| rev:text
| - The food here is hit/miss.
When I first saw Dan Dan Mein on the menu I was superrrr excited, it is one of my favourite dishes when done well, but so far I have not found a good place in Toronto for this dish. A good Dan Dan Mein is PACKED with flavor, has a nice spicy kick complemented by the richness of the ground pork and the crunch of nuts (usually peanuts). While the Dan Dan Mein here has the nice nut crunch for texture, it seriously is lacking in flavour in every other aspect, from the acidity from preserved vegetables that is supposed to be in this dish to a more spicy kick traditionally from szechuan peppercorns, the ground pork used was also too lean for me, hence did not provide the richness of flavour. I am not saying that they need to be traditional, since it is momofuku, but I expected the essence of the dish to be preserved and reinterpreted in a creative way. Needless to say, I found this dish here rather bland and disappointing. My husband also tried it and felt the same, he is commenting from an overall dish perspective (he tried Dan Dan Mein once and don't really have preconceived expectations of this dish). I guess the good thing in this dish is that the noodles were not overcooked.
The Smoked Chicken Ramen though is pretty good and interesting. We really liked the intense unami obtained from the black mushroom and chicken based broth, the crunch of the fried chicken skin, the moist chicken (which was moist but lacked a bit of flavour), the nicely cooked noodles and the poached egg. It is definitely different from the norm of regular ramen, but the essence of comfort food in ramen was maintained. Nice dish.
Overall, the noodles dishes are ok, oh one more thing that I really did not like about the noodle dishes here, I found the temperature of the noodle dishes to be warm to lukewarm when served. On a cold day, I like really hot (in temperature) dishes, especially when it comes to ramen or noodle soups. Portion sizes are on the smaller side and they cost about $14-$15 per ramen, but I expect that, due to its location and name, so I did not weigh this as a negative for this review.
The pork buns are also pretty nice here, same as the momofuku pork buns in NYC but maybe just that the slice of pork belly is smaller in Toronto. The slice of pork belly is rich and tender, served with hoisin sauce and chives inside a pillowy soft bun, yums.
The overall vibe of the place is casual, with communal table type seating and long bar table like seating (duh, noodle BAR). Service is fast and efficient. Overall, a 3 due to the creativity exhibited by some of the dishes and the yummy pork buns.
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