Kanada-Ya
Ramen
3 Panton St, SW1Y 4DL
££
A happy coincidence happened this November: the temperature dropped and my gym membership ceased at around the same time. A perfect way to get into the festive spirit, I thought - cosy evenings spent getting fat instead of fit. A perfect time also to try out Kanada-Ya: a Ramen joint heralded by many as ‘The Best in London’, and whose menu I had laboriously hand-filled out onto their website in my incredibly short stint in Digital Marketing (before I learned that I really did prefer eating the food rather than copying and pasting it into the backend of a wordpress site…)
With two joints nestled in the centre of London, Kanada-Ya manages to maintain a fiercely loyal following of punters who are willing to queue for up to an hour outside, eager with the chance of snapping up one of the very few tables. Keen to see what all the fuss was about, I headed down one Thursday evening after work around 6pm. I was pleasantly surprised to find no queue, meaning we were seated on a (shared) table right away. We took a look at the short menu and after being disappointingly informed that they “weren’t doing gyoza today”, we went for two portions of the Karaage (£4), followed by a Tonkotsu X (pork and corn fed chicken bone broth, chashu pork belly wood ear fungus, seaweed, spring onion - £10.5) and Spicy Yuzu (pork and corn fed chicken broth, chashu pork collar, wood ear fungus, seaweed, spring onion - £12).
The first waitress had an odd expression on her face when she came to take our order, kind of like we weren’t very welcome, which morphed into pure patronisation when she asked which firmness of noodles we would like – even though we went for HARD which is what they RECOMMEND. Our Ramen bowls arrived within a few minutes, kind of annoying when you’re expecting the starters to be the… well… start of your meal. Having said that, they were really tasty and not too large like some monster portions you get elsewhere. The pork was fragrant and tender, sliced incredibly thin. The egg that was placed on top (for an extra charge) was cooked perfectly too – with strong tones of soy running through it.
By the time we were finished our Ramen our Karaage still hadn’t arrived, so we asked a nervous waiter if he knew where it was. He replied awkwardly that the till wasn’t sending requests through to the chefs, and that he would get back to us in 5 minutes. It eventually arrived, around 5 nugget sized bites each, crispy enough but a little too greasy if I’m honest, and not a patch on competitor Shoryu’s version. Upon paying, we gave another waitress our Time Out dine for two voucher – entitling us to 50% off the food bill – to which she looked pissed off, then told us it was only applicable to the ramen. Luckily, our final interaction was saved by a lovely third waitress, who danced over with our bill, saying she had put 50% off all of the food as that was the correct way, then wished us a fantastic evening.
Overall, Kanada-Ya is a casual, no-frills dining spot for quality Ramen in the centre of town. If you stick to ramen alone, and get lucky without the queues, then it might just be worth it… however, the staff here need a serious re-brand (did no one tell them that Thursday is the new Friday?!) The added extras may as well not be on the menu, for the amount they cloud the quality of the Ramen itself with their painfully average performance. Lastly, I don’t usually mind sharing tables at restaurants at all – however, when it’s a tiny, round, seriously uncomfortable wooden structure, with 5 people crammed in, I would honestly rather not.
Will I be back? Probably not – I’ll hit up Shoryu instead, which has comfier seats, better sides, and not quite so painful service…
OVERALL RATING: ***
https://www.kanada-ya.com/
