I'm soooo happy that Ippudou is in Singapore!! The first time that I went to Ippudou was in Fukuoka, Japan which is where Ippudou originated as the noodles are the typical Tonkotsu Hakata ramen. See the words in red next to the black 'Ippudou' kanji? That reads as 'Hakata', which is an area in the Fukuoka prefecture.

My family and I queued for almost 40 minutes before we were seated so I highly recommend going there early.

Below...my Shirotamago ramen, which is the original Hakata ramen with slices of pork, black fungus, egg and a few slices of preserved ginger.


The flavour is as good as I remembered it to be. Thick and you can taste the wonderful pork broth. Solid stuff! Quite unlike most of the crap *cough* Aji *cough* sen *cough* that's out there.
Dad ordered the Akatamago ramen which is similar to mine except that it comes with a dollop of red miso paste. The soup thus is more robust and has a another layer of miso flavour.

We thoroughly enjoyed our ramen! We also ordered a plate of gyoza (6 small pieces) and we gobbled it up as we were sooo hungry (duh...queuing for 40 minutes does that to you). Not very exciting. I wouldn't recommend ordering it. Mel Li texted me and said that the side dishes were disappointing so the conclusion is - order the ramen, skip the side dishes.


I like the wall of manga in the store. On the left is the manga in Japanese while on the right, the manga is in Mandarin! The manga was about the Japanese way of asking for another serving of noodles, called "Kaedama" and of course, it was plugging how delicious Ippudou's ramen were. Haha...cute! Above photo only shows the Mandarin version as I was sitting right in front of it. :)

Something very stupid happened. My bro and father ordered a pot of green tea at $6. When they finished it, my bro asked the waiter for hot water to refill the pot. The waiter then replied, "Sorry, we don't do refills here." -__-; Excuse me...its just HOT WATER. So, I asked another waiter for a glass of hot water (free) to which my bro promptly poured into the pot. Voila! Hot green tea. -__-;; Charging $6 for a pot of tea and not refilling it, is ridiculous. Major turn off to my bro who said that he's not coming back as its not worth queuing for so long and then not having simple service such as tea refill.

As for me...I like Ippudou too much....LOL. I just wished that they didn't try to make it so upmarket and stick to that casual ambience just like in Japan. Perhaps, its posh location is the reason for Ippudou Singapore to be posh as well. Nevertheless, the ramen priced at $15-$17 is still reasonable!!

I say, go there at least once to taste how REAL tonkotsu ramen ought to taste like. :)