Kinton Ramen - 金とんラーメン

It's Family Day weekend here in Canada. Since there wasn't any hockey practice for my oldest son today, we decided to visit one of the Ramen restaurants that are creating quite a buzz around here.

First we went to "San To Ka (山頭火）". When we arrived it was way past 1 pm and I thought for sure we were gonna miss lunch rush hour but we were wrong. There were well over 10 people waiting in front of us and it was freezing cold day. It was too cold for my baby so we had to pass this time.

So we decided to try another Ramen shop which opened last May (2012), "Kinton Ramen（金とんラーメン）" It is situated among interesting restaurants on Baldwin and Beverly. We had better luck here.

Inside Kinton Ramen (Photo by Renée S.)

Their seats are mostly counter seats but they had a small area in the back where a group of people can sit together. They even had high chairs! Our waiter was really nice and took us back to that "family" area in no time.

Kinton Ramen calls themselves a "Noodle Bar" so they also have a small bar near the entrance and like a bar, music was a little bit too loud for my liking.

As for the food, you can customize your Ramen to your liking by selecting how rich you want the broth to be, you can choose one of three options light being the least rich and heavy being really rich. I went for regular, which is in the middle of those two options, I assumed.

You can also choose what kind of meat (Chashu) you want on your Ramen, belly being fatty and rich or shoulder butt which is leaner. I had to go with belly...I just love how well cooked pork belly taste in the noodle.

I ordered Miso (soy bean paste) for my broth and this is what I got.

Kinton Ramen - Miso, regular richness with belly.

The noodles were perfectly cooked, al dente. The meat was also cooked perfectly and I really liked that they sear the meat with a burner right before they served. I could taste the extra flavor the process created.

I expected the broth to be rich but it was not. It was almost to the point that it was kind of bland, I was    more than a little bit disappointed. I have been missing eating nice rich Tonkotsu Ramen. My son ordered Shoyu (soy sauce) and it was strangely almost too salty.

My husband ordered Spicy Miso and although he really liked it I thought it was also bland.

Portion size was good, we all got full before we finished all our food.

Overall, I thought Kinton Ramen was OK but not great. I might come back and try the richest broth option and see if I like it that way next time.