Konjiki Ramen & Saryo Cafe

This has to be THE place to go to now.  Everyone's been talking about it for the last month or two.  Whats the big deal you ask?  Konjiki Ramen has been on the Michelin Bib Gourmand list for the last few years.  What does that mean?  Usually when you hear of Michelin, its number of stars.  In Toronto, there's no restaurants with any stars.  Why?  I'm not sure why Toronto doesn't use the Michelin system.  There's only a few cities in the world that have the Michelin star rating.  Back to the Bib Gourmand (after doing some Googling), means a list of restaurants that are deemed as having good food with moderate prices.

I finally got the chance to check out Konjiki Ramen. I thought I planned it well too, going for a weekday early dinner.  Well life happens, and my early diner (planned to arrive for 5pm as people say there is usually no lineup then), ended up with us arriving at 6pm, with a line pretty much out the door.  So for the first half of the lineup, we waited in line just inside the door.  It was freezing cold each and every time the door opened while more ramen hungry people squeezed in.  After about half an hour lining up, I decided to stay warmer and sit and wait.  So we had dessert at Saryo Cafe (they share a space with Konjiki Ramen in the front), before dinner.  I don't know why people don't think of doing that as well.  So if theres a line, get dessert first!

We ordered the Saryo signature parfait with matcha soft serve.  The parfait started off with a layer of green tea and water jelly at the bottom, then topped with hojicha cream, red bean, granola, matcha soft serve, mochi, and matcha brownie.  Lots of ingredients! The granola I personally wasn't a fan of. I felt that it didn't add much to the parfait.  The match soft serve, I will say is the best matcha soft serve I've had in Toronto.  Great amount of matcha flavour, and not grainy.  All the other places in Toronto that serve matcha soft serve has great flavour, but you're left with a grainy powdery aftertaste in your mouth.  The hojicha cream, I don't know how to describe, was a tad more bitter that matcha, more of a roasted but mild tea flavour?  Matcha brownie was a bit too dense for me, but again good matcha flavour.  If you're at Konjiki, you must grab at least some dessert.

Saryo Signature Parfai - Matcha

Total wait time to get a table for us, was just under 1 hour.  According to Google wait time was only supposed to be less than 15 minutes.  So NEVER trust Google for wait time estimates.  But to speed things up, they hand you the menu while you are in line so you can order right away when you are seated.  From ordering to getting the food, it was SUPER fast.  The hubby took off his jacket, and went to the washroom, and our ramen arrived at the table before he even came back! We ordered their signature clam broth shio ramen, original shoyu tonkotsu ramen, and a side of braised pork belly.  Starting off with the broths.  Both the clam broth, and the tonkotsu broths are VERY different from any of the other ramen houses in Toronto.  The clam broth, very light and clear, strong truffle and clam flavours.  Nothing like I've ever tasted in a ramen broth before.  Delicious.  The tonkotsu broth, exact opposite of the clam broth, beautiful creamy pork broth that coats your mouth and doesn't seem to go away.  While being creamy, it didn't feel heavy.  I know it's a sign of respect and that you enjoyed your meal by finishing your broth.  Usually I don't.  But this time, I drank it all down!

Noodles, also different than the ramen houses in Toronto.  The only other time I've had ramen noodles like this was in North America was in New York City at Mr. Taka Ramen (sister restaurant to Bigiya in Tokyo which is also on Michelin's Bib Gourmand list).  The noodles are thinner, more al dente, and I would say more similar to a pasta than the ramen noodles that i'm used to eating.

All of their meats are done sous vide.  While the meat was tender, it felt a bit dry.  I assume because the chashu was made with a leaner cut of pork.  There was a thin strip of fat, but other than that, the chashu was very lean.  The pork belly, had some strips of fat running through it, and it was definitely a bit more juicy than the chashu, but there was a bit of gristle so some bites were a bit chewier.  I guess I'm just not a fan of the sous vide method.  The braised pork belly also came with an egg.  Presentation of the egg was flat out horrible looking.  I can't figure out how they cut it to look the way it did.  And it was also missing chunks of white too.  Usually when you can't peel the shell away from a boiled egg properly, either they did it too hot, or the egg wasn't fresh.

