Blog Archives
This week’s features: Soup – Borscht, Lunch – Slow Roasted Pembina Pork Belly w/ Tomato Jam
Thanks to our friends at Riverbend Gardens for the beets.
Santouka Ramen Vancouver
So as you probably know by now, I’m a bit of a ramen-head. And in my endless quest for ramen, Santouka Ramen Vancouver must get a mention. It’s probably one of the busiest, if not the busiest ramen shop in VanCity. The shop is not that big, maybe only about 30 seats in the whole place, but it is lined up from open until close. Today wasn’t any different.
Since I was alone, I got a chance to sit right up at the bar. I love dining this way because you get to see how the cooks prepare and assemble the food. I know it’s geeky but I like to see how cooks cook. In this case, the ramen ‘master’ was completely in her element – almost zen-like, for lack of a better term. I ordered the Chashu Ramen combo with Grilled Salmon on Rice. I watched her assemble my soup ingredient by ingredient. First the Tare, which is like a base flavoring, and then she poured in the creamy, rich pork (tonkotsu) broth. She stirred the broth around quite vigorously, then she rolled in the perfectly cooked noodles. She swished the noodles around then, bit by bit, added the toppings – chashu (braised pork belly), pickled bamboo shoots, and nori (seaweed). I got, on the side, a bowl of rice topped with flakes of grilled salmon and peppery watercress and a small plate of pickled daikon and half a boiled egg.
Now you see it!
The first taste of the broth was wicked. So rich and flavorful, and oily too! The pork belly was, like, melt in your mouth, good. Everything tasted bang-on, exactly how I remembered it the first time around. I loudly slurped the noodles and even drank the broth from the bowl – the complete experience. It really is a shame that we don’t have anything even remotely close to this back home but it just makes me appreciate even more my every visit here. The next time you are in VanCity, make sure you eat here. It’s worth the wait, believe me.
Now you don’t!
Ramen
I remember years ago, I watched the movie, Tampopo. I don’t know how I stumbled upon it in the video store but it piqued my curiosity on why a movie was made about a noodle shop. It was intriguing to see how obsessive the Japanese are about noodle soup but I was soon to find out why.
Living in Tokyo, I had the privilege of tasting true Ramen. Every region, every city, even every ramen shop seemed to have its own variation. The toppings were standard – slow braised slices of pork belly, some pickled bamboo shoots, a hard boiled egg, but what set each apart was their broth. There are soy sauce based broths, miso based broths and my personal fave, Tonkotsu, which is made from simmered pork bones – rich and somewhat creamy. I made it kind of a mission of mine to try out as many ramen dishes as I possibly could but one shop had, hands down, the best that I have ever tasted.
Jangara is a small little hole in the wall in Harajuku, a hip and fashionable district in Tokyo. A friend of mine took me there and after seeing the line up outside of the restaurant, I knew this was going to be a treat. The place was absolutely jam packed and chaotic. The atmosphere was crazy and once I took one slurp of the broth, it all made sense. Every component was perfect from the tender pork to the noodles which had the right amount of bite. But, it was the broth blew me away. It had a balanced sweetness and saltiness that I had never tasted before. Since then, my quest for that flavour has never been satisfied.
When I found out that a ramen shop was opening in our city, you could imagine my anticipation. Although the soup is decent at Nomiya, it lacked the depth and richness I was hoping for. But at least for now there’s a place to go to satisfy my craving.
Of course, I just had to try my hand at making one of my most favourite dishes so taking a page out of David Chang’s Momofuku cookbook, I gave it a go. Thankfully, we have T&T which made finding the ingredients easier than expected, except for proper ramen noodles, which I substituted udon noodles. So I guess you can say it wasn’t really ramen. However, Chang’s little trick of adding smoked bacon to the broth is genius!
One day, I’ll make a trip back to Japan and to Jangara. But for now, this will have to do for now…
My version of tonkotsu broth
The assembly line..
The finished product.
