ICHIRAN RAMEN B1F, 13-7 Udagawacho, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

Imagine walking down a staircase which leads to a corridor that branches out to a series of rooms. The room on the left contains a vending machine and glass cabinet which proudly displays a trophy of sorts. The rooms to the right are filled with little private booths each with their own water faucets. This is the sight that greets you when you venture into Ichiran Ramen in Shibuya, Tokyo.

As I strategically came early to avoid the lunchtime rush the rooms are noticeably empty. Before I realise, a server appears explaining to me that I need to purchase my #ramen at the vending machine. So I proceeded to the ticket machine to place my order. Lucky for me the server was nice enough to help me navigate the buttons written predominantly in japanese. Now with ticket in hand, I made a beeline to my enclosed booth in the other room as salarymen started to arrive. Sitting on my table is a pen and paper with options to customise my ramen.

Ichiran specialises in making only tonkotsu ramen which is a pork based broth. Not only can you choose various toppings to complement your bowl like japanese chashu (pork), you can also request the strength and richness of your broth and the texture of your noodles.

Happy with my choices, I then pressed the buzzer on my bench and another server appeared to whisk away my docket and form. I poured myself a water from my private water tap and waited eagerly for my lunch to arrive. Within ten minutes my meal is placed in front of me and the server closes the wooden blind attached to my booth.

I now have complete privacy to indulge in my lunch.

Looking down at my hot bowl of ramen I couldn't wait to dig in. All those hours of slowly boiling away pork bones had left a milky sea of goodness. As I expected the broth was flavoursome and it left a really nice mouthfeel. Whilst it wasn't the best ramen I had in Japan (that title goes to Ippudo in Ginza), it was still damn good!

In fact the competition and standard of ramen in Japan is so high that you'd be hard pressed to find a bad one.

I recommend checking out Ichiran Ramen. They have restaurants across #Japan and the unique eating experience alone is worth a visit.