How to Enjoy Your Clam Broth Ramen

Original Shoyu Tonkotsu Ramen

Signature Clam Broth Shio Ramen

Braised Pork Belly

Interior wise, half the restaurant has normal table/booth seating that is friendly for everyone.  In the middle of the restaurant, there is counter height seating with bar stools, not so family friendly.

Was this ramen good?  Yes, it was delicious.  Would I wait an hour for this again?  Definitely not.  Having said that, when we were paying, there owner or manager there, told us that they are planning on starting a regular line, and a priority line.  Anyone with a child under the age of 2, or a senior over the age of 70 will be placed in the priority line.  It doesn't mean that you will be placed in front of everyone thats waiting, but they will try and seat the priority line quicker than needing to wait the regular wait.

Konjiki Ramen & Saryo Cafe
5051 Yonge St.,
North York, ON
M2N 5P2

Konjiki Ramen Phone:  (647) 350-7766
Saryo Cafe  Phone:  (647) 350-6611

Hours:  Monday 1130a - 1000p
             Tuesday CLOSED
             Wednesday - Sunday 1130a - 1000p

http://konjikiramen.com
http://www.saryocafe.com

Kinton Ramen Hwy 7

Kinton Ramen has opened a location in Markham along Highway 7.   Ramen close to home?  Yes please!  Opening during the perfect time of the year too.  There's nothing better than to slurp a hot bowl of soup noodles during the cold winter to warm your body up.  Out of all the ramen restaurants that have opened uptown and downtown, Kinton remains my favorite.  What makes Kinton my favourite?  The broth.  Their broth is always silky smooth and full of flavour.

My husband found out from a friend on Facebook that Kinton is doing their soft launch right now and was begging to go for dinner.  Official opening is Saturday January 28.  This morning I saw on their Facebook page that they're opening for lunch, so we popped in for a bite.  This Kinton is the most spacious i've been to (I have only been to their Baldwin and North York location).  And I guess because it's during the soft opening phase, it was busy all the tables were taken, but not overly busy.  I'm thinking that after the grand opening, it will get busier.  

Menu wise, it's pretty much the same as all the other locations with ramen being their focus.  We ordered their original ramen with pork with thin noodle (which is the equivalent of what other ramen shops call shio ramen), original ramen with pork with extra thick noodle, and original karaage.  The broth was as good as I remember, thick and velvety, i'm salivating as i'm thinking of it.  The broth is thick enough so it thinly coats your tongue.  No chunks of unappealing fat floating around which is a thumbs up from me.  Both the thin and thick noodle was cooked to a perfect al dente.  Egg was good but I think a slight tad overcooked.  There was the beginning formation of the powdery yolk on the outer edge.  Pork wise, I'm not sure if this is the way the pork is served with ramen at the other locations, but instead of getting a choice of pork shoulder or pork belly, you get one slice of each.  Taste of the pork shoulder was same as the other locations, but thinner.  The pork belly was what was different for me.  The slice of pork belly was smaller, and thinner than the Baldwin location, and the charring of the pork belly was minimal, so there was less of the smokey flavour.  Overall, still better than other ramen shops.

Kinton Hwy 7 Menu

Original Ramen with Extra Thick Noodle

Egg

The karaage was good, 5 pieces of deep fried thigh meat served piping hot.  So hot that I burned the roof of my mouth, I couldn't help it, I was too excited!  My husband thought that the batter/coating could be a bit thicker to make it crunchier, which I agree.  But it was still crispy enough.

Original Karaage

So super happy a good ramen place is now open in the Markham!  One small gripe is that service is a bit slow, it took longer than normal to get our ramen, but i'm assuming that it's because their still working out their kinks during this soft opening phase.  I'm thinking that it's going to get super busy in the future, even with the pain in the butt parking.....

