Ramen lovers and anime fanatics now have another reason to visit JINYA during the winter season. In collaboration with animated series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, the restaurant chain is offering a limited time only ramen and chicken menu that includes a gift with purchase.
For those unfamiliar, Demon Slayer is a wildly popular anime/manga about Tanjiro Kamado, who joins the Demon Slayer Corps to avenge his family and cure his sister Nezuko, who has been into turned demon. When purchasing the following specialty bowl of noodles you get a Demon Slayer character soup spoon to not only eat with, but to take home as a souvenir as well. You choose your Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba character ramen spoons at random. There are three to collect until the end of February, giving more reason for fans to return.
What sets this bowl of noodles apart from all others is that it isn’t common outside Japan. Colloquially it is found at street side cart vendors. This is the type of ramen that my favourite anime characters eats day to day.
This is Tokyo Yatai, the menu hails it as a classic from the 1980’s. It is a chicken broth ramen with pork chashu, a seasoned egg, fresh green onion, spinach, chopped onion, and Naruto Japanese fish cake. It is served with thin noodles and topped with Nori. It is a thin clear broth, yet possesses a lot of body. It almost comes across as herbal, which is great for the current colder weather. Oily on the surface, yet lean, even when the meat eats fatty with minimal gristle. Great as a grab and go serving that has substantial flavour, but light enough that you can finish a whole bowl in one sitting.
Also on this limited edition Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba collaboration menu is the Crispy Chicken Wings. They are garnished with cabbage, cilantro, and chilli slices; and served on a sizzling hot plate with asian sweet sour sauce that gets poured over everything table-side. The sauce sizzle and smokes as soon as it hits the pan, thus creating a wonderful interactive moment. Although, this does makes the skin less crispy resulting in a smaller window to enjoy your chicken at the optimal crunch, which best contrasts all the soft noodles as it’s pairing. Flavour wise I could have used more sauce on the side to dip into, I enjoyed the syrupy finish that I did get from parts of each full wing.
We also ordered the JINYA Tonkotsu Original ramen from 2010. I wanted to compare this other famous 15 year old ramen with the limited time offering above. It was a nice way to see and taste the transformation of ramen preparation over the years. This one was a lot richer and what I think of when I crave ramen. Prepared with a pork broth, pork chashu, fresh green onion, spinach, a seasoned egg, and nori dried seaweed. The menu described the noodles as being extra thick, although thicker than the ones above, I would still classify them as being on the thinner side.
The difference was noticeable upon the first bite. This was heavier, creamier, and saltier. The increased width was needed to help balance out all the flavour as an absorbent base. Both were tasty and have their moments, depending on your appetite on the day. Although with this, I did need a side to help cleanse the palate.
We also ordered the Garlic Rice thinking it would help, however we found it just as bold. This is new on their menu. Fried garlic rice with eggs, garnished with garlic chips and green onion. This is also served on a sizzling hot iron plate for show. The rice essentially gets fried table-side. A whisked egg mixture gets poured over the rice, then both are mixed together, as the cast iron pan cooks. As is, I found this too salty, and I went looking for something to mask some of it. I would advise ordering one of the protein options to do just that.
We got our palate cleanser from dessert. As full as we were, we couldn’t pass up on some tasty sounding matcha items.
The Matcha mochi ice cream was two ice cream cream stuffed mochi balls sliced in half and meant for sharing. It is ideal if you let the ice cream melt a little to best highlight the chew of the mochi skin.
Although, if you can only choose one, let it be the Matcha tiramisu served in a sake box. This was the perfect 3-4 bite dessert that is lightly bitter matcha at the forefront, but overall on the sweeter side, balanced by a a slightly salted marscapone.
Our meal was so tasty and memorable on this day that I later found myself returning to JINYA during latter half of the week for more ramen. As tempted as I was to order another Demon Slayer bowl and collect another soup spoon, I eventually decided to go with my usual.
We were drinking before so wanted something warm and comforting now, therefore started with deep fried appetizers.
The Tempura Brussel Sprouts caught my eye, as I am a fan of the vegetable and never had them coated in panko. I liked the light crisp around the solid centre, but thought it was missing a sauce to flavour and harmonize. The table soy and chilli didn’t cut it and I would have liked a syrupy and tangy tempura intended one instead.
We also got the Crispy Rice with Spicy Tuna as a heartier small plate. I liked the contrast of the deep fried brick of rice under the pulpy mash of seasoned fish. It just could have used light soy for my tastes.
As for noodles I listened to my heart’s desire and got the slightly spicy and bold Tan Tan Men. This is a savoury chicken soy broth with a rich sesame essence, tender pork soboro, baby bok choy, and shredded leek. Finished with chilli oil and sesame seeds. This too is served with slightly thicker noodles to reflect the depth of the broth and the need for a starchy base to take it on. The Tan Tan never misses for me.
My guest got another one of my go-to’s and one of JINYA’s most popular bowls: the Tonkotsu Black. This one is a pork broth with pork chashu. kikurage, fresh green orion, nori dned seaweed, a seasoned egg, garlic chips, garlic oil, fried onion, spicy sauce, and thin noodles. This is like their 2010 bowl, but a remix and heavy handed on the garlic.
In closing, we had two great visits in one week and there is plenty on the menu, new and old, to have us returning again in the near future.
JINYA Ramen Bar – Vancouver Downtown
541 Robson St, Vancouver, BC V6B 2B7
(604) 699-9377
jinyaramenbar.com
