Ichiban- Revisit

You gotta love the somewhat divey exterior of this old house out on Bash Road near the Castleton post office. Once you get inside, it’s actually a little nicer than a dive—they’ve updated their chairs with decent looking wooden ones in the last couple of years and have attempted to “remodel” the place to a certain extent. Hubby and I chuckled over the quality of some of the work though—for instance the women’s bathroom door doesn’t really shut and definitely doesn’t lock and all the trim in the place is crazily installed.

Regardless of all that, it’s a cool place. The servers are very friendly, if not a tad overworked on this particular day. Apparently people know about this place, and people like this place, because it was pretty well full. We got one of the last tables and after waiting a few minutes (I think a second server came in during this time) we placed our order and after that point, service was very efficient. We decided to venture out from our usual order of sushi and yaki ramen with pork and order some new things.

We started with an order of shrimp shumai. It was a fairly generous portion and tasted pretty good. Pretty straight forward—lots of minced shrimp in there. I really liked the dipping sauce—a soy/vinegar combo with scallions. My only gripe was that a couple of them were kind of cold in the middle still—I am still going to hope they are making them in house and then refrigerating them and steaming as needed. I just wished they had cooked them a bit longer.

We also tried the oyakodon donburi bowl, which is rice, a fried chicken cutlet, lots of veggies mixed in and, according to the menu, a poached egg. Actually the egg is basically cooked on top of the chicken cutlet, giving it sort of another layer of coating. (Apparently oyakodon means “parent and child” referring to the chicken and the egg together.) They cook the two together and then add a sauce—which is a light sauce. I’m guessing mirin and soy and maybe dashi. There were also some lightly pickled veg in there giving it a nice acidic touch. After adding a touch more soy, I really enjoyed the dish overall. It sort of ends up tasting like a really good fried rice once everything is mixed together. There were a couple of gristly bits of the chicken though. I would recommend the same dish with the pork cutlet, which is an option as well.

Speaking of pork cutlet, we did stick with one classic (you know, just to make sure we had something we knew we’d like) and got the yaki ramen with pork. This is a really yummy dish of ramen noodles, but stir-fried, rather then in a broth (they do those too). There are lots of slivered veggies mixed in—zucchini, onions, scallions, and carrots and the noodles are tossed in a light, tasty sauce. The pork cutlet is thin and fried, yet still tender and not tough, and gives the noodles a little something to stand up to. We both love this dish.

They have a pretty wide-ranging Japanese menu from sushi to various noodle dishes and Bento boxes. The prices are reasonable—I didn’t keep track specifically but an appetizer and both dishes plus tea and miso soup was just under $20. Check it out and let me know what you think. Or if you have other favorite items, let me know that too.

Ichiban Noodles

8355 Bash Street

Indy 46250

317/841-0484

(No website, boo!)

Ichiban Noodles

Hubby and I have this conversation fairly often about grabbing a quick lunch near our house. Something local, something near the Castleton area (where we live), and if possible, something new. It’s a tall order.  We remembered Ichiban Noodles, and it is a place several of you have told me about and recommended. Honestly, we had been there once before, but quite awhile ago, pre-blog days.

First of all, there is something about the kind of run down hack exterior of the place that makes you feel hopeful about the food. I’m not sure what it is, and hubby and I kind of disagree about this.  He also doesn’t like that the place is kind of cold inside, which he says he remembers from our first visit.

One of the things I like about the menu is that they have a lot of noodles on it (hence the name right?).  They have the more common udon and soba noodles in broth that you see in a lot of Japanese places, but they also have ramen, which I think is less common in Indy.  So we got an order of the ramen yaki with pork ($7.05) and split a couple of rolls—the Hoosier roll ($5.10) and the softshell crab roll ($8.35).

The ramen noodles are served stir fried, and not in a bowl of broth--they were really good and had a nice distinct flavor without being overly greasy.  There were probably almost as many veggies mixed in with the noodles and I loved that they were cut almost the same size as the noodles.  One of my pet peeves with noodles dishes (and others) is when there is a giant vegetable in the middle that is way too big to eat in a bite (or 6) but you just have chop sticks to eat it with.   Anyhow, this was not a problem here at all—there were onions, bok choy, zucchini and carrots and they were all sliced up just about as thick as the noodles.  We chose the option with a breaded pork cutlet on top—and it was quite good as well. Not tough at all and had a nice crunch and seasoning that went really well with the noodles.  I would get this one again for sure.

The rolls were good as well.  Not the tidiest or prettiest rolls I have ever seen, but the ingredients were good and they were a nice bite size (well, the soft shell crab was piled pretty high).   The Hoosier roll contained tuna, avocado and a drizzle of spicy mayo inside (and I had them add a little tempura crunch).  The tuna was fresh (although somewhat random in its size in each piece), and I liked the bit of flavor from the spicy mayo, but it wasn’t that weird chopped up “spicy tuna” that often seems a little too mystery-meat to me. I liked the crunch from the little bit of tempura they put in (again, at my request).  The soft shell crab roll was pretty good too—the crab was chopped up and mixed with the spicy mayo—and a bunch of it was piled on top. Not my favorite in the world, but we certainly managed to eat it all. 

The interior is small and certainly not fancy. The people working there are really nice—both the sushi chef who welcomed us and said goodbye as we left, and the server who was exceptionally friendly throughout the entire meal. I also liked the hot towels they brought you for your hands when you sit down. They obviously have a large group of regulars who come in for lunch, and if I worked in the area, I can see why. It’s nice to have found a reasonably priced and good quality independent restaurant in the Castleton area. 

But please feel free to help hubby and me out for the next time. Any more recommendations for that area?

Ichiban Noodles

8355 Bash Street

Indy 46250

317/841-0484

(No website, boo!)