Kinton Ramen Hwy 7
505 Highway 7 East, Unit 54-58
Markham, ON
L3T 7T1

Phone: (905) 597-8775

Hours: Hours currently are soft opening, not sure if it will be different after their grand opening.  Check their Facebook page for updates.  https://www.facebook.com/kintonramen/?fref=ts

http://www.kintonramen.com

Sansotei Ramen Markham

I'm still super behind on my blogging.  The posts actually have been written, I'm really behind on posting.  But even though I'm so far behind, I feel like I need to post about Sansotei now, rather than waiting.  The reason for this is to let you know how bad I found the food to be.  A warning to stay away if you want good ramen.

Our line up on a Tuesday night, took abut 25 minutes, even though we arrived at 815p, which I thought should have been late enough for no lineup.  But given that it was still new, I guess a lot of people wanted to try?  We got in, and we were seated at a communal booth table.  We were starving, so we quickly placed an order for zangi (fried chicken), gyu don, tonkotsu black ramen and tomato ramen both with thick noodle.  Our waiter told us that they were sold out of the zangi, so we ordered the spicy slow cooked wings.

The slow cooked wings arrived first.  They did not look appetizing at all.  I guess partly because I didn't expect them to be soy sauce chicken wings.  The sauce was a combination of soy sauce, star anise, and chilis.  They were cooked well you could say, stewed for a long time, the meat was fall off the bone.  But I can't stand rubbery/soft chicken skin, so it was kinda gross.

Spicy Slow Cooked Wings

Gyu don arrived shortly after.  Beef and onions on rice.  The beef looked extremely fatty.  I hate the texture of fat, so I picked it off.  I wasn't left with much beef.  It was also ridiculously over sauced.  And for some reason the sauce was super watery.  After we scooped out a spoonful of rice, it was like a pool of sauce filled the empty space.  Shouldn't the sauce be thicker?  The sauce was also too salty.  What drove me nuts too was that the rice didn't appear to be Japanese rice, the grains didn't stick together, making me think it was Chinese rice.

Gyu Don

My tomato ramen was a tomato based broth, not sure if it used the same tonkotsu base, topped with pork belly, scallop and egg.  A bowl of perfectly cooked ramen must include a properly cooked egg, noodles cooked just enough, and a broth that has been simmering on the stove for a long time to produce the deep, smooth flavour.  First glance, it looked good.  But when I looked closer, the egg was slightly overcooked.  The egg yolk should still be soft.  It was mostly soft, but at the edge, I noticed that it was solid.  Cooking the egg this way is difficult, almost an art.  Maybe the chef is new and still trying to figure timing out?  The broth was just ok, it was smooth, it tasted tomatoey, but it also tasted like Thai tom yom flavouring was added.  The noodle was cooked really well.  I had read reviews where people said that the thick noodle was undercooked.  I thought mine was cooked perfect.  The scallop looked pretty.  It had the main scallop part, the frilly part and the roe sack.  But when I took one bite, that was it, I almost spat it out.  Way too fishy for me to handle.  The pork belly had good char marks on it, which I like.  Gives it extra flavour.  As I picked up the pork belly and put it near my mouth, I smelled it.  I sniffed it again make sure I was smelling it.  The smell of stinky old pork.  It's not the smell of rotten pork.  The pork did not go bad, and is edible.  This smell usually comes from lesser quality of pork, or older pigs.  I couldn't eat it.  My husband ate my scallop and pork belly, and gave me half of his egg.  So I was left to eating noodles, and 1.5 eggs.

Tomato Ramen

The tonkotsu black is the tonkotsu but just with added black garlic oil.  Broth was ok, not the best I've had, but also not the worst I've had either.  The noodles, thick noodles, was cooked perfect.  Pork belly again had the stinky old pork smell.  The egg was also overcooked.

Tonkotsu Black Ramen

If you want ramen, please go downtown, or go to Kinton at Yonge and Finch.  If you want soupy noodles within Markham or Richmond Hill, go find yourself a wonton noodle, or pho place instead.

