Believe it or not, it has taken about 2 months of talking about Ippudo to finally actually eat there. My friend DD and I have been planning to take a lunch break there for the past 2 months but we haven't been successful in finding the right time to do this. Sheer frustration and quite laughable actually! Work gets crazy busy and sometimes there is no time for a decent lunch break.
But we did it one fine day! And to top it off, I decided to add another lunch visit to try out different things on the menu.
Ippudo Sydney as I am sure all of you in Sydney would know is located in Westfield Sydney. It opened in December 2012 and is still going strong. In the past year there has been an absolute boom for all things ramen and I believe this food empire opened in Sydney at the right time.
For lunch we decided to have their signature Ippudo pork bun which was soft, fluffy pillow-like buns filled with braised pork and the Ippudo original sauce. Their sauce is mayo based and was light and creamy. I could have popped a few of this in!
I had the Shiromaru Tamago which was the original tonkotsu broth served with thin noodles, pork loin, bean sprouts, black mushroom, flavoured egg and shallots. This is the hakata style of ramen broth.
DD had the Karaka Men Tamago which was the original tonkotsu broth, with special spicy miso, ground pork and flavoured egg.
The Karaka Men Tamago had a more flavourful broth because of the spicy miso, no doubt of that but I did enjoy my tonkotsu broth. There was enough richness and depth to the broth. It was not as unctuous as I expected but that's all right. They did ask how we wanted our ramen to be and I replied 'al dente'. But I still felt my ramen did not have enough bite to it; in my opinion this could have been improved.
On my second visit, I of course had the pork bun. I then decided to have 3 pieces of the Chicken Karaage. They were well cooked, lovely crispy batter with the chicken still moist inside. Quite delicious!
And for my main I had the Oriental Chirashi Sushi. I would label this a cold rice salad dish. It was vinegared rice mixed with salmon, unagi, prawns, kinshi tamago, tobiko, endamame, topped with nori. It was scented and lightly flavoured with shiso and balsamic vinegar.
This dish was different to what I normally order at a Japanese restaurant. I actually quite liked the combination of favours. It felt like I was eating a plate of fried rice Japanese style with slices of fresh sashimi. There was so much going on and every mouthful I experienced a different set of flavours. Interesting but also delicious!
Well, I can now say I have been to Ippudo Sydney and happy to return when possible.
I think I would like to check out Ippudo New York when I am there next! :)
Ippudo Sydney
Westfield Sydney
Shop 5021, Level 5,
188 Pitt Street,
Sydney,
NSW 2000
Website: www.ippudo.com.au/
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4 comments:
the Karaka Men Tamago which was the original tonkotsu broth, with special spicy miso, ground pork and flavoured egg. I really want to taste it
Thanks Macky Blaise! It was tasty!
Good to see you finally made it. And I agree, there are so many new Sydney restaurant openings it can be hard to get to them promptly!
Hehe! Thanks Helen. I knew you would understand! :-)
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