What the Hype? {Kinton Ramen}

September 10, 2012

There seems to be a lot of hype around Kinton Ramen recently amongst my friends, which prompts my boyfriend and I to try it out. We've always enjoy a good bowl of ramen and do have a degree of expectation when we visit Kinton during the weekend. We were there at around 7pm and found out many groups have been waiting outside for seats already. We had to wait for 45 minutes on the street, where garbage were placed out. It was definitely not a good start to boost up my appetite. When we got in, we are welcomed by a very loud Japanese greetings, reminded me of an experience very much like from Guu Izakaya. We were seated at the bar tables, where we could clearly see the process of making their ramen. It was somewhat of an entertainment for both of us. They timed their ramen precisely at little bit less than 3 minutes of cooking time and flame torched the pork belly in a consistent hand motion. I almost thought they could do this without the timer or with their eyes closed already based on how popular their ramen is and how often they have to make per day.

We ordered the Spicy Garlic Ramen and the Shoyu Ramen. I was very tempted to try the Cheese Ramen but thought it might be too filling and fattening with the carbs and soup. What's good about Kinton though, is you get to choose the parts of the pork you want to eat. We both decided to reward ourselves from walking in Downtown the whole day so we ordered the pork belly. For those who are more health conscious will probably pick the shoulder part of the pork. Very good and meaty pork belly, by the way!

We also ordered the Karaage (fried chicken) as a starter, again a fattening reward. I really enjoyed the dipping sauce, a bit tangy and kind of like the Thousand Island dressing. I found the spicy ramen to be very oily and lack in flavor in my opinion. The noodles themselves are a bit chewy to my liking as well. I appreciate their amount of toppings on each bowl but that doesn’t really make up for the amount of oil in the soup.

{ Sapporo and very sour house lemonade }

{ Original Karaage - Fried Chicken with dipping sauce )

{ Spicy Garlic Ramen - look at all the oil! }

{ Shoyu Ramen }

In terms of service, they were prompt and friendly like in most Japanese cuisines. The bar table where we were seated at was quite sticky though. Our napkins were literally stuck onto the table.

Unfortunately, I ended up getting an upset stomach from possibly the amount of oil in the soup. If you also have a sensitive stomach like moi, please be aware.