Craving ramen, but it’s too hot out to entertain the idea? – Then check out Kinton Ramen’s summer chill menu, recently launched as part of their summer food, drink, and dessert features.
And while there, you can also take advantage of their latest promotion. Their Summer Ramen Tour Stamp Card gives you a chance to win a trip to Japan. For every dine-in ramen you order, you will receive one stamp. If you earn 3 stamps you get a free dessert, 6 stamps collected gets you a free side dish, and for 9 stamps earns you a free ramen; plus you are entered for the aforementioned win a trip to Japan.
We travelled to their North Vancouver location to try their entire summer chill noodle menu, and started with some summer drinks.
Their Sake Lemonade is a mix of sake, fresh, lemon, and lemonade for a zesty botanical and citrus driven beverage. The latter note highlighting the yuzu ramen below, well.
Their Golden Sunrise Beermosa is Sapporo beer and orange juice. Easy drinking with the sugars of the juice reminding me of a radler.
The most popular cold ramen is the Chilled Tsukemen. Thick, broth-less noodles, tender pork, a seasoned egg, and shredded nori. Served with their bold, in house-made dipping sauce with a collection of daikon, wasabi, and scallions on the side.
My concern was the noodles not soaking up enough flavour, but the dip was so concentrated that a single dunk was enough to give you a mouthful of the unexpected and refined salty soy and lush umami. This was definitely my favourite of their four offerings. So tasty that I didn’t mind that it was basically plain noodles in a bowl.
The Gold Chill is a broth-less Ramen Salad with a creamy sesame dressing. All topped with tender chicken, mini tomatoes, arugula, bamboo shoots, crispy noodles, and a seasoned egg. It ate just like ramen, just as heavy and filling, but cold and starchy. I liked the bamboo shoots in this and wish there was more of it and additional toppings in general.
As a salad this was the equivalent of having more leafy greens than ingredients. I was left with textural fatigue given the flat, one tone note of all the chewy noodles. I did like the amount of sauce that coated everything and the contrast of the clump of crispy noodle garnish. Noodle on noodle inception.
For a cold spicy noodle option look to the Spicy Mazemen. Thick, broth-less noodles tossed in their spicy house-made sauce with beef, mini tomatoes, sweet corn, arugula, and a poached egg.
The meat is warm, torched for a nice char, right before serving. I liked the flavour of the broth, but did find its spice counter productive in a chilled noodle. Here, I was sweating where the goal was meant to cool via dish temperature. The sweetness of the corn helped to beat some of this heat and I appreciated the more generous amount of beef to ration between bites of noodles. Here the beer also helped to temper.
The Yuzu Chill Ramen was a light and refreshing number with thin noodles in a distinct yuzu chicken broth, topped with tender chicken, mini tomatoes, arugula, bamboo shoots, lemon, and a seasoned egg. I would have liked more broth in this one, to be able to accompany the greater amount of noodle with a gulp of flavourful soup. This was lighter due to the use of chicken instead of pork; citrusy, bright, and slightly sweet. This is one that wakes your palate up, it was so unique from the others and all ramen. However, like with the other servings, I wanted more of the aforementioned toppings for textural contrast, and to make the eating itself more exciting.
In closing, this is such a creative way to get people in to ramen shops despite the hotter weather. Can recommend.
Kinton Ramen North Vancouver
1325 Lonsdale Ave #105, North Vancouver, BC V7M 2H7
(604) 969-2310
kintonramen.com
