Kinton Ramen Review

Kinton Ramen

51 Baldwin Street, Toronto, Ontario

This evening I had an opportunity to dine at Kinton Ramen which is located just east of Spadina on Baldwin Street. My sister has been wanting to go for a while and the first time we went we were told the wait would be around 40 minutes to get a table which kind of deterred us. Nevertheless the next we went we persevered and waited it out. I am happy to say it was worth the wait. We were able to have a seat right by the bar as the restaurant itself isn’t very large.

Shio Ramen with sea salt, kinton pork belly, beansprouts, scallion, nori, and seasoned egg

I ordered the Shio Ramen which has sea salt, kinton pork belly, beansprouts, scallion, nori, and seasoned egg. My sister went with the Vegetable Ramen. I ordered a Saporo since I wanted to try to be authentic in a real Japanese restaurant. By the way, I believe all the servers and chefs are Japanese! Which is amazing! Hard to find a Japanese restaurant actually run by Japanese people besides Guu! The wait wasn’t very long. My sister and I were enjoying seeing everyone busy at work, seeing the functionality of the kitchen, and enjoying the decor. Kinton is actually the word for golden pig. Anyways, our dishes came and I was super excited!

My sister's veggie ramen

My sister and I both tried each others broth and I may have been a bit biased but I really enjoyed my broth more. My sister actually also agreed with me being my broth being tastier. After watching some scenes from Tampopo I wanted to be respectful and tried to eat the ramen as politely as possible. I moved the pork to the side and tried to dig into the soup.

Perfectly cooked soft boil egg!

 This was the first time I have ever had al dente noodles. They were cooked perfectly and I love it that way! The pork belly... What to say about this beauty. It was absolutely delicious. It was super flavourful, and gelatinous, the meat and fat just worked together as it should.  I rarely say this about meat but this pork belly definitely did melt in my mouth. It took a lot of self control to not eat all the pork belly at once. It was such  a delightful meal! When I saw the egg in the bowl I thought “Oh man I should probably give it to my sister” since its probably going to be a hard boiled egg. But to my surprise it was a undercooked egg with the rich delicious creamy egg yolk! PERFECTION! I could not find one flaw in this dish! It is one of those rare dishes that I can say I loved every aspect of it! The meat, the perfectly cooked noodles, the extremely flavourful broth that wasn’t too salty or too bland but satisfying. Just writing this review is making me salivate even more thinking about it!

            My parents both enjoyed their ramen as well as my sister. All of the servers and chefs were very nice. Every time a customer left the supervisor or another server would announce something in Japanese and all the chefs in unison like a choir would say something in Japanese to them... I believe it has something along the lines of “good bye”? Don’t take my word for it! If there’s anyone that has been to Kinton Ramen and knows what they are saying please let me know! 

             Lastly one of the things I love about this restaurant is their involvement in social media. Before coming here I did not really check out to see if they have a facebook page. After having my bowl of noodles and savouring every bite I had scooped and tried to savage every last bit of the broth as I could. There was a server next to me watching me. I thought she was probably thinking I’m crazy but that wasn’t the case! She asked me if she could take a photo of me for their Facebook page. I was caught off guard but I said yes. I also received a pin saying “Kinton Bowler” with an image of a golden pig! They will be posting my picture on their facebook page. Any customer who finishes everything in the bowl receives this pin and gets a photo that will be posted on their Facebook page! What a great way to interact with their customers and keep in touch with them! They also have an App for smart phones for customers basically to say what they enjoy in their ramen!

I would definitely go back and I give them a 4.7/5. I would give them perfect had we not had to wait for a bit outside in the cold (They don’t take reservations).  I would suggest to visit this place but go early to try to beat the rush!