Hakkaku Ramen

One of the things that held me back from starting this blog was the thought of all the restaurants I've already tried and didn't write about. I feel like my opinion (or anyone's opinion for that matter) about food is largely based on comparison. That's why I wish had documented everything from the beginning, so that I can easily compare notes (for the sake of objectivity!). For now, you'll just have to bare with me as I build up new notes and make comparisons based on memory.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am a huge fan of ramen. So, I make it a point to try many different places! Among the many that I've tried in Toronto, I would say my 3 favourites are: 1) Santouka, 2) Kinton, and 3) Kenzo (in that order - if my memory serves me right).

Since I've moved to Vancouver, I've tried: Ramenger, Ramen Butcher, Kamamarui, Kintaro, and of course Hakkaku Ramen. With that being said, I'm sad to say that Hakkaku probably ranks at the bottom of that list.

Hakkaku is located by Willingdon and Hastings in North Burnaby. Their ramen menu is simple, with a choice between Miso (or Hot Miso), Shio, or Shoyu. Similar to most ramen places, there's a choice between: regular or rich soup base and pork shoulder or belly. I went with the Hot Miso because the waitress said it was the most popular. As always, I went with the pork belly and a rich soup base.

There weren't a lot of toppings that came with the ramen - the usual: bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, corn, green onions, and a marinated soft-boiled egg. I found that the soup base wasn't very well-blended (as you can almost tell in the picture). Initially, I thought it was just a matter of having to mix the soup. However, I found that as much as I mixed the soup, it wasn't coming together. There was  a lot (too much) of garlic in the mix. The taste of the garlic was so overpowering that I couldn't even enjoy the soup base. The egg was quite tasty, but the pork belly wasn't quite tender enough ... and there wasn't enough of it! 

The texture of the ramen noodles were good at first ... but softened too much during the course of my meal. And so...

Cynthia Approved Ramen Rating (CARR*)
*Percentage weight of each factor in calculating the total CARR: Toppings - 10%; Meat - 15%; Broth - 20%; Noodles - 20%; Presentation - 5%; and Overall Taste - 30%. You better believe I'm going to get technical with this.

Toppings - 4/5 
Meat - 2/5 
Broth - 3/5
Noodles - 3/5 
Presentation - 3.5/5 
Overall taste - 3/5

X(perience) Factor** - 0/2
**Click for explanation (scroll to the bottom of the post)

Hakkuku Ramen gets a CARR of 59.5%