Vancouver: Kintaro Ramen & More Poutine!

I love ramen.  I am addicted to ramen.  Just so happens Calvin & Alice both like it too, so we decided to make a little trek to West End for Kinarto Ramen, often rated as the best ramen spot in Vancouver.  It's located on Denman and that little area has a few other popular ones, including the huge ramen chain, Santouka!

I was expecting a long wait since it was lunch time and the weather was perfect for noodles, but luckily, we only waited about 20 minutes, and got seated at the huge communal table right next to the window.

Kintaro Ramen

788 Denman St

West End

Vancouver, BC V6G 2L5

Kintaro Ramen.

Not a big place at all.  A big communal table for about 8-10 people or so, the counter, and some twosome tables along the wall.

Part of their menu.  Like Shinshengumi in LA, you can choose the heaviness of your broth.

I decided to go all out and got the Spicy Miso BBQ Pork Ramen, with fatty pork and rich broth.  Normally, their ramen comes with two slices of chasu, but if you get the BBQ pork ramen, you get more!  The menu recommends a medium broth with the spicy miso, but I felt like clogging up my heart a bit that day.

Went with the spicy miso as my soup base since it comes with this ball of fresh ground garlic!  You can tell from the fat marbling on my chasu that yes, it is the fatty pork.

Alice's Spicy Miso Ramen.  This is the regular portion with medium broth and two pieces of leaner pork.  The broth is really top notch. 

Calvin's Cheese Ramen.  A must for cheese lovers.  Definitely interesting, although a bit odd for me! You get their light broth and a piece of cheese to sit on top of the chasu slices. There's no option in terms of the strength of the broth so you can taste the cheese. The server said it was very popular with the ladies for some reason.  Maybe he was trying to say something to Calvin haha.

The cheese!  Don't know what type it is or maybe it is two different types?

Really glad I got to try Kintaro Ramen and it actually cracks the top 5 ramen spots I've been to!  The feel of the whole place is authenticity and it's easy to tell why it's been rated and featured as one of the best.

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Afterwards, we decided to work our way back by walking on Robson and I came upon Bubble World Tea House!  I am addicted to milk tea as well, and I actually like to drink something like milk tea after a heavy meal.  Didn't have my phone with me to check how it was rated, but I was fine with it as long as it was better than Lollicup or Quickly.

Bubble World Robson 

1325 Robson St 

West End

Vancouver, BC V6E 1C6

Outside.  It was completely empty inside and the guy wasn't even at the counter so I got a little bit worried.

Ended up getting a safe choice, Milk Green Tea, with half sugar.  It was actually pretty good and did satisfy my craving.  Very milky.  Sorta expensive though.  Actually everything's expensive in Canada.

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Right before our flight, Amanda came out and met up with us, and she took us to a poutinery, Belgian Fries for more poutine since options are limited back home :P  I miss poutine..

Belgian Fries

1885 Commercial Drive 

Grandview-Woodlands, The Drive

Vancouver, BC V5N 4A6

Belgian Fries, "Best Poutine in BC"

We decided to go crazy with our last poutine in Vancouver and got a poutine with gravy, bacon, and a fried egg!  The fries are thicker than some of the others I've been to.

Egg!  I live how the yolk is still runny.  Too bad I focused on the wrong thing with my camera :[

Nothing wrong with more bacon.  

The gravy is really good here.  Flavorful and thick.

The perfect way to end a trip in Vancouver: poutine!  I really don't know why it hasn't caught on in the States, considering how everybody love fries.  Again, thanks to Amanda for coming out and then taking us to Belgian Fries!

New York: Tabata Noodle

Rather than staying in and cook, we decided to go out for lunch and waited 40 minutes for Tabata Noodle Restaurant.  It's sort of a weird restaurant... they serve Japanese ramen, but rather than traditional ramen, they have fusion ramen.  The main cooks aren't Japanese either.  Rather, the majority of the staff is Burmese, so there are some very Southeast Asian touch in some of the ramen.

Tabata Noodle Restaurant

540 9th Ave 

Between 39th St & 40th St

Hell's Kitchen, Midtown West, Theater District

Manhattan, NY 10018

Outside of Tabata.  It's very close Port Authority.

Part of the menu.

Yea, we laughed at this for awhile, but I actually thought about ordering it cause it was in one of the newspaper in NYC. 

Inside of Tabata.  Fairly cramped.

Instead, I went with the Tabata Ramen.  Chicken broth with soybean powder, coconut, red onion, cilantro, and spicy chicken.  This was one of the ramen that was more Southeast Asian.  I was expecting flavors more like tom kha but it's more like laksi.  Spicy chicken sorta got lost it in.  Janice liked it, but I just though it was average :P

Link decided to get the Dark Men.  Turns out it is actually chicken broth with black sesame paste and ground pork!  I like it a lot since the flavor's a lot heavier.  Sorta has a hint of the Chinese fermented black beans.

Link and I also decided to share a few rice dishes and first to arrive was chahan.  Solid fried rice.  In fact, one of the better fried rice I've had at a ramen place!