Sansotei Ramen Markham
3987 Highway 7E,
Markham, ON
L3R 5M6

Hours:  Still on soft opening, so not sure if the hours will change in the future.
             Monday - Sunday 5pm - 11pm

Tohenboku Ramen

The first place in which I ate a version of ramen that did not include pork or pork based broth of any sort was in Vancouver at Marutama Ramen.  I haven't gotten a chance to blog about my trip which happened last year, because of the sheer number of places I ate it, it would take a super long time time write up a single blog about it.  I promise it's coming.  It will be done before the summer ends.

I was really looking forward to some chicken based broth ramen because it was very good at Marutama.  It can't be that hard right?  I make chicken broth at home all the time.  I do cheat out of convenience sometimes, but it never tastes as good as the homemade stuff.  I ordered the shio original Tohenboku ramen.  The husband ordered garlicky Tohenboku ramen.  They had a special at the time, not sure if it's offered now, that if you follow them on twitter, you can get a free topping on your ramen.  So the husband got an order of pork belly added to his ramen.  We also got an order of karaage to share.

My husband loves karaage, and tends to order it whenever given the opportunity to.  However, we were disappointed in this one.  The karaage was not crispy.  It wasn't soggy either, but the outside was just soft.

Karaage

Visually the ramen didn't look very appealing to me.  My soup had already partly congealed when it arrived, so I had to remove the 'skin'.  And the chicken, looked like headcheese.  It didn't have much taste to it, so it was not properly seasoned, even though you can clearly see pepper in the pictures.  The broth was weak in flavour.  Which makes me wonder what they actually use to make the broth.  Unless we went 'too late' at night and they added water to the broth.  Thats what it tasted like to me.  My husband's ramen was slightly better because the garlic seasoning added additional flavour which mine was lacking.  The noodles were cooked well, so no complaint there.  My egg was a little 'roughed' up, it was missing part of the white.  Which is a sign that the eggs are not particularly fresh. The pork belly tasted extra fatty because there was no charing of the pork.  I hate soggy pork fat.

Shio Original Tohenboku Ramen

Garlicky Tohenboku Ramen

Not sure I would make the trip to Tohenboku again.  The flavours just weren't there, which I found shocking because there are so many ramen restaurants out there competition wise.

Tohenboku Ramen
261 Queen St. W,
Toronto, ON
416-596-8080

Hours:  Monday - Saturday 11am - 12am (midnight)
             Sunday 11am - 10:30pm

http://www.touhenboku.ca

Ramen Isshin

I went on a day, that I probably shouldn't have even got out of bed.  But instead, I went to work, I went to school, and went out to try a new ramen spot.  So to be honest, I'm not sure if I was actually able to taste all the flavours in the broths.  I stuck to my 'usual', tonkotsu ramen.  I wish they had just plain tonkotsu.  Why make something so complicated when simple is good?  So I picked the addition to the broth with the least amount of flavour impact, shio (instead of shoyu or miso).  The hubby ordered shoyu, and my friend ordered the red miso ramen combo that came with a bowl of rice topped with some pork.

It was very hard for me to taste the flavours of the broth, so my opinion in this case is probably null and void.  But I do recall that the texture of the broth was very thick and creamy.  Which was very good for my super sore throat.  I really liked the fact that they give you toasted sesame seeds along with a mortar and pestle to add extra flavour to the broth.  The pork wasn't very good, too fatty and not enough char flavour.  The egg was cooked well.

Tonkotsu Ramen

The other ramens, tasted good (according to the others).  My friend didn't realize that his red miso ramen was meant to be spicy.  On the menu we didn't recall it saying it was spicy either.  So warning.....red miso = spicy.  My friend had a bit of a tough time eating it, but he toughed it out.  I would have volunteered to swap my ramen with his if I didn't have a sore throat, but I couldn't this time.  I didn't want my throat to be on fire later.

Red Miso Ramen

Shoyu Ramen

One other item that was ordered, that I again wasn't able to try was the takoyaki balls.  It looked a little stiff to me.  They said it tasted ok.  To this day when I hear takoyaki balls, I still think of the ones I had at the Kyoto market.  Nothing has been able to compare to them.

Takoyaki 

The general consensus was it was good, but not sure if it was that good for us to come back since theres other ramen restaurants within the immediate vicinity.  I think my favourite is still Kinton.


