food review : hakkata ikkousha

we have tried this one before, but since i liked tong-tong better, we never went back again. but yesterday, my husband was craving for warm and soupy noodles, so we went there again since tong-tong hasn't opened yet. here in hakkata ikkousha you had to wait for them to seat you. on our first visit, matthew was still a newborn, maybe just a month or two, and we had no babysitter at that time, so they let us wait inside. and even we got the bigger table. and the owner arranged for our food to come out one by one, since one must took care of the baby while the other ate. that's a pretty considerate owner! we were impressed. but the food didn't impress us much. it was too salty for our taste.

yesterday, since the ramen selection was more than our first visit, we had more option to choose. my husband tried their pork tam-tam ramen, and i tried their pork light ramen. i now noticed the difference between tong-tong and hakkata. in tong-tong, the soup was clear and only seasoned with salt or shoyu. but in hakkata, the soup was a stock of pork, that's why it was salty. my husband also ordered pork ribs. the ramen was still salty, but it was okay. i still prefer tong-tong though. the ribs was okay, but nuri's was way better. hahaha.. probably because i was too accustomed to western's ribs.

the menu was mostly consisted with ramen, and other noodles, and ribs and fried food like tempura. the don choice was limited also. and there was no sashimi or other raw food, which was weird for japanese restaurant. ah well, my husband said that they were real. back in japanese, he saw some ramen like ones from hakkata, so probably if they said we're the 3rd branch from japan, it'd probably true.

sooo.. if you wanted to try cooked japanese food, hakkata was a good place to go. but for me, stil tong-tong numero uno for ramen!

That's my pork ramen light.

That's the pork tam-tam ramen.

And that's the pork ribs

*update* couple days ago my husband suddenly craved for ramen, and we ate there again. this time i ate the pork shoyu ramen. according to the explanation, it was similar to tong-tong's chasiu wangtangmen. but minus the wang tang aka dumpling. the difference between those two was the soup. tong-tong's soup was clear and all was shoyu plus water. while hakkata ikkousha's was a mix between stock, probably pork, shoyu and water. no wonder it was saltier than tong-tong's. oh, and by the way, i started to like hakkata ikkousha, but tong-tong still win my heart.