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| - I've heard really good things about Hakata, and after checking their website and seeing $9.80 hakata tonkotsu ramen, decided to come here for dinner.
When you walk up to the restaurant, you'll see the distinct wooden design. Once you're in, you'll see a row of manga and other reading material available. Perhaps while you're waiting? Or maybe to use while you're slurping those noodles and flipping pages with oily fingers? Hopefully not the latter.
They've got some interesting artwork hanging on the walls of popular street fighter characters...holding bowls of ramen!
After looking at the menu, it looks like their website is outdated. The prices for ramen are only a dollar higher, but they should try to keep their main website updated, if anything. They also have new ramen bowls (compared to what's written on their website) such as a "Red Hot Tonkotsu" and a "Cold Ramen".
We ordered a Hakata Tonkotsu and a Cold Ramen with no extra toppings, both with wavy thick noodles. The bowls arrived within 10 minutes. I suppose this is a perfect opportunity to pick up some reading material while you're waiting for the food.
The Hakata Tonkotsu comes with two pieces of chashu, a handful of black mushroom,s green onions, and some noodles. The broth is quite tasty and not greasy at all; don't hesitate to empty the bowl. The chashu was round and thin, and somewhat chewy. Overall, there isn't much variety in flavour, so you might need to add some more toppings: the ramen became a bit bland after a few bites.
The cold ramen bowl is the same as the hakata, except it costs $2 more, and they use a vegetable broth. I didn't like this as much and would rather just go with the hakata. The broth is pretty important and I'd like a rich broth. It's not even a vegetarian dish, I'm not sure what the point is...I guess if you like a light vegetable broth?
I've heard from others that the amount of food you get here is "much more than kinton or sansotei", but I wouldn't say that's an accurate statement. At most, you get maybe a bit more, for pretty much the same price. The thick wavy noodles weren't particularly thick, and I'm kind of curious how thin the thin noodles are.
On the way down to the washrooms, you'll pass by the employee-only prep room, and it's really hot and stuffy down there, which results in an unpleasant stench emanating from the room. I'm not too concerned about cleanliness of the working conditions as long as they're passing health safety inspections, but it's not pleasant.
In terms of ramen, they're competing with sansotei, kinton, and menya fuji between Finch and North York Centre. And if you add chinese noodle soup to the mix, there's a lot of options. I'm feeling more Big Beef Bowl over this place.
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