked big with quite a big portion of rice inside. The fried chicken was put on top of the rice together with half cooked egg and the portion of the egg actually mixed with the rice so it tasted a bit wet. The set also came with a small plate of fried chicken strip, miso soup and few slices of watermelon as well as green tea.
The Sapporo ramen tasted like miso soup mix with curry. It was salty, spicy with heavy tofu taste. The soup was quite a lot that it covered most of the ramen and the ingredients, unlike the picture we saw in the menu. Well, we liked what we saw in the menu more than the actual one.
The tomyam ramen was sour and spicy and most of us agreed it was the best among all we tasted during this visit. Again, we liked the one in the menu, presentation wise. The tom yam has generous ingredients including big mussels and prawns but we noticed they do put lots of lemongrass and cili padi as well.
The seafood ramen was good in terms of the ingredients; you would get prawns, mussels, squids and crabstick meat. But then we could not figure out the soup base used for the seafood ramen, the water was murky and the taste… errmm unexplainable. No worry, still can drink one!
The Japanese Fried Rice set also came with miso soup, fried chicken strips and green tea but the fried rice portion was extremely small! Fei Fei looked stunned when it was served to him, he kept saying he wanted to have second portion elsewhere later. The portion is slightly bigger than the small bowl used for miso soup. Where got enough for the Tua Pui??? Nevertheless, the fried rice was quite fragrant and tasty.
Our visit this round was nothing to be proud of, the overall food quality here looked normal and tasted normal too and given the price for the meals here, we would think it was a bit expensive for the meals we had. We would expect something better from a restaurant that has multiple chains in Peninsular Malaysia. Even Nippon Yataimura could do better than them.
By the way, this restaurant is under the the same management as Che Go, which is opposite Ichiban Ramen at Jusco Seberang Perai City. Our next destination, hopefully will be better service then
Map (click to get the dynamic map)
Random
Do you mean mussels? Got any food name as “muscles”?
Anyway, I won’t recommend any friends to visit this shop. Kinda not worth it. I mean the taste.
hi Patrick…
Thanks for spotting the typo error… kept thinking the muscles because they do sound the same… :):)
with the money spent, we still think other place can offer the same type of dishes at lower price….
I’ve tried this restaurant before at Sunway Pyramid outlet. NOT NICE at all. The taste …… errrr …….. dunno how to describe. It just taste awful.
email2mes last blog post..New Formosa Restaurant Taiwanese Food
Tomyam ramen?? Can’t imagine that working… a bit too fusion lah, haha. Hey, btw, nice sexy looking site!!
550ml jar of faiths last blog post..Kung Fu Pan Mee, Taman Sri Sentosa
email2me.
yea, we’re not used to some of the tastes either… It’s a bit different usual Jap Food we tasted..
Went to this shop last 2 weeks and found the food taste WEIRD… Improvement needed…..
550ml jar of faith,
Yes, that’s something different, Jap meets Thai combination… not bad actually…
Hehehe sexy site? flattered*flattered*… Thanks~!!
I just had the tomyam ramen last weekend. It tasted better than the Sapporo ramen. The service was OK…the waitress keeps refilling our green tea non-stop. Price wise, it’s a little high…maybe due to the big management and chains they have.
Yeah, been here will colleagues for lunch before and I can say I won’t be there for a second visit. The fried rice portion is extremely small and it came with a SAD looking piece of chicken (illutration on menu was normal sized, guess we were fooled). The ramen was ok only (can’t remember which one I had..), nothing special.
The food there is pricey for the measly amounts and average dishes. Definitely don’t think this place is worth it until they either decrease prices or increase portions.
Marks last blog post..Wonderful KL Trip!
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Morning people. After I chanced upon this review, I thought I’d drop a few words here and there about my experience in this place.
I went for a late lunch few months back with my friends while we were having a stroll around Jusco BM. One of our guys suggested we take a bite here.
And whaddaya know? It turned out to be an ABSOLUTE mistake.
We’ll start with the ambiance. Given the open-wall design of the shop lot, you have no choice but to absorb the sights and sounds of the people walking around you, with a screaming kid in tow and even the occasional peek past the haphazard bamboo poles. ENDLESSLY. This is not my idea of a peaceful lunch if it’s anything to go by. Still, I can’t really be too hard when it comes to the environment, since the main point of being here is the food, obviously. I can live with the mayhem if the food can make up for the uncomfortable feeling.
