My first time at Kintaro...

In my pursuit to venture away from Pho (which I love) I have decided to focus on another form of soup noodle bowl...namely the ramen. So one afternoon, having a chance to check out Kintaro at 1pm (instead of their insane-o lineups at noon), we decided to head over.

As we sat down and were about to order, one of the waitresses walked by with a bowl of meat...um, HELLO! We asked our waitress what it was and she said it was the Hanpayaro BBQ Pork...for $0.95! Um, yeah, we'll take one of those please an thank you. It's similar to what the Chinese serve when you order homemade soup at restaurants...it's all the stuff you get after the soup is made. The pork is super tender, as you would expect, and with a bit of kick to it.

I ordered the Miso Ramen, noted as Kintaro's best...it's essentially chunks of BBQ pork, with a handful of corn and then loaded up with bean sprouts, bamboo shoots and green onions. I loved the broth...I was drinking about four scoops of it before I even stirred the broth. The blend of soy bean paste is supposedly from various regions of Japan and then another twelve spices are added. I think having the pork as chunks instead of slices is a nice touch. (Tip: If there isn't enough pork for you, add the pork from Hanpayaro pork chunks.)

B decided to go uberhealthy and get the Vegetable Ramen. The noodles are buried under a massive pile of veggies, such as cabbage, nori (wakame), broccoli, cabbage, and bamboo shoots, along with the usual bean sprouts and corn. Oh, and the delightful addition of a boiled egg, but not marinated like the one we had at Sanpachi. 

We had planned to order their Gyoza before we spied the Hanpayaro BBQ Pork, so we ended up ordering it anyways. Nothing amazing here...nice crispy skin, but otherwise unremarkable. The dipping sauce was way too tangy, to the point of sourness...so not my cup of tea. I would definitely skip this and just stick with the Hanpayaro.

Look ma...it's an empty bowl...neither of us actually finished our bowls, but we liked our noodles enough to pay an extra $0.50 for their takeaway boxes.
Ironically, we both mocked three teenaged boys for not finishing their bowls, so we hung our heads in shame as we packed our leftovers.
Oh, one good thing about this place...you can ask for your soup to be "rich, medium or light" and you can get the pork slices in either "fatty, medium or lean". I like places that will cater to you...putting your preferences first. When you ask for rich, you get an ice cream scoopful of miso...it's insane.
Though they have takeout boxes for purchase if you can't finish, their menu actually states that they do not do takeout. Weird, right?