Sutamina Don.  Pork & veggie sauteed with spicy garlic sauce.  We expected it to be so much more but it tasted just like a Chinese dish.  Not spicy enough.  Jimmy got the ramen version of these.  I didn't try it since I was sorta disappointed with the rice version of it.

Lava Men.  Chicken & pork bone broth soup with beansprouts, eggs, and pork.  A much more traditional style ramen.  Good bit of kick.

Fried octopus I believe.  Traditional Japanese fried food batter so it's light and good with sprinkle of lemon!

I wasn't that big of a fan for Tabata, but probably my own fault.  I figured... can't go wrong with ordering the namesake ramen, but didn't expect the ramen to be so coconut-y (don't like coconut).  Other stuff I tried was way better than what I ordered.  I can see why this place is popular though since it does have a wider selection, and for the price, the portion's reasonable too!

New York: Fried Chicken Dinner at Momofuku Noodle Bar

Sandy was hitting Manhattan Sunday night, so we contemplated about whether or not we should head out for our reservation at Momofuku Noodle Bar for the Fried Chicken Dinner.  Eventually we decided to make it to our reservation since we were gonna be stuck indoors for the majority of the next day.  Might as well get the most out of our trip before Sandy shuts everything down! 

The Fried Chicken Dinner is Momofuku Noodle Bar's large format dinner like the Bossam Dinner at Ssam Bar.  They give you a plate of Southern-style fried chicken and Korean fried chicken, and you can make your own wraps or just eat it straight up.  Of course, it is served family style, for 4-8 people, at $100, and you have to make a reservation for it!

Momofuku Noodle Bar

171 1st Ave 

Between 10th St & 11th St

East Village

New York, NY 10003

momofuku.com

Oct 28th dinner menu.

We found out the fried chicken itself is probably not enough food, so Edwin and I decided to get everything on this part of the menu, except for the dried noodles :P

Momofuku's famous Pork Buns, with pork belly, scallions, cucumber, and hoisin sauce.  I posted about it before and mentioned how it is very similar to Taiwanese guabao.

The super fatty and delicious pork belly.

Shrimp Bun.  I didn't try this at Ssam Bar last time.  It's essentially a fried shrimp cake, with spicy mayo, pickled shallots, and iceberg lettuce.

Fried shrimp cake.

I didn't think I'd like it since I don't like mayo-based sauce, but it's actually very good!

Usually there's a 3rd bun on the menu, and they change it up all the time.  That night, they had the Shiitake Bun.

 Fried shiitake, scallions, cucumber, and hoisin sauce.  Very similar to the pork bun, but flavor's totally different.  Crunchy shiitake is great, although a few pieces were overcooked so it was a bit bitter.

The Momofuku Ramen.  Soup base is much lighter versus tonkotsu-based broth.  Ramen noodle is great, but I wasn't too crazy about the soup.  

Pork shoulder and poached egg topping.  Pork shoulder was more like shredded pork.  Kinda got lost in the soup though.  Poached egg was awesome since once broken apart, the yolk slowly immerses itself with the soup.

Pork belly.  Same as the Pork Bun.

Spicy Miso Ramen, with smoked chicken, scallion, and sesame.  This was a big disappointment for Edwin and me.  Couldn't taste much of the smoke flavor from the chicken, and it just wasn't spicy enough.  Not much miso flavor either.

After the ramen, they started to bring out everything for the Fried Chicken Dinner.

Hoisin sauce and gochujang.  Chinese + Korean combo here.

Scallion sauce.  This was probably my favorite from the bossam dinner at Ssam Bar.  Glad to see they provided here too.

Soy sauce dressing with garlic and jalapeno.  A little bit of sweetness too.

Herb basket (basil, mint cilantro) with baby carrots, red ball radishes, shiso leaves, and bibb lettuce.

Mushu wraps.  They provide these so you can make your own wraps.

The fried chicken arrives!  The two types: Southern-style fried chicken & Korean fried chicken.

Southern-style chicken is fried with a buttermilk and old bay batter.  Extremely hard crust.  It was like biting into a shell.  We wanted it to be crunchy, but not break our teeth off..  Seasoning was good though.  Drumstick and smaller pieces were pretty juicy but some of the bigger pieces were really dry.

Korean fried chicken is triple fried and served with a light spicy glaze.  I definitely prefer this over the Southern-style.  The glaze is mouthwatering and goes really well with all the sauces.  Crust is not as hard, more on the crunchy side probably due to a lighter batter?

Making a wrap with the mushu wrap.  Chicken, cilantro, scallion sauce, basil...

I added a bit of the hoisin sauce to give the Southern style a little Asian flavor.  It was the only wrap I made though.  When the wraps got cold, it became extremely chewy and hard to eat, so we didn't eat much of it.

It was a meal we were looking forward to, but I think the hype killed it for us.  We were expecting a lot out of the ramen, but none of it really delivered for us.  We're spoiled with all the ramen spots in California.  The Fried Chicken Dinner sounded awesome, but it was just too good to be true..  I gotta admit though, Momofuku knows how to make some bombass buns.  I would order all 3 that I tried in a heartbeat.