Ikkoryu Fukuoka Ramen

There is a new addition to the Melbourne ramen scene and that's Ikkoryu Fukuoka. Ikkoryu isn't actually a complete new player though, they have been established in Japan since the 1970's and just called Melbourne one of the new babies in their family.

Mario and I got invited to their soft launch where it gave us an opportunity to sample their menu. To start we got to sample some of their appetizers that was floating around. Mario and I tried the gyoza, karrage and fried rice. We found all of them really enjoyable and got second and third servings of the gyoza and karrage.

For the ramen I couldn't say no to black garlic when I saw it on the menu. I had black garlic when I was in Tokyo and loved it to bits, and have been on the hunt for the best black garlic ramen in Australia ever since. Ikkoryu’s black garlic is done with a tonkotsu soup base. The intensity of the  garlic was just right. All other elements of the ramen is customised to your liking, so you get to pick how much ramen oil, garlic, soy sauce, noodle texture and the toppings. I am not very adventurous in that regard so I opted for normal garlic oil, noodle texture and  garlic for mine. The hero of this ramen was the black garlic broth, it wasn’t very heavy but just heavy enough. Personally I would prefer a thicker broth, but it wasn’t bad the way it was.

Mario opted for the original tonkotsu, as he thinks it's the only way you can truely taste if a ramen soup base is good. The tonkotsu soup was rich and punchy in flavour. The egg was perfectly runny and had good soy infusion into the white of the egg.

Overall 16/20 I found all the things we tried to be very appetizing and it's a place that I have visited again since then.