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| - No MSG added. No trans fats. No peanuts.
Notice they inserted the word "added"?
After reading that tag line on their menu board, I was even more skeptical at trying this place out as it's located at Eaton Centre's food court and amazing food isn't usually found in ANY food court. With that acceptance and the fact that I actually have no beef with MSG, I braced myself for a one star experience.
My eyes being extremely hungry, I ordered the Tonkotsu Noodle combo with chili edamame and Bacon Kimchi Fried Rice with salted edamame. What can I say, I couldn't decide!
The service was very friendly and quick - off to a good start.
Let's talk about the edamame, to chili or not to chili? Both side items consist of steamed edamame - the first one with a couple tablespoons of chili oil on top; the other, your standard traditional salt. The verdict? Salted wins this round for me; and even then, it's just salted edamame. The chili edamame was oily and nothing special. In fact, I found that with the chili oil, the edamame lost its addictive quality I love so much.
The Bacon Kimchi Fried Rice was surprisingly a little sweet with a hint of spice, random bits of bacon pieces and big chunks of cabbage. I would've preferred the bacon to be crispy/crunchy but overall, the dish was ok. Wouldn't order it again, though.
Lastly, the Tonkotsu Pork Ramen. The ramen noodles, though come prepackaged, was actually cooked right. It had a decent chew to it and it's a step up from the packages you can make yourself. The toppings were decent - it had bamboo shoots, corn, half a hard boiled egg, a few strips of seaweed, green onions and 3 strips of char siu pork. I prefer my egg with the yolk still a little soft and runny for ramen but it's a food court dish - if Kenzo can't get it right, how I expect Liberty Noodle to? The char siu pork was seasoned well - it was soft, not quite as melt in your mouth as good, traditional char siu can be; but not bad either. The broth had the right balance of salt and cream and it had that warming mmmm feeling you'd get with most ramen soup. Don't be mistaken, it still lacked that traditional slaved-over-the-broth-for-almost-two-days taste but it was actually quite good - better than some of the ramen restaurants I've been disappointed with around the city so for food court ramen, I was pleasantly surprised!
You can count on me to come back in between shopping!
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