Having visited the Ippudo in Sydney and Tokyo and absolutely loving it, I had high hopes for the one in New York. We were staying in the Westside so we went to the local one rather than on the Eastside.

Saying my wife and I were disappointed with the experience is an understatement. For starters I ordered an Umeshu which is a Plum wine and ended up getting the wrong drink, Ok I can understand that miscommunications can happen but when I called it out they brought back the correct drink but the glass was all sticky on the outside...

Things just kept going downhill from there, I ordered the Akamaru Modern and Jasmine got the Akamaru New York (vegetarian) when the actual food arrived as it was what I would describe as below average ramen, 2 tiny and thin pieces of pork, 2 tiny pieces of cabbage, old mushrooms and overly salty broth, they didn't get anything right.

I wasn't even a fan of the spoons as they were much larger than normal which made them very difficult to use.

The highlight of the trip was the nifty folded napkin, great job I guess 👏

We met some locals and before mentioning how our experience went they said that the Westside one is overrated and the Eastside one is much better. One would hope 🙄