KINTON RAMEN COMMERCE GATE — Restaurant in Markham

While discussing where to eat, it came to light that I could not remember the last time that I had ramen. I then realized that I couldn't recall if I had ever had it! So after ample ridicule from the group, we made our way to Kinton Ramen.

Kinton is a chain of ramen restaurants, with this particular location in a plaza at Leslie and Highway 7. The medium sized restaurant has table seating with benches, and other tables with stools, so get ready to work on that posture. The browns and blacks of the space give it a mellow vibe, and you'll find the Kinton pig logo emblazoned in the surroundings.

When you walk into the restaurant you may or may not notice people yelling for no immediately apparent reason. After sitting for some time, you'll notice that upon the arrival and departure of anyone to & from the restaurant, the chefs hollar out some sort of greeting or farewell. It's a fun, yet confusing touch that may amuse you or entice you to yell back. Your choice.

We started with sides of edamame, karaage (Japanese style fried chicken), and takowasabi. The edamame was fine, and the karaage was nice, but I was nudged to fandom by that God send takowasabi. The name of the dish instructs you that you are intended to use the small sheets of seaweed to create a taco with the zesty octopus & wasabi stem mixture. I loved being presented with a lively sweet flavour, and then just as I thought I had a handle on things, being slapped with a hit of wasabi heat. And believe me, they don't play around with that serving of wasabi. They're fighting the good fight against under-seasoned food!

As for my possibly first ramen experience, I kept the spicy party going with their spicy garlic pork ramen. The ramen is served in a sizeable bowl along with a handy spoon/ladle, so no need for the usual noodle slurp-fest. Once you mix the garlic mound into the deep orange broth, you'll enjoy a lightly spicy broth that wonderfully complements the substantial amount of noodles swimming below. It's a little bit of a shame that the pork itself didn't quite meet the deep and comforting flavours of the rest of the bowl. I didn't get the sense that it was all that fresh. Regardless, I ate happy that day.

I encountered a well appreciated touch when I went to the bathroom and saw the decor. They keep to the dark walled theme, and you'll find that Kinto pig even in there, etched into the mirror. They've also got tooth picks and mouthwash in there. So feel free to bring a date, devour that spicy garlic ramen, and still leave fresh.

Overall, I'm a fan of this place. The food is great, and the simple decor is purposeful and well thought out. I could personally do without the staff yelling at me, but if that's the price of good ramen,...

I really like Japanese ramen and I have tried almost all the ramen in GTA. Kinton was my favorite back to when it only has one restaurant in Downtown. I liked it more than Sansotei，the new Raijin，Hakata Ikkousha and Konjiki. The reason for rating it higher than those other ramen restaurants was it had a more tasteful rich soup and best poke belly among all ramen restaurants. Therefore, I was so happy when they finally opened one in Markham. As it is 10 mins drive from my house and not far from my work, I went there very often at the beginning(2-3 times a week). However, like a lot of the franchises, Kinton Markham could not keep the same quality with the original restaurant in Downtown as the time goes by. The noodle was, most of the time, really hard as it was served and kept how hard it was when it is finished. Sometimes, the noodle was really hard and difficult to chew which tells me that they did not use the timer well back in the kitchen. The pork belly was always cold when it is served and tested with no flavor. This makes you have to dip it into the soup and hoping it can be heated before you finishing the ramen. Have you tried a cold cooked fat pork belly with no seasoning? Lol, don’t try! I know the meat is premade in order to serve the customer faster but you can still reheated it before the serving with a torch. The last thing, comparing with the main restaurant and how it was when the Markham restaurant was just opened, the soup has lost most of its flavor and getting faded. It is not they did not add enough salt in the soup but more like losing the richness. The soup is the soul of any Japanese ramen as the noodle and other ingredients had no seasoning. In addition, they never get the simplest idea that more noodle needs more soup. They would always serve you the same amount of soup even with an extra noodle order. I have reduced the number of times that I visited this restaurant in the past few years. The last time I visited this restaurant was in Dec 2024, none of the issues above was resolved and even noticed. I know it is common in franchise business but I am still disappointed as it was my favorite ramen in Toronto. It is more disappointing as it being a Japanese cuisine, has lost what it was famous for, which was pursuing high quality food and best...

This is a delayed review of our visit to this location due to personal reasons. On August 4th, we visited this location and was pretty disappointed. As I was eating, I noticed an odd colour and shape in my bowl and thought it was a bamboo shoot, which should not be out of the ordinary. I continued to put it in my mouth and the texture was very soft and then I noticed it was penne pasta. I decided to ignore it and not put up a fuss as I was with my kids. As I continued to eat and getting to the bottom of the bowl there was a few more pieces and at this point I was pretty disgusted as it seemed as if no one washed the bowl and just reused the bowl with remnants from the last customer (which is pretty confusing as this is a Raman restaurant and not a pasta restaurant).

I asked the waiter why penne pasta was in my food and he said "oh it could be when they were packaging the noodles, some might have fallen in at the manufacture, but let me go and ask someone else". To me that seemed plausible, but highly unlikely. After a few minutes, another person came to us and he explained that they used the same water to cook the staff meals as the ones they use for the noodles and there was some left in the water - this was also a plausible explanation and I was satisfied with the explanation, but every unsatisfied with the eating experience.

The same person indicated that they were willing to give us 1 free appetizer from their summer special menu as compensation for what had happened. I looked at him with amazement and smiled and said "sure" - while the whole time I was in disbelief how he insulted my intelligence in the whole matter (to add context to the situation, the summer special was $1 menu items and his tone was a little condescending). To be honest, I didn't know what to expect, maybe covering my meal (not the whole table) would be enough compensation, or maybe a simple apology would do.

At this point, I am very disappointed with this location and I hope all other locations are not following the same practices in processes and procedures when it comes to cooking staff meals/food that's not offered on the menu. This was truly an...