Ippudo – Sydney Westfield

I’ve been a fan of this ramen restaurant ever since I first devoured it back on a trip to New York. It’s been in Sydney for a couple years now and it’s still one of my favourite ramen places in town. Ask anyone and they’ll give you their opinion on the best ramen in Sydney. From Ryos to Gumshara, Menya to Ikkyu. I however cannot choose the best so I will write about my favourites; Ippudo being one of them.

I like Ippudo not only because of their ramen, but because of the atmosphere. It’s casual restaurant and constantly filled during lunch and dinner hours. On this occasion, I went with my family to celebrate my dad’s birthday so we ended up ordering a bunch of sides as well as their delicious ramen.

Pork, chicken karaage and prawn katsu buns

There’s a massive amount of side dishes you can order including fried chicken, salads and their famous buns. You can choose the filling you want inside the bun from chicken karaage, pork and shrimp katsu. Tonight we went with chicken nanban, karaage chicken, crab frits, daikon salad and yam fries. For the buns, we ordered all 3 fillings. In my opinion the pork bun is the one to get. If you feel like fried chicken, order the chicken karaage on the side. It’s got a light and delicious batter and comes with Japanese mayo on the side for dipping. I prefer chicken karaage as it stays light and crunchy throughout the meal whereas the chicken nanban batter will get too soggy due to the sauce drizzled over it. The crab frits were a delight and reminded me of prawn cracker chips. Very tasty.

Daikon salad

The yam fries were new to me and was something different to the usual potato fries at most restaurants. They were deliciously crunchy and came with a side of teriyaki mayo which goes well with it. To me the salad was a bit plain and not enough flavour, however considering we ordered all those deep fried sides it was a refreshing palate cleanser.

Crunchy yam fries

Chicken nanban

Crab frits

Chicken karaage

Now onto the ramen! There’s 3 main flavours consisting of ‘Shiromaru Motoaji’, ‘Akamaru Shinaji’ and ‘Karaka-Men’. Because there are Ippudo restaurants all over the world, there is a specialty ramen for each country it is in. For Sydney, it is a ‘Tori Shoyu’. Each ramen style is outlined below (according to their website):

Shiromaru Motoaji – Creamy tonkotsu broth; classic Hakata-style ramen.

Akamaru Shinaji – Tonkotsu broth with a blended miso paste and fragrant   garlic oil.

Karaka-Men – Original tonkotsu broth with a spicy ground pork miso and  roasted cashew garnish.

Tori Shoyu (Sydney Exclusive) – clear chicken broth with bonito extract.

My favourite is the akamaru shinaji ramen because it has so much flavour in it with the miso paste and garlic oil. When you mix the ball of paste that comes with it, the soup becomes a rich pool of flavour which is not too collagen rich unlike the soup styles of Gumshara and Ramen Ikkyu. You can choose to have your ramen as it is (with black fungus, spring onions and pork belly), add an egg to it, add simmered pork belly to it or have the special which is the ramen plus a small plate of goodies which includes roasted seaweed (3 sheets), flavoured egg, spring onions, bamboo shoots, pork loin and pork belly. I have to admit if you have the special it does become a pricey ramen at $25 but I think you can afford to splurge on something this good once in a while. The pork belly is very tender with a little bit of melt in your mouth fat attached to it. It’s always a must when having ramen of any kind.

Akamaru Chashu Shinaji

Once you’ve chosen your soup style, you’ll be asked to choose the hardness of your noodles. Depending on your preference you can choose soft, medium, hard or very hard. I prefer medium as there is still some bite to the noodle.

They also provide kaedama (extra serving of noodle) for an extra $2 on top. I have always been too full to ever get a kaedama but that’s probably because I order a lot of sides all the time too!

Ramen special toppings

As you can see Ippudo is much more than a simple ramen joint. They cater for everybody and even have a selecton of rice dishes which include eel, salmon and avocado and chashu. If you’re with friends and ramen isn’t their thing, let them choose from the variety of side and rice dishes. It’s the perfect spot to have dinner and hang out before a night on the town or just to wind down and relax after work.

Ramen is definitely best paired with a delicious beer which Ippudo also stocks. If beer doesn’t tickle your fancy they also have sake and cocktails available.

It’s the variety which always makes me come back to Ippudo. I love my ramen and have eaten a lot of it in Sydney but to me Ippudo will always be one of my top recommendations.

What would Lobi eat? Akamaru Chashu ramen with a flavoured egg. Oh and an Asahi beer!

Ippudo Sydney