Tokyo Joe Ramen Okawari

While looking for lunch in Richmond, we noticed that a new ramen restaurant had opened where a sushi restaurant used to be.  We love ramen, but as everyone in the lower mainland knows, all of the best ramen places are at Denman and Robson, quite a trek from Richmond.  We decided to try this new one to see if it measures up.

 

Flowerbunny had the Beef Ramen with miso broth.  Generally, ramen is served with either pork or chicken, so seeing beef on the menu was interesting.  In this case, the beef was that cornstarch marinated beef you get at most chinese places which I usually dislike as instead of making the beef tender it usually ends up making it chewy.  In this case however, the beef was super tender and melted in your mouth.  This could be due to the fact that it was sitting in broth,  but whatever it was, I liked it.  The miso broth was decent though it won't supplant Kintaro's as best in Vancouver anytime soon.

I had the BBQ Pork Ramen with shio broth as that is my measuring stick for ramen places.  In this case, the shio broth was a bit bland, and the pork, rather than being the usual type of pork served at ramen places, was more like Chinese style BBQ pork and had very little flavour.  Each ramen bowl had spinach and corn which was good, but I missed the bamboo shoots you get at Kintaro and Santouka.  They also came with seaweed and one of those fake fish discs which I gave to Flowerbunny as I dislike them.  They each had half of a boiled egg in them as well, but I like my egg a bit runnier like they do at Santouka so for me this was overcooked.

We also had an order of Deep Fried Chicken Wings to start.  These weren't anything special, but they were wings so I enjoyed them.  They needed more seasoning though, and there wasn't enough sauce to make up for that.















Overall Impressions: While Tokyo Joe Ramen Okawari won't replace Kintaro or Santouka anytime soon, the Beef Ramen is an interesting alternative to the usual pork, and I'd return for that definitely.  They need to improve their pork ramen a lot though.  I definitely would not call this an authentic ramen joint.  With the closing of G-Men, the search for decent ramen in Richmond continues.

Tokyo Joe Ramen Okawari
8100 Ackroyd Road
Richmond, BC