Ramen Isshin
421 College St.,
Toronto, ON
M5T 1T1

416-367-4013

Hours:  Monday - Thursday 11:30am - 11:00pm
             Friday - Saturday 11:30am - 12:00am
             Sunday 11:30am - 10:00pm

http://www.ramenisshin.com

Jyuban Ramen House

Still not sick of ramen yet.  There seems to be a few new ones that have opened in downtown Toronto that I have yet to try.  A little closer to home is Jyuban Ramen House.  I rarely go to Commerce Gate, because parking is atrocious there.  But of the times that I do go, I've noticed Jyuban, kinda like the quiet kid sitting in a corner in a room.  The fact that this place has been opened for years (Asian restaurants typically aren't open for long), must be good right?

They have regular ramen noodles, and they also have squid ink ramen noodles.  We got one of each to try.  For the regular ramen noodles, we ordered the regular tonkotsu, for the squid ink ramen, we got the seafood ramen.  We also ordered the ramen as a combo.  For a few dollars more, you get a pork rice ball and a red bean cake for dessert.  The pork rice ball was essentially a shredded pork onigri.  I've never been a big fan of rice, so this wasn't really for me.  It was also a tad heavy on the salt.  Ramen wise, the tonkotsu soup base was quite weak, the flavours just weren't really there.  I think the soup base is actually the same for all their noodles.  Noodle wise, I really didn't like them.  Their regular ramen noodles tasted just like spaghetti.  Their squid ink ramen noodles, tasted a bit fishy, and texture was similar to spaghetti as well.  The chasiu was dry.  The egg however, was done well.  The yolk was cooked perfectly.  Red bean cake, was ok.  Nothing special.

Pork Rice Balls

Squid Ink Seafood Ramen

Tonkotsu Ramen

Red Bean Cake

Overall, not that great of a ramen restaurant.  If I had a ramen craving I would be heading downtown. And if I really couldn't get downtown, then I would head to Sonoya at First Markham Place instead.

Jyuban Ramen House
505 Highway 7 E, Suite 65-66
Thornhill, ON
L3T 7T1

905-882-1188

Hours:  11am - 3pm, 6pm - 11pm , Tuesdays Closed

http://jyubanramen.com/WordPress/

Sansotei Ramen

Yet another ramen post.  What can I say, I love my soupy noodles.  I avoided this place for quite a while because of the lacklustre reviews i've seen when they first opened, so I really didn't feel like I would be missing out on much.  Hence left for last almost.

They do 'customized' noodle thickness, noodle cooked-ness, and soup flavour intensity.  So it really is a customized bowl of comfort.  Or so I thought.  The reviews were true to their word for my bowl.  Not so much for my husband's bowl.  The comments that made me stay away for so long was that the broth wasn't hot, it was room temperature.  I have to have my hot foods hot.  My husband's bowl though was steaming hot.  So much for consistency.  Their noodles were good, cooked perfect, we both ordered their 'original' noodles.  The broth was sweet, almost too sweet, almost to the point where it made me wonder if they added MSG.  The pork belly I didn't like, because I don't like huge chunks of pork fat, I like the thinly layered fats in between the meats.  So I spent the time separating meat from fat.  And my egg was missing a chunk of egg white.  Because the ramens were so forgettable, I've forgotten what we ordered. Since on first visits, I normally go for tonkotsu, i'm going to assume thats what I had.  By the looks of the colour of the broth of my husband's, it looks like it could be shoyu.

Tonkotsu Ramen

Ramen, Shoyu?

Sansotei Ramen
179 Dundas St. W
Toronto, ON
M5G 1Z8

Hours:  Monday - Saturday 11am - 10pm

http://www.sansotei.com/index.html

Kenzo Ramen

I remember the original Kenzo Ramen located at Yonge and Steeles.  I'm not sure if it was that I didn't have other options to compare it to, or if it really did taste that good.  But I definitely remember it being a very good soup noodle place to go to.  Nowadays, theres so many ramen restaurants to choose from, but I wanted to try Kenzo again to compare to the new ones that have popped up.  I paid a visit to the newly opened Kenzo near my work place.  I was severely disappointed.  The soup base was full of MSG.  The noodles looked like the frozen ones I could buy at the supermarket.  The chasiu was dry.  I have pictures of what we ordered, but I can't remember what the names of the noodles were.  In any case, not that it matters, because I won't be going back to Kenzo.

