| rev:text
| - My first exposure to ramen was the dry msg ladden instant noodle packages.. Mr. Noodle and I go wayy back :) but later in my school days I discovered it wasn't just that. Ramen can eat like a meal. It was the best low cost staple a student can have to save money.
Much later in life did I find out that there are entire shops dedicated to this soup craft. Even a movie which I got a kick out of called Ramen Girl, starring Brittany Murphy delved into this art of making soup.
Ok when I'm hungry, soup isn't the first thing that comes to mind. So rarely when I do go out to eat do I choose soup. I have to either have a craving to eat soup (rarely) or I feel like I'm coming down with a cold (likely).
Off the top of my head I've only been to a few places; Takebashi in Commerce Gate in Markham, Ajisen Ramen on Spadina and on Yonge St. North York, Cattle Cafe in Richmond, BC and now Kenzo in North York.
The biggest difference I find between the places is the quality of the noodle and ingredients. The broth at all places were are all pretty good and tasted as described.
Alright enough background and onto my experience at Kenzo..
When I got there I was fortunate to find parking in the front of the shop (from reading some reviews it's hard to park). I sat at a small round table for two and looked at this well worn paper menu. Not feeling experimental that day, I ordered the Basic Ramen. It's called Sho-Yo Ramen - Super Noodles with Japanese Soy Sauce.
About 6 minutes later it was brought out to me -- steaming, presented on a black wooden tray.
Yes it's a bowl of soup, but it isn't no frills though - it comes with fresh seaweed, a slice of turnip, half an egg, and few pieces beef. On the side some ginger and pickle.
Also brought to the table is red and white pepper. My favorite is the red hemp pepper.
My take,
Look - the broth is salt flavoured soup, with a hint of soy.. a good neutral stock. the yellow egg based noodles are just slightly bigger than the wavy noodles ones has in an instant noodle package.
Aroma - breathe in the salt and seaweed, you can readily exfoliate your face with the steam. :)
Taste - noodles cooked with the right amount of chewiness, it soaks the flavours of the soup base nicely, beef was ample, it was very tender in the soup, the half egg cooked about right and not over done.
It was an excellent bowl of ramen.
The interior of the restaurant -- a kind of narrow hallway feeling, the dark wood interior doesn't help, there's some Japanese beer paraphernalia about.. Half the restaurant are booths, half open tables. At the rear of the restaurant where the kitchen is located there's a huge counter the servers use to prepare the ramen.
Anyways, I'd come back here if I'm in the mood for soup again. The basic ramen was excellent. Next time I'd try something else perhaps with the miso based stock.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)