Shanghai Restaurant Review: Ramen Ichiryuan

By Betty Richardson, January 19, 2018

The Place

With over 51,000 listed ramen shops, Japan’s choices for noodles are more than the most voracious eater could tackle. To make sense of these myriad options, anonymous diners on restaurant listing sites like Tabelog (the Japanese equivalent of Yelp or Dianping) rank them meticulously and stringently. To garner a score of 3.5 out of 5, or be ranked number one in a particular area of town, is a remarkable achievement.

That’s exactly what Ramen Ichiryuan (ラーメン札幌　一粒庵) has achieved in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Priding itself on using the locally farmed ingredients that Hokkaido is world-famous for, Ichiryuan also has a Bib Gourmand from the Hokkaido Michelin Guide. A version of Ramen Ichiryuan is now available in our own city, inside the busy Shanghai Center on Nanjing Xi Lu.

Ramen Ichiryuan Shanghai

The Food

Ichiryuan Shanghai offers the same five bowls, ranging from the signature ‘Ichiryuan’ style, miso flavor, shoyu (soy sauce base), shio (salt) and a mapo flavor ramen.

Riffing off the now globally-adored Sichuan spicy tofu, Ichiryuan’s mapo bowl involves braised minced pork braised with dried chilies, Sichuan pepper and a gorgeous raw egg yolk over thick-cut noodles in a little broth. Mixing it up is the best part.

Ramen Ichiryuan Shanghai

Eating it is less fun. Bland and not in the least bit spicy, much less with the tingly, numbing mala sensation of real mapo tofu, the only real flavor from this comes from the egg yolk. It’s a shame because the noodle texture was excellent.

The signature ‘Ichiryuan’ bowl (RMB68) was also a disappointment over two separate occasions, for all its enticing toppings and glitzy golden omelet.

The broth, a deep, meaty brown color and dotted with welcome globules of bone marrow, is the axis of this letdown and made us wonder how something that looked so good tasted so one-dimensional. The best ramen can be described as having complex, layered and varied flavors that magically come together as one, but seriously, the only resounding flavor was scrambled egg.

After a similarly anemic experience with the miso bowl and gyoza so flavorless they’re barely worth mentioning, the smoky sweet roasted pork in Ichiryuan’s charsiu pork rice bowl (RMB35) was nearly good enough to save the day. But not quite.

Food verdict: 1/3

The Vibe

The modern, well-laid out appearance and Michelin promise of Ichiryuan had it poised to become the most authentically Japanese ramen shop in the downtown area. Sadly, the expressionless broth is something no amount of springy noodles or flowing egg yolks can make up for.