Kenzo Ramen
720 Burnhamthorpe Rd.
Mississauga, ON
L5C 3X3
905-766-4136

http://www.kenzoramen.ca/index.php

Sonoya Japanese Noodle House

I love noodles!  Doesn't matter if it's fried, or in soup, but preferably in soup.  It’s my comfort food.   But finding a good ramen place that is not MSG laden is quite hard to find when you’re out of the downtown core of Toronto.  I found Sonoya by chance.  I had made plans to go to Nak Won at First Markham for dinner.  I wasn’t able to get a spot near Nak Won, so I had to park all the way on the other side of First Markham Place.  That’s when I spotted Sonoya with their grand opening sign and congratulatory flowers.  Good thing my friend was flexible and we popped in to Sonoya instead.  As it turns out, after doing some google research, Sonoya is a sister restaurant to Kenzo (Yonge & Steeles location, I don’t think it has any relations to the other Kenzo shops).

First visit to any ramen place, I always order the tonkotsu ramen.  I want to see if they can get this basic broth right to see if it’s worth coming back again.  My friend ordered the king ramen.  I’m not too sure what the difference in the broth for the king ramen is, to me it looked like there were just a larger variety and quantity of toppings on top of the noodles.

The tonkotsu broth was thick and creamy, and just the right amount of salt for me.  But I think for others, it may be a little bland on the bland side.  The chasiu were thick cuts, and not much fat layered in between which probably caused the pork to be quite dry.   I wouldn’t recommend ordering extra chasiu on your ramen unless you like dry pork.  The noodles itself were quite tasty, just the right amount of chewiness.

Overall, a decent ramen shop to satisfy a ramen craving.  But if you’re willing to make the trek downtown, I would suggest doing that instead.

Tonkotsu

King Ramen

Sonoya Japanese Noodle House

3235 Highway 7 E, Unit 22

Markham, ON

905-944-0990

Hours: Monday - Saturday 11:30am - 10:30pm

            Sunday 11:30am - 9:30pm

http://www.kenzoramen.com

Ryogi

This is the second last ramen restaurant to visit in Toronto.....I think.  After this I still need to make a trip to Sensotei.  No eating out again till after this school term is over.  Lockdown mode starts NOW!

Ryogi was very different from the other ramen restaurants in Toronto.  It was much larger, more loungey feeling.  Location is pretty inconvenient to get to I personally think.  Might explain why there was no line up out the door when we went on a Saturday night at dinner time.

We ordered the Ryogi salad, Ryogi takoyaki, Otoko-Aji (Tonkatsu) ramen, and Onna-Aji (Shio) ramen.  One strange thing I noticed was that if you order their ramens that come with an egg, it's $2 more.  But if you order ramen with a side of egg its only $1.50 more.  The math doesn't add up.  We asked the waitress and she said no one's ever mentioned that before.

Ryogi salad was nothing special, just a bunch of veggies and sesame tofu with the standard Japanese salad dressing.

Ryogi Salad

The Ryogi takoyaki was very disappointing.  I've been wanting to eat REAL takoyaki ever since going to Japan.  The stuff in Toronto just tastes like bread with a small piece of octopus in it.  Here at Ryogi, instead of tasting like bread, it was essentially deep fried mashed potato with a small piece of octopus.  That is NOT takoyaki.

Ryogi Takoyaki

The ramens were quite yummy, even tho they were the thin noodles.  This time the thin noodles didn't remind me of wonton noodles.  When ordering the ramen, they ask you how well done we would like the noodles.  This concept was new to me, I've never been asked this before.  The Otoko-Aji broth is a pure pork based broth, very delicious.  Creamy, but not too thick.  Best part was I wasn't super thirsty after dinner!  The Onna-Aji is a pork & chicken based broth.  I wasn't a huge fan of this one, couldn't pin point an exact reason, but just preferred the Otoko-Aji.  The hubby liked my broth so much he ordered an extra serving of ramen noodles for $3 so he could have my left over broth too!

