noodles – Michael Eats

Decent Noodles at Lion City

Published on April 23, 2023April 23, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1177 Central Parkway West, Mississauga
Website: https://www.lioncityrestaurant.ca/

It’s odd — Singapore’s cuisine is incredibly delicious, and yet there’s maybe like half a dozen Singaporean restaurants in the entire GTA? If that? I feel like there should be one in every neighbourhood, but at least we’ve got a few of them.

One of those few restaurants is Lion City in Mississauga, which serves a diverse menu of Singaporean classics that, alas, were mostly unavailable when I visited. I guess they were having kitchen issues?

The laksa was one of the few dishes that was available, and hey, I’m never going to be mad about having to order laksa.

The style of laksa they serve here features a really tasty, curry-and-seafood-infused broth that’s made luxuriously creamy thanks to coconut milk, and that comes with a generous amount of thick rice noodles.

It was far from the best laksa I’ve ever had, with a flavour that was a bit too muted, and with slightly overcooked noodles, but it was still tasty. The various toppings — shrimp, fish cakes, chicken, tofu — were all well prepared and complemented the soup quite well.

This is going to make me sound like a maniac, but there’s a type of instant laksa you can find at Asian supermarkets from a Singaporean company called Prima Taste, and… I honestly think it’s a little bit better than the version they’re serving here, with a more vibrant flavour and a better texture on the noodles.

I know that recommending instant noodles, of all things, over a restaurant dish sounds like a food crime, but trust me: try those noodles. They’re so much better than any other instant noodles you’ve ever had.

Lots of Flavour at Crafty Ramen

Published on April 18, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 217 Ossington Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://craftyramen.com/

I love ramen. If you browse through this blog a bit, that much should be apparent. I think it’s one of the world’s few perfect foods; I could live off the stuff (it would be a short but happy life).

Crafty Ramen — a lauded ramen joint from Guelph — recently opened their first location in Toronto, on the Ossington strip, and yeah, it’s good. It’s not the best bowl of ramen I’ve ever had, but there was a lot I appreciated about it.

I ordered the Northern Warmer with pork, which the menu describes like this: “A hearty miso ramen inspired by the Hokkaido region of Japan, featuring our very own Miso Robot! Pork chashu, chili miso butter, roasted corn, cabbage, carrot, and menma in our chicken broth.”

There are a lot of neat touches here — there’s the “miso robot,” which I guess is just miso-infused butter shaped like a robot, and the corn is nicely charred, giving it a bit of a smoky flavour.

The broth is very, very salty, however, which does somewhat drown out the would-be complexity from the miso. I certainly didn’t dislike eating it, but it’s a bit one-note and in-your-face.

I added on an egg, and it was perfectly cooked, with a great, jammy yolk. But like the soup, it’s a bit salty — it basically tastes like eating soy sauce with the texture of an egg.

Still! It’s ramen. It is inherently great, even if it’s not the best bowl I’ve ever had. The noodles were maybe a touch overdone, but were otherwise chewy and satisfying.

Chewy, Unique Noodles at Rougamo & Noodles

Published on April 16, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 4905A Yonge Street, North York
Website: https://rougamoxianstylenoodles.com/

I actually wasn’t planning on posting this anytime too soon (I’ve got a bit of a backlog), but I’ve just heard that this restaurant is closing in about a week, so I figured I’d post this now while it’s still around. Check it out before it’s gone!

I could tell you about what Rougamo & Noodles is all about, but Karon Liu wrote about it for the Toronto Star in far more depth than I ever would, so… here’s the link.

I tried a couple of things mentioned in that article. First up was the pork rougamo, a simple dish consisting entirely of stewed pork on a chewy flatbread. This was a tasty if unspectacular sandwich that’s much improved by adding a healthy dollop from the jar of smoky chili oil on the table.

And of course, you can’t go to a place with noodles in the name and not try the noodles, so I went with their specialty, the signature biangbiang noodle. This is a really unique dish that features a single hand-pulled noodle that’s thicker, broader, and chewier than the norm. It comes topped with more of that stewed pork, along with a zippy, tomato-y sauce that works really well with the substantial noodles.

Tasty Noodle Soup at Ikkousha Chicken Ramen

Published on February 2, 2023February 2, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 249 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.ikkousha.ca/ikkousharamenchicken

Ikkousha Chicken Ramen shocked me. It’s a spin-off of Ikkousha Ramen, which specializes in porky tonkotsu ramen. I like that place a lot, but I find the flavour of the soup to be a bit one-note porky. It’s delicious, but not exactly my favourite ramen in the city.

Ikkousha Chicken Ramen, as you’d probably expect, serves a similar style of ramen, but made with chicken instead of pork.

I ordered the tori paitan ramen with an egg added on (a must). They have lighter choices on the menu, but the tori paitan is basically the chicken version of the signature tonkotsu at the original restaurant.

It’s very, very good. It has really delightful roast chicken flavour; it’s like a soup version of a great roast chicken, with such a rounded chicken flavour that it never feels one-note like the ramen at the original location.

The slices of ultra-tender chicken on top are great, and the egg was perfectly cooked, with a great flavour and a perfectly jammy yolk. The noodles were maybe a touch too soft, but that’s a minor complaint for what is otherwise one of the best bowls of ramen I’ve had in a while.

Chewy Korean Noodles at Cho Sun Ok

Published on January 3, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 7353 Yonge Street, Thornhill
Website: http://www.chosunok.ca/

Cho Sun Ok does well. I showed up at around 6:00 on a Friday, which you’d think would be early enough to beat the crowds, but nope — the place was already packed. Always a good sign.

And yeah, it’s quite good. While they have a fairly extensive menu of Korean standbys, everyone seems to agree that the cold naengmyun noodles are the thing to order.

I went with the mool naengmyun: “Thin, chewy arrowroot noodles topped with our homemade red pepper sauce, sesame seed oil, pickled daikon, slivers of cucumber, a slice of pear and a hard-boiled egg in our flavourful beef based icy broth.”

The style of noodles here are so immensely chewy that they have to be cut with scissors before you start eating them, and combined with the zippy pepper sauce and the beefy, salty cold broth (not to mention the crunchy veggies), it’s a very satisfying dish. It’s easy enough to see why the place is so popular.