Review: happy hour/dinner.
We came here for a special birthday and were early enough to try their happy hour before the main event.
Bottomline: their attempt at creating a ramen fusion shop was somewhat of a hit, but needed extra to hit bull's eye. Happy hour is great.
Atmosphere: Kensington is a trendy area and this restaurant is no exception. Decorated in more or less Izakaya style, the restaurant has a nice casual trendy ambience inside. The restaurant also has a patio but it was closed for the season. Service was great and attentive. They let us bring in our own birthday cake and provided all the settings.
Food: for happy hour, we ordered the salmon poke, spicy tuna roll, and chicken chips. The salmon poke was well balanced with the condiments but was a bit fishy. The chicken chips were essentially deep fried chicken skin, which sounds delicious but somehow they managed to make it impossibly bland. The spicy tuna roll was great. When one thinks about spicy tuna rolls, it's common to expect an inside out roll with "red tuna paste" inside. Ikemen puts a nice spin to the dish by putting the mashed tuna on the outside with a little slice of Jalapeno pepper on each one. Very cool.
For the main meal, we ordered the tom yum seafood ramen and the mushroom ramen with chai sui. The tom yum seafood ramen tasted exactly how it sounds. Portions were a bit off with only a few seafood items to compliment a large bowl of ramen. The mushroom ramen was the opposite. There were so many mushrooms that they made the flavor quite monotone and it overpowered the ramen.
Value: the prices for happy hour were very good. I would definitely come back for it. The price for the ramen was just okay.