Otoko-Aji

Onna-Aji

Just a warning, ramen portions are not as big as the other ramen restaurants in Toronto.  But since I base my preference on soup base, and not portion size, I think I might actually prefer Ryogi over Kinton.

Address:

692 College Street, Unit 690

Toronto, ON M6G 1C1

Phone: 416-533-8083

Hours: 

Mon-Thu 12 pm - 12 am

Fri-Sat 12 pm - 2 am

Santouka

The last few months, the ramen craze has hit Toronto!  There's ramen shops popping up on what feels like every corner of the city.  I'm a sucker for noodles so i've been trying to find the time, stomach & pant space to try them all.  I tried Santouka in the middle of December.  Yes i'm getting slow with the posts again :(.

The lineup at the time was crazy long since it was still I think in it's soft opening days.  I think at around 9pm, we had to wait for about an hour still!  According to the time stamps on my pictures, by the time the food arrived, it was already 10:30pm.  Good food is always worth the wait.  But was this one?

The ramen dishes ordered were:  Shio Ramen, Miso Ramen, and Tokusen Toroniku Ramen.

Miso Ramen

Shio Ramen

Tokusen Toroniku Ramen

The flavours of the broth were pretty good.  Lighter than Kinton, but just as flavourful.  For the regular ramen dishes, we found the pork to be on the dry side, and not much flavour.  The Tokusen Toroniku Ramen, the pork was the highlight of the evening.  Good flavour, moist and very tender.  The one thing which makes me like Kinton more is the noodles.  Santouka's noodles are the thin variety.  Cooked very well.  Still a bit chewy.  But it reminded me of wonton noodles.  I'm not a huge fan of wonton noodles.

Santouka vs Kinton?  I would say Kinton wins.

Santouka

91 Dundas Street East, 

Toronto, ON

M5B 2C8

647-748-1717

Hours: 11am-11pm
http://www.santouka.co.jp/en/index.html

Momofuku Noodle Bar TO

I was very excited when I heard that David Chang was opening a Momofuku in Toronto.  I have always wanted eat at Momofuku because of the reviews of his several locations in NYC.  Each time I have gone to NYC, I tried to include it in, but other restaurants always snuck in on my list instead.

When I walked through the doors of Toronto's Noodle Bar, I was expecting a wait, a long one, especially since the I've seen and been in the long line ups for other new ramen restaurants that have opened up here.  As soon as we walked in through the doors, we were seated immediately.  Strange I thought.

Our order consisted of the infamous pork buns, mushroom buns, the infamous ramen, and the smoked chicken wings.

The pork buns and the mushroom buns arrived first.  Pork buns looked great but tasted disappointing.  This is the first place where I have tried pork buns of any sort (have not been to Ippudo yet).  On the menu it was mentioned that it was high quality pork, Berkhsire?  I have found that Berkshire pork or other humainly raised pork products have evenly layered fat, or distributed evenly.  This is making me think of the maple smoked bacon I have purchased from the Brickworks Farmers Market, it was amazing!  Okay, back to Momofuku. The pork belly had HUGE chunks of fat.  It was quite disgusting.    Flavour wise, it tasted like Chinese BBQ sauce.  And as you can see, the buns were flat, and not light and fluffy as mantau should be like.  The mushroom bun flavour reminded me of Chinese Shanghai noodles.  In otherwords it tasted like soy sauce, some oyster sauce and mushrooms.

Pork Buns

Mushroom Buns

The ramen, looked good.  Tasted blah.  I personally think that what makes the ramen is the broth.  I love a good thick hearty broth.  Here, the broth was a clear broth, no pork flavour, and watery.  The only flavour the broth had was a slightly smoky flavour similar to bonito flakes.  The chasiu was dry, and had a 'pork' flavour that I don't like.   This flavour normally I usually taste when the pork is a cheap quality pork.  To me tastes like a dead rotting taste.  The egg was a poached egg, not a perfectly boiled egg that normal ramen dishes are served with.  I was also not a fan of the noodle.  It's not the ramen noodle that I'm accustomed to.  It was more like the thin wonton noodle rather than ramen noodle.

