Japanese food appears to be one of the booming trends in Montreal Asian food in the last few years. Many large cities in North America saw the boom in the last while based on the popularity of Sushi then Izakaya. Ichifuku is a strong contender for top echelon ramen in MTL. Located on St Cath W there is a plethora of Asian restaurants. I decided after trying Yokato Yokabai to come test another ramen joint, so I came here.
The first thing you notice as you enter Ichifuku is the industrial looking noodle machine at the front of the restaurant. It's a clear indication of serious intent to bring fresh ingredients and quality to the establishment. In Japan (when I visited 16 years ago) Ramen is taken seriously. It's akin to how North American carnivores (and usually men) take steakhouses seriously. The restaurant is brightly lit and clean and feeling like it was a diner in another era.
For my lunch I went with the Tonkatsu kuro mayu soup. At $11 it's very reasonably priced. It came out piping hot a few small slices of pork, scallion half soft boiled eggs and a beautiful milky buttery garlic broth. Overall the soup was a strong 3.75/5. I did find the soup not as hearty as other ramen places. The noodles were a good texture of chewy and definitely fresh. I was a bit dissapointed as for condiments it only came with shichimi togarashi (dry chilli). It would have been nicer with fresh condiments. Go ahead and charge me $2 more the fresh condiments would be better. Overall with tax it came to $12.65. I would come back here and try another soup as they had lots of selection on the menu. Service was courteous and expedient.