My trouble is use an html non-ionic version of this code:
<div class="list">
<a class="item item-avatar" href="#">
<img src="venkman.jpg">
<h2>Venkman</h2>
<p>Back off, man. I'm a scientist.</p>
</a>
</div>
Only if you mean that using components (directives) that do much more than what you need is “the Ionic way”.
I rely on Ionic’s CSS for simple lists like this, there is no advantage to using the directives that add more features if you do not use any of these (you just make the app slower because bloated).