Ramen

Smoked Chicken Wings.  There was little to no smoke flavour.  Although the wings look browned, it was soggy.  What I hate most about eating chicken is squishy, rubbery, fatty chicken skin.  I hate eating the skin off of steamed/poached chicken.  This is what it resembled.  There was some sort of sauce on the wings.  Tasted like a soy sauce.  Essentially, this dish was no different than my mom's soy sauce chicken wings.

Smoked Chicken Wings

Overall, I was very disappointed in this meal.  I have heard that Momofuku's tasting menu up on the third floor has much better food.  But i'm not sure I'm willing to spend the money to try it after being so disappointed on their signature dishes.  During my trip to NYC, I wasn't willing to go to Momofuku to try their ramen again, even though I have heard that it's much better there.  I did however try their crack pie which I thought was pretty good.  A separate post on my NYC trip later.

Momofuku Noodle Bar TO
Ground Floor
190 University Ave.,
Toronto, ON
M5H 0A3

Lunch 11:30am - 3pm
Dinner 5pm - 11pm

http://momofuku.com/toronto/noodle-bar-to/

Kinton Ramen

It's been a long while since I have posted anything here.  Lots of stuff has happened in the last few months, all good, making it hard for me to find the time to post on here.  I have continued on eating and taking pictures of all that I have eaten.  Now all I need is to find the time to blog about it.

Kinton Ramen, I went when it first opened, sometime in June.  I think I must have went on the hottest day possible.  At that time, they hadn't installed the glass partition in the kitchen yet, so it made the entire area HOT!  You know it's really hot in there when while you are eating you have sweat rolling down your face, and when we finished eating and walked outside, it felt cooler outside than inside.  And outside that day with humidity was low 40's!  They have since installed a glass partition, but I still find it quite warm in the restaurant.

For each soup base you order, you get a choice in light, or regular broth and pork belly or pork shoulder.  The three of us ordered a gyoza, Miso regular broth with pork belly, Shoyu regular broth with pork belly and Shio regular broth with pork shoulder ramens.  They also have a strange cheese ramen that I didn't have enough courage to try, just sounded too strange to me.  I always like to try the most basic of anything the first time I visit restaurant to see how well something is done.  The simpler the dish, the harder it is to make.  No masking of the flavours this way.  Just the pure flavour comes out.  The gyoza was nothing special.  Tasted like a normal pan fried dumpling/gyoza.  I have never been given the option of light or regular broths before.  I didn't realize that regular broth means chunks of pork fat floating around the broth.  It was not a pretty sight.  Aside from the chunks of pork fat, the broth tasted very good.  Thick and almost creamy, lots of flavour.  Never had ramen with a broth like this in Toronto, Japan yes, here no.  Broth flavour wise, I preferred the Shio as it was lighter tasting.  Miso and Shoyu was way too salty for me.  Pork shoulder was too lean, a bit too tough.  Pork belly, was like a thick slab of bacon!  They even torch it right before serving!  Delicious!  Last but not least, the perfectly cooked egg!  Again, never seen a egg cooked like this before in Toronto!  The only thing I didn't like was that the egg seemed to have a soy sauce flavour.  The outside of the egg was slightly brown too.

Overall, so far I think this is the best ramen spot in Toronto that I've discovered so far.  I have yet to try Momofuku (although I heard it's quite disappointing compared to the NYC location).  The broth here, the light version, so comforting!

Gyoza

Shio Ramen

Miso Ramen

Shoyu Ramen

Egg

Kinton Ramen
51 Baldwin St.,
Toronto, ON
M5T 1L1
647-748-8900
Hours:
Lunch Monday to Sunday 11:30am - 3:00pm
Dinner Sunday to Thursday 5:00pm - 10:30pm
               Friday to Saturday 5:00pm - 12:00am