Fans of Baldwin Village’s Kinton Ramen know that it’s a pork lover’s spot. There, thick pork bone broth comes with heaps of pork belly or pork shoulder, and customers can request how much pork fat they want added to their soup (“rich” means a lot, “light” means less).
So it may come as a surprise that the new Kinton Ramen in Koreatown, which officially opens today, has its ramen options equally split between pork broth and chicken broth.
It’s true that pork broth — tonkotsu, in particular — has ruled the ramen game for a long time now, but chicken broth has been gaining ground as of late (here in Toronto, the newly opened Touhenboku specializes in it, and it’s a mainstay at Ramen Raijin too).
The new Kinton offers the same tonkotsu-based soups that made the original restaurant such a hit, along with four other options made from a collagen-heavy chicken broth called paitan (it comes flavoured with either shio, shoyu, miso or jalapeno, $10.80 each). The soups are served with Kinton’s famous noodles, but at the new location, customers can choose between thick noodles or thin noodles.
Other new menu options include chicken gyoza ($3.50) and two salads ($8.80) made with cold ramen noodles and vegetables (one has a sesame dressing, and the other a spicy soy dressing). Otherwise, this is a Kinton Ramen restaurant through and through, from the décor to the vibe to the chef (ramen maestro Aki Urata oversees the kitchen at both places).
Published on: Jan 3, 2014
