ramen – Page 2 – Michael Eats

Great Ramen at Kaminari Ramen Bar

Published on January 19, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1330 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.bykaminari.com/

Kaminari Ramen Bar actually has a few types of ramen on the menu: clear Tokyo-style, creamy, “duck umami,” vegan, and a soupless yuzu ramen. The waiter said they don’t really have a specialty, so I went with the clear Tokyo-style.

The ramen, as per the menu: “Clear chicken broth, pork cha-shu, chicken cha-shu, wonton, Tokyo Negi, bamboo shoot, and nori seaweed.” You can get it either shio (salt) or shoyu (soy sauce); I went with the latter.

It’s a very good bowl of ramen. This style of ramen isn’t quite as common in the GTA as the more omnipresent creamy tonkotsu or tori paitan, but done well, it’s just as delicious.

The soup has a very rich and savoury soy-sauce-infused flavour. It’s the type of broth that never feels one-note or overly salty, no matter how much of it you have.

And everything else here was quite tasty, from the chewy, thin noodles to the tender chicken and pork. It’s a top-notch bowl of ramen.

Stellar Ramen at Ramen x Remix

Published on December 14, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 424 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://ramenxremix.com/

I feel like Ramen x Remix really deserves to be more popular. I’m going to assume (and hope) that they do better in the evenings, because I showed up for lunch on a Saturday, and the place was a complete ghost town. Based on the quality of ramen I was served, this is a crime. The place should be packed with a line out the door.

I ordered the Signature Yuzu Scallop Shio Consommé (“signature slow cooked clear chicken broth, pork and chicken chashu, clam meat, yuzu, lemon, sashimi grade torched scallop, pork shrimp wonton, menma, onions”) and it was absolutely fantastic.

It reminded me a lot of the ramen from Afuri. I liked that quite a lot, but I think this was even better.

The soup itself had such a clean chicken/seafoody flavour, with a subtle bright sweetness from the yuzu. A lot of ramen can be a real face-punch of flavour — and I love that, don’t get me wrong — but I really enjoyed how subtle this was. But it’s still complex enough that I wasn’t even close to sick of it by the time I got to the bottom of the bowl.

And everything else was great, from the super-tender pork and chicken to the sweet, fresh scallop and the noodles, which were nice and chewy. It’s a very tasty bowl of ramen.

Solid Ramen at Midori Ramen

Published on August 26, 2024 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 412 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://midoriramen.com/

Ramen: it’s the best. I’ve said it on this blog before, and I have no doubt I’ll say it again. Even a mid-tier bowl of ramen is better than a great version of most other things.

Case in point: Midori Ramen. Is it the best bowl of ramen in the city? No, absolutely not. Is it tasty? It absolutely is.

Their specialty is tori paitan ramen, which is like the tonkotsu that’s so prevalent in the GTA, but made with chicken instead of pork. The best versions of this have an addictive roasted chicken flavour, and while this one was creamy and nice, it didn’t have much of a flavour outside of a pleasant, rich saltiness.

You can choose between thin, thick, and kale (??) noodles; they recommend thin. Like the broth, the noodles are pleasant, but they lack the toothsome chew that makes the best ramen noodles so special.

The toppings are all great, however. It comes with tasty pork chashu, a ridiculously tender slice of chicken, and a great ramen egg with a perfectly jammy yolk.

Solid Noodle Soup at Kenzo Ramen

Published on December 10, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3337 Bloor Street West, Etobicoke
Website: http://www.kenzoramen.ca/

It’s hard to remember this now, but there was a time (not that long ago!) when ramen was actually pretty difficult to find in the GTA. And Kenzo is Toronto’s ramen OG; they opened their first location in 2002, and for quite a while, they were pretty much the only game in town if you wanted to sample ramen in the city.

Of course, these days it’s hard to go more than a few blocks without coming across a ramen joint, but Kenzo’s still around despite all the competition. So they must be doing something right.

And indeed, the bowl I had might not have been up there with the city’s best, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

They have a whole bunch of options, but the waiter mentioned that the King of Kings is their most popular, which is a spicy shio broth with an “assortment of stir-fried vegetables with ground pork, topped with charsu, egg, naruto maki, menma, wakame, green onion, nori.”

You can choose your spice level; I went with the spiciest, and it was indeed quite fiery.

The stir-fried vegetables are actually the most unique part; they give the whole bowl that distinctive stir-fried wok hay flavour, which makes it feel quite distinct. It actually kind of reminded me of a style of ramen called burnt miso ramen that I don’t believe you can find in the GTA.

The noodles were a bit on the soft side, and the broth lacked the complexity you’ll find in the best bowls of ramen, but overall it’s a tasty bowl of noodle soup.

Delicious and Unique Ramen at Afuri Ramen + Dumpling

Published on October 29, 2023October 29, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 411 Church Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.afuriramen.com/

There are many, many ramen shops in the GTA, but I can say with a good amount of certainty that what they’re serving at Afuri Ramen is delightfully unique.

Their specialty seems to be the yuzu shio, which the menu describes as “shio tare, chicken broth, bamboo shoot, frisee, chashu, egg, nori, yuzu, thin noodles.”

It’s the yuzu (a clementine-esque fruit from Asia) that sets this apart; the light, chicken-infused broth has a distinctive citrus-zest brightness that really makes it sing (there’s also a tasty browned garlic flavour that rounds things out). It’s leagues apart from the typically heavy tonkotsu ramen that’s so common in Toronto, but no less delicious.

The toppings are (mostly) quite tasty, with the perfectly cooked egg having a delightfully savoury kick, and with the light bitterness of the frisee contrasting nicely with the slightly sweet broth. That’s not to mention the thin, chewy noodles, which complement the bowl perfectly.

The chasu is the one weak point; it’s fine, but it’s a bit tough, and nothing about the flavour particularly stands out. Still, everything else is so good that this barely even matters.