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| - I've been curious about ramen in MTL but never seem to get around to trying any whenever I visit. It was freezing the other day and I wanted something soupy. I thought of Korean but wasn't sure if there is any good Korean food in MTL so I decided on Imadake, across the street from Alexis-Nihon.
I was in a bit of a rush so we didn't have time to drink and draw out the meal beyond the time it took us to eat, so we didn't get to try any of their cocktails or other drinks, but they had a number of items on their fairly extensive menu that I would not have minded (their online menu is slightly different). I was also glad to see black cod present but I didn't end up ordering it as I hadn't yet tried anything at Imadake and if the fish wasn't done right, I would have been really disappointed! There were the usual izakaya staples: salads, grilled skewers of meat/skin/cartilage, gyoza, takoyaki, okonomiyaki & other fried items, dessert, etc. but what we really wanted was ramen.
Imadake offers about 4-5? choices of ramen where you choose the broth type: miso or "original", which I don't know if that's shoyu (soy sauce) or shio (salt) but there was no mention of tonkotsu anywhere on the menu; and then you select flavours: miso with pork belly (~$11) and miso grilled garlic ($12?) ramens were what we ordered, along with grilled mackerel (~$10), and then I watched the guys behind the counter throwing it all together. There was one working on the presentation of dishes that were done before ours and really getting into the placing of the garnishes, all intense-looking.
The mackerel came out as two pieces and was grilled nicely, with the edges all crispy. Not overly flavourful but definitely didn't have the fishy taste that mackerel often comes with. I didn't try the grilled garlic ramen but my miso pork belly was just OK. There were no sprouts in sight, nor anything with crunch, which there should have been. The pork belly was too thin and small (only one piece; I wonder how much you get with the "extra pork belly order" for $2 more?), and we both agreed that the broth wasn't terribly flavourful. The noodles were springy but very slightly undercooked. The egg wasn't soft boiled and runny, which is good because I don't like them that way anyhow, even though that's how it's supposed to be done. I wasn't sure if the place is Japanese or Chinese-owned so I had no idea what I'd get when I asked for "something hot" to add to our ramens to liven up the broth. We got those chili pepper flakes in oil that you get in Chinese restos, which did the job.
I don't think anyone who works there is over the age of 25, and they all seemed professional. There are a lot of staff which is probably quite useful as I could see Imadake being busy most nights. Service was great, very friendly and attentive, among them a couple of actual Japanese waitresses!
I haven't been to other ramen-ya or izakayas in Montreal but the ones in Toronto have been mostly mediocre at best with few exceptions. I don't know what the MTL standard for these types of places is but I would go back to Imadake to try other items. I wasn't expecting a whole lot, but based on this one time, I'd bump this place up by another half *.
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