“Real” ramen uses real ingredients, a huge array of soup bases and painstakingly take a while to make. Not every place in Vancouver offers hand made ramen, but most places follow the same formula: ramen, meat, egg, seaweed, broth.
Taishoken, located super close to the Stadium Chinatown skytrain station is another ramen place that’s on the rise. They serve is tsuke-men style ramen where the broth is served on the side and you dip your noodles into the broth.
My good friend Gary recommended this place – who is a huge ramen fan as well. And right after he recommended it, we just had to go! Lucky for us, as for that particular week, ramen dishes were $5! Normally, their ramen dishes range from $10-12 (which is average in Vancouver).
I ordered the tsuke-men style ramen thanks to Gary’s recommendation. The dish comes with cha-siu (flame seared pork), soy egg and some seaweed along with the noodles. The broth itself is really nice. It’s got a nice thickness to it and flavour. Not too salty but still very addictive to eat. The noodles were served al dente (I know there is a Japanese equivalent to this term, but for the life of me I cannot remember). While the egg is slightly more congealed then I want it to be, it was fine (although I still prefer Marutama’s eggs). The cha-siu was ok, a bit small for the portion size and was a lot more fatty than it was meaty.
Besides that, I really like the way this is served. As much as I love my ramen in soup, it’s kind of nice to have the broth on the side to enjoy on it’s own and also not to overcook the noodles as I eat away.
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