The 1st thing that really surprised me was how pricey the food there is. Sure, it may not seem unusual given that Japanese restaurants in PG cost more or less the same, but looking at the pictures in the menu and from the vibe I got around the shop, I had a sinking feeling that it’s not going to be worth it. And was I right on the money.
I had a go at the Kimchi Ramen, which is one of my favorites. MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE! From the very 1st taste of it, I had a nasty shock. The kimchi soup was very diluted and it even shows right from the start. There was almost none of the salty and sour taste that I was accustomed to. The soup looked transparent and had none of the thickness that inspires confidence in the noodles. The noodles itself had an odd, waxy texture to it that felt as if someone just sloshed the whole noodle brick into some warm water, rinsed it with cold water and just plonked it right into soup. Furthermore, the condiments were quite little and the vegetables within the dish had a bland taste.
To distract myself from the pain, I sampled some of the other stuff my friends ordered. Nothing different there. The fried rice that accompanied my friend’s noodle was nothing to shout about (at least it wasn’t gut wrenching like my ramen), the gyoza was alright but everything else was a massive failure. One of us had the curry ramen, and it’s no wonder she was silent while eating, possibly from the same pain I felt with my order.
One thing that I found interesting, is that this is one of those rare and special occasions, where 100% of the group actually DIDN’T like the food! I would have thought that at least one out of 5-6 of us would have given it a passable comment. Nope. They decided to show their dissatisfaction by passing the food around because they didn’t want to waste what they paid for……yes, this is not a joke. Why suffer alone when you have your mates to share the wealth with? It’s so hilarious, it’s not even funny.
The service was……well, nothing you haven’t seen before. At least the tea kept coming without you having to raise your hand. But then again, so do every other Japanese restaurant.
When I had a look at the bill, I really couldn’t help but feel extremely displeased. The asking price (which even had the annoying service charge included) DID NOT justify even a TENTH of what we paid for. The food was a downright mess (bad enough to actually earn a unanimous vote of failure around the table), and that’s all there is to it. It would have been unfair to criticize the ambiance and service too much as they weren’t bad enough to earn excessive contempt. But like I mentioned right from the start: the food is what it’s all about, and as it turned out, it was all a sad joke. Wouldn’t go there again even if I were offered a 100 bucks.
RATINGS:
-Food: 2/10
-Environment: 6/10
-Service: 5/10
-Price: 1/10
OVERALL RATING: 2/10
You know something is amiss as soon as you flip through the menu, and find something called Chicken Katsu Don. Why is that? Well for starters, Katsu is supposed to be pork. Katsu has two meanings. It can mean “win” （勝） or pork cutlet. Chicken is probably the worst compromise a restaurant has to make just to make the food palatable to all races.
One time I went to one of these ramen places up north with a friend. I’m a ramen lover of tonkotsu persuasion. Naturally everything with me is Kyushu this, charsiu that. People who know me naturally haven’t a clue what I was rambling about, when I compare the ramen soup to the local teochew mee and complain about the latter’s increasingly tasteless broth overkilled with MSG.
Having heard enough of what they thought was BS, we picked a day to see exactly what has tickled my taste buds, to the point I could no longer stand the local street food. So we picked this ramen joint in Prai, situated in Auto City. There we were in the proud business establishment brimming with hope. Then came the menu, and my mouth just formed a big O. My eyes widened on this menu item called Tom Yam Ramen. Madre de Dios, this is something that rose out of–no, not Hell’s Kitchen, but hell itself.
My friend, being his typical exotic-sounding-food-hating Malaysian self, of course insist on this dish, as did his wife, who also ordered something with a Malaysian-sounding name. I on the other hand went with what I usually order, which is the tonkotsu flavour.
All 3 ramens bombed real hard on us. In fact I’d say the last good ramen I had was in Ajisen in Gurney. Too bad they went out of business.
hi! the food no so good many outle.Ajisen new la in malaysin.
act i went last weekend, overall tasted is very nice,i think will go again tis weekend. summore i go and enjoy tea time there got 20% discounted…so u all can try again cheers
ya agree crazy_munky……i oso go last week at the tmn maluri outlet. im order the tomyam friedrice taste so good~and order the kimuchi ramen oso…but a bit sour for me. and i order the side order fried chicken___ (forget the name) very nice, juz my opinion thanks
the food tastes good….i like the seafood ramen…..the unagi don taste good 2…..but the rice 2 much…..as l m consider a small eater, anyway sure l will come again cos l luv the taste~~~~~
absolutely agree with u the tomyam really nice