Ippudo serves ramen in a pork-based broth, whereas Marutama uses chicken broth and they are famous for their thin, straight, springy noodles. We made our usual orders of ramen with seasoned tamago, except that Fuzzy chose the broth with red miso and garlic oil (red bowl), and I opted for the classic milky-white broth since I can't stand anything with garlic oil (white bowl). As per normal, we had an extra serving of noodles after the first round.
My husband finds it very difficult to keep his eyes open for photos.
We tucked into the food without first taking pictures because we were so hungry, and I can never wait to dive in the minute food is placed in front of me :/ Anyhow, here's what our bowls of noodles looked like halfway through.
Bottom-line, the service was impeccable, the noodles were good, but not as good as Marutama (although the hubby begs to differ). The noodle is indeed springier and much thinner than any ramen I've tried, but the broth just doesn't match up. No umami. The tamago was not done as well, and the pork belly was not exactly melt-in-the-mouth. In times of recession, the significantly higher Ippudo bill for the exact same orders is a major boo factor too.
Chubbs met Barney for the first time after we ate.
