Hello hello! It’s been the longest time since I’ve visited a new ramen spot so I was super excited to visit Afuri ramen + dumpling! Afuri ramen is located along Alderbridge Way in Richmond right beside Chun Yang Tea. The interior of the restaurant is brightly lit and has ample seating for groups. We did a take-out order this visit because there is usually a line out the door!
Afuri ramen is known for their yuzu flavoured ramen broth and gyoza. They have a variety of ramen with soup, rice bowls, tsukemen, gyoza and steamed baos. Their main dishes range from $10-17 and small plates are $6-8.
Yuzu-tsuyu tsukemen
Tsukemen is one of our favourite types of noodles so we decided to try it out. Tsukemen is a Japanese style dipping noodle where you dip the noodles in the highly flavourful broth before eating it. The bowl had pieces of chashu, bamboo shoots, lettuce, marinated egg, and seaweed. The yuzu dipping sauce it came with was bright with citrus flavours with a hint of togarashi for spice.
The first thing we noticed about this dish was that the ramen noodles were white instead of yellow in colour! With that being said, they were still just as chewy and full of texture as the kind we were used to. This dish came with a cold broth and cold noodles which we didn’t expