TOUHENBOKU (261 Queen West, at Duncan, 416-596-8080, touhenboku.ca, @touhenbokuRamen) Complete meals for $17 per person, including tax, tip and tea. Average main $10. Open daily 11 am to midnight. No reservations. Unlicensed. Access: barrier-free. Rating: NNN
If you’ve seen one local ramen resto, you’ve pretty much seen them all – cramped seating, frenzied staff and a permanent lineup out the door. But only Touhenboku has schmaltz.
That’s because the three-week-old noodle house serves its ramen with chicken broth instead of the more customary pork. The rendered fat of the fowl is said to be loaded with collagen and good for the complexion. Beats botox, I guess. “In Japan it’s very popular with the ladies,” says owner Zuimei Okuyama.
You find it glistening like some iridescent oil slick on substantial bowls of smoky shio broth that tastes almost like bacon, their shoyu counterpart delivering a deeper, beefier payload (all $10.50). Both brim with correctly al dente house-made noodles, either as thin as spaghetti or as thick as fettucine. They say the combo of noodle and broth are at their peak for only five minutes, so let the slurping begin.
Toppings include the usual sheets of toasted seaweed, slivers of rubbery black wood-ear mushrooms, halves of soft-boiled nitamago egg and a final toss of chopped raw scallion, as well as a choice of either lean slow-braised pork loin, fattier belly or relatively fat-free chicken thigh. You can also spice things up by adding a shot of garlic or chili oil, the latter proving “not that hot” to our resident pyromaniac.
Sides include okay pot sticker-style gyoza dumplings stuffed with minced pork, barely battered karaage chicken nuggets and deep-fried korokke potato patties smeared with a tonkatsu sauce that tastes like HP mixed with ketchup (all $4.50).
Desserts – Japanese takes on the likes of tiramisu and cheesecake (all $5.50) – were unavailable on both visits.
But by far the healthiest dish of the lot is chintan shio ramen, a clear schmaltz-free stock that could be kissing cousin to a Jewish grandmother’s chicken noodle soup, if Bubbie were watching her cholesterol count. Keep this in mind the next time you come down with the flu or a cold.
And yes, unlike most ramen joints, Touhenboku does takeout.
stevend@nowtoronto.com | @stevendaveynow
