Hong Kong - Noodle House Ippei-An 麵屋一平安

4 hours of intense tennis later, my legs are feeling like lead.  I rush to get off the court so I can meet my buddy S who's in town for a weekend of intense Pilates instruction.  Staying in a TST hotel, we decided to meet at the Miramar Shopping Centre, renovated recently to reveal a little freshness and more to offer in F&B.  I had read about Noodle House Ippei An and decided to see if it was possible to grab a comforting bowl of noodles.

At quarter to 10 in the evening, our wait was about 5 minutes, which I'm told isn't too bad.  After much deliberation, we settled on the house specials.  

The Nagasaki Ramen (長崎拉麵) can feed 2 hungry people easily especially if you order sides.  The other choice which we passed on was the Higomonzu Ramen.  This is the ever popular pork bone based soup stock which is full of flavour and served generally with well stewed pork and liquid-centred coddled eggs.

Back to Nagasaki - which lived up to our server's description of a very rich and flavourful stock, but with hardly a trace of grease.  You can drink up without any guilt here.  The well balanced toppings of pork slivers, white-neck clams, squids, Japanese fish cake and a farmer's field of cabbage, chives and mushrooms made for a hearty but healthy supper.  My only complaint was that the noodles weren't as springily al dente as I usually like them but I suppose we could have made that request upfront.

Our starter the Ippei-An salad (一平安沙律), chock full of garden greens, topped with corn, Japanese crab stick, roe and a side of mash, was delightfully chilled and fresh.  Wonderful appetiser.  

A nice casual joint, set like a bar rahter than a noodle house with very soft down lighting to enjoy a ramen fix.  I had a quick glance but the rather big sake/shochu menu keeps it interesting too.

Shop 11, 2/F

Miramar Shopping Centre

132 Nathan Road

Tsim Sha Tsui

Kowloon, Hong Kong

Tel: +852-2375 5330

Hong Kong - Ramen Santouka

Ramen Santouka has invaded TST with its newest outlet at iSquare.  2 things I look for in a good bowl of ramen.  The soup and the noodles.  I consider everything else a distraction.  Sure it's nice to have soft cha siu and nicely-done liquid-centred eggs, but these are secondary if the basics are not done right.  Santouka comes pretty close to a good bowl of ramen.  The secondaries were very mediocre - eggs were overcooked and the cha siu pretty ordinary.

I ordered the original "shio" or salt flavour, pretty much unadulterated unless you consider salt to be sin.   A hearty bowl of stock which has been on the boil for a good 10 hours (at least) - an amalgamation of pork bones and other sweet root vegetables, onions, etc which you can no longer detect as together, they've taken on another identity.  And considering a pork bone based stock, it wasn't greasy.  


The ramen is fragrant and you can smell it as soon as you use your chopsticks to lift them.  Heavy on the eggs, and surprisingly not soggy and heavy.  It still had a good bite (I think you can let your server know how you like your noodles) which considering I didn't place an order, is probably the way Santouka san (if he exists) meant for it to be eaten.  

The lunch set comes accompanied by a bowl of rice topped with bonito and spring onions and alfafa, laced with soy sauce.  A great combination except that there was just way too much spring onion and alfafa that the heat from the 2 overpowered the tiny little bowl of rich and sprinkle of bonito.  An unfortunate episode of generosity killed this pup.  Was dying for a coffee to douse the heat after lunch.


Overall, a good option for lunch so long as you get there before the crowds do.  


Shop 608, 6/F, iSquare
63 Nathan Road
Tsim Sha Tsui
Kowloon, Hong Kong
Tel: +852-2721 1298