Voracious: Kinton Ramen brings Japanese street food to Victoria

Over the past few years, there has been a definite increase in the number of restaurants serving ramen in Victoria, either as a menu item or as the feature dish. Of the latter, one of the newest is Kinton Ramen in the new Customs House building between Lulu Lemon and Starbucks. Kinton Ramen is a Canadian chain with 52 locations across the country. Victoria’s rendition offers a modern interior of open ceilings with exposed ductwork, polished concrete floors, dark colours enlivened with orange pine-topped tables and backless benches, and lustrous golden-tiled wall panels. A yellow neon sign at the back advertises “A Bowl of Happiness.” Ramen is a Japanese street food, but at Kinton it is served restaurant-style. Fast food without the counter and menu boards, but as one would expect of any successful fast-food chain, the table menu is well laid out. Columns offer pork, chicken, beef or vegetarian, while crossing rows offer different styles of preparation: original, shoyu, miso, spicy garlic and spicy jalapeño. One selects from the grid, then chooses between thin, thick or Shirataki noodles, the latter of which are gluten free because they are made from potatoes. Bowls are all of one size and priced at $16.99 or $17.99. But of course, if you’re hungry, you can make that a combo. The Meal for One ($25.99) offers any ramen bowl, a choice of pork or vegetable gyozas or Tokyo Fries (topped with bonito flakes and shredded nori) and a Coca-Cola product beverage. Meals for two ($44.99) and for four ($87.99) are also available. An unusual twist is the Beer/Sake combo ($23.99), which gives you any ramen bowl plus a 16-ounce glass of Sapporo Draft beer and a 5-ounce glass of “house” sake. I and my dining partner, Carla, opt to pass on the beverages and order a bowl and a gyoza each. Carla chooses the basic Original Pork bowl with thin noodles, so I go bold, opting for the Spicy Garlic Beef bowl with thick noodles, to which I added a seasoned egg. And, as she chose the pork Gyoza, I go with the veggie. Gyoza ($6.99) is a Japanese dumpling, similar in style to a Chinese pot-sticker. Kinton serves them four to a plate, topped with a sweet chili sauce. Though the pork gyozas are good, Carla and I both prefer the vegetarian version for its fresher flavours that I find work particularly well with her Original Pork Ramen. Her bowl features a smooth cream-based sauce with a seasoned egg included, sea salt, nori, bamboo shoots, scallions and wood ear mushrooms in addition to slivers of fatty side pork (the same cut as side bacon, but without cure or smoke). The overall impression is smooth umami, almost bland, which I find preferable to the raw searing heat that dominates my bowl. I can barely make out the flavours of the beef broth, horseradish, bamboo shoots, scallions and garlic. My seasoned egg is perfectly boiled to a medium yolk (bright yellow with a jammy texture), and the large, thin, two-bite slices of tender grainy beef brisket are delectable, but neither is enough to compensate for the brutal deployment of chili oil. I can tolerate a lot of heat, but no matter the intensity, spice should always work with the other flavours, adding another layer to a complex, harmonious whole. This heat does not do that. I haven’t tried every ramen house in the city, but the ones I have visited our proud to offer in-house-made noodles. At Kinton, my server wasn’t sure. My takeaway is that this is fast food that will fill a belly at a reasonable price, but it’s not the promised “bowl of happiness.” Kinton Ramen 813 Wharf Street 250 590 9699 kintonramen.com