kintaro should be 11

Benkei's cold ramen is a definite to try dish for their summer special!

Motomachi FTW, love the broth, noodle, egg, meat, everything.
Benkei is OK
Kintaro taste like crap
G-Men is okay when you dun want to get out of Richmond.
Santouka Broth is A++, but the noodle texture is just not my taste.

Below is the winning Motomachi Ramens: :fullofwin:

haha i love this thread because i love a good food discussion. i gotta throw my 2c in.

i read through the pages of this thread and i see alot of consistencies in patterns but a huge range in opinion. the way i see it, if you like Benkei, you don't like Kintaro and likewise. the other ones are somewhat in the middle opinionwise.

kintaro === santouka/g-men/motomachi === benkei

i'm a huge kintaro fan and let me explain. whether you like the fatiness of the broth or not, if you unbiasly delve into the flavour of the broth, i feel like it is the most "true" in meat flavour made from the meat and fat. I'm vietnamese and eat all types of Pho whether pho hoa-donalds or not, but i appreciate good broth. When i first tried Benkei i felt like i was eating at the Pho Hoa Japanese equivalent. i was smacked in the face by MSG. i can't believe that hasn't been mentioned this whole thread. Yes i agree that benkei has the most "flavour," but its has an unmistakeable bite of that wonderful manufactured powder.

i love Kintaro's fatty pork belly and full bodied broth. also, out of every single ramen place, i think they are in a league of their own as far as garnish goes. its not the prettiest but you get a noticeable amount of bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, etc. thats probably from the Viet upbringing too. when i eat noodles, its almost 50/50 noodles to veggies.

santouka has the best eggs, always soft yolk cooked beautifully

and i crave benkei's cream based ramen every so often like i crave a big mac. soo good but you know its not a real burger.

g-men is completely forgettable and i've had it a few times.

I'm usually a miso ramen guy, so that's what I tried when I first went to santouka. However, I don't believe they do it that well. It's their Shio ramen that shines for me. It similar to how you describe kintaro, more natural and more meat flavor shining through.

Also, their pork cheek alone is enough drag me back there time and time again.



Has anybody tried out the new place in Burnaby on Hastings near Willingdon?
I have no expectations of the place, but I think it still needs to be put to the test.

Okies, so I went to Hakakku Ramen today.
It's the new ramen place on Hastings near Willingdon in Burnaby.

Got the Miso Ramen.
Came with 1 large slice of cha su.
Some reviews peg this place as overly salty, I didn't find that at all.
You can get either rich soup or light soup and lean pork or fatty pork (belly).

I with rich + fatty.

Cha su was ok, but I did better on my first try. But according to my friends who went to japan, that's quite normal for places to have crappy cha su. It was soft in some places, but still dryish and chewy in others.

Soup was very similar to Kintaro's miso ramen. I'd say 2 notches less fatty, however, the flavor layering just isn't as deep.

Toppings came with bean sprouts, menma and green onions. The green onions weren't "fresh" they were just a touch dry. I think it must have been done the night before and fridged. Not a big deal, just caught me off guard, that's all.

I was the only one eating there cause I went for a 2pm lunch. So service was fine.

Right now, my list looks like:
Santouka > Kintaro > Motomachi > Benkei > Hakakku > Sanpachi > EZ Giku

Overall - 6.5/10

If I'm too lazy to make it at home and too lazy to make the trek downtown, then I'll go to Hakakku. It's only 10 minutes from my place.

Benkei with extra noodles. I still think the serving is small for the price. Do the other ramen places have bigger servings for a $8 bowl of ramen compared to Benkei?

Benkei ramen on Broadway+Cambie has the 50% extra noodles for 50 cents. No need for student card. I go to this Benkei quite often and I see their Cha Sui get thinner and thinner as time went by.

I really like Ramen Santouka. Kara-miso ramen is my favorite. I went to Benkei and Kintaro and was dissapointed. Esp with cheese ramen. Ramen Santouka is worth lining up for 30 minutes.

how did you rank hakkaku over sanpachi? O_o

theres a new place in the robson public market called Hida Takayama ramen.. its prob closest to kintaro.. rich and think soup (no msg too).. but not like fat laden..

i coming here often because they seem to be consistent with their soup.. (unlike kintaro where sometimes it will be hot/cold, rich/bland.. and i get rich soup every time)

prices are around the same as the other places tho..

the place doesnt get very many good reviews.. on like urban spoon and stuff..

but im glad i went to try myself

I went to Sanpachi once.
Had one soup, and tasted my friend's as well.
Not a lot of depth or layers to the flavor, I wouldn't call it bland, but it just didn't seem anything special at all.
I can't even remember the cha-su, it was that uneventful, all in all, I think the one word that would sum up my experience there was "average". I'm sure my ramen addict friends will end up dragging me back there, so eventually I'll give it another shot, but I'm not in any rush to do so.


Thanks for the update, I'll try any ramen place at least once.

i went to santouka and was disappointed
their noodles dont have the alkaline/kansui texture.
i had the tsukemen which was decent, and tried my gfs ramen.
the noodle texture was more similar to instant noodles than anything.

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I went to hida takayama today. I tried the shio ramen this time. While it was slightly on the salty side. It was actually really porky and delicious.. And I forgot to mention, everytime I go there its always the same guy (the owner).. Its nice having the same guy serve you and act as the cashier as well. He's super nice.

If you do try DO NOT get the spicy miso. The regular miso was delicious but the spicy one is just a less flavourful version with siracha (red rooster) sauce

the noodles are hate it or love it kind of thing i found when talking to people. i personally found the tsukemen to be really good. similar to ones i had in japan. just the right temperature for the noodles and the dipping broth.