Ichiban Japanese Noodle Café

Send us more details about this place.

The 2011/12 edition of The List's Eating & Drinking Guide is out now – only £5.95 (+p&p).

This review is taken from the current (2011) edition.

The upstairs venue on Queen Street began serving healthy, nutritious Japanese dishes in 1998. The West End branch followed four years later, breathing new life into Partick and now, surrounded by numerous choices, it continues to be immensely popular. While the city centre attracts office workers for the quick £6.90 two-course lunch, Dumbarton Road sees diners of all ages, avid sushi fans and graduates from the numerous noodle cafés across the city. Both venues share a vibrant, casual atmosphere with long, communal wooden benches and TVs playing mainstream music videos. The menu is organised into simple sections of sushi, bento, soups, wok-fried and rice dishes with sides that can be ordered as starters. Kaisen rice features generous amounts of prawns, squid and scallop with a rich miso soup and pickles on the side. Beef yakiudon has thin-sliced sirloin wok-fried with crunchy vegetables and thick wheat flour noodles. Portions are generous and prices reasonable – bento boxes at £13 are easily the most expensive items. There’s draft Kirin beer and a range of Flora teas served at the table where a dried flower ‘blooms’ gloriously in hot water.

• High point: Healthy, fun, fast food
• Low point: Can get very noisy