Other Ramen Place
Santouka is a busy ramen franchise. Their restaurants are usually packed with ramen gourmand. The West Broadway location is Santouka’s newest location, so it’s quite popular. Regardless how busy this location is, their staff provide prompt service and quick food/beverage delivery service. The broth is rich and flavorful and the noodles are perfectly cooked with a bit of crunchiness to the bite. The menu is fairly priced, so there’s always line up at the door.
It’s a rainy day so I’ve decided to go to Hokkaido Raman Santouka for a bowl of hot Ramen. I ordered the Kara-miso ramen for an extra kick of spiciness. The noodle came within 5 minutes and I started my journey of indulgence.
The Menu:
Santouka offers many limited edition item such as ginger ramen, jalapeno ramen and the Zangi deep fried chicken ramen limited to their West Broadway location. Their menu has lots of side dish to choose from and they offer different combos for us to customize our meal.
The price on menu defaults to the medium sized noodle. We can upgrade to a large ramen with additional $1 or downgrade to small size with $1 less.
The Service:
Santouka restaurant is spacious. The walkway in the middle is approximately 7′-0″ with small seats on either sides. They also have a small noodle bar at the back facing the kitchen, which I could see was very clean.
The servers are friendly and full of energy. They greet you as you walk in like a traditional Japanese restaurant. They all wear black T-shirt with bandana, which is a traditional and discreet way to prevent their hair from falling in the ramen.
The Broth
I ordered the Kara-miso ramen. The broth came with perfect temperature, enough to consume slowly and not enough to burn my tongue. The broth is packed with flavour and is complex layered. There are small bits of pork fat in the broth and I can see the grease at the top as a good bowl of ramen should have. Kara-miso is spicy, so it also comes with spicy oil on top. The spicy broth was not too harsh on the tongue, and I like the little bit of spicy kick at the back of my throat.
The Noodle:
The ramen noodle was perfectly cooked. The first bite has a bit of crunchy bounce back, and the ramen noodle softens the longer it was soaked in the soup. However, I could taste a little bit of dietary alkali. Some people might like the taste, but I’m not a big fan. The noodle goes well with the broth, however, there are more noodles than the broth.
Note:
It is worth mentioning that chasiu meat has equal parts of fat and lean meat which gives the soft texture a bit of chewiness. I like this place. Everything is above average for the price tag on the menu. The only complain I have is that my bill took a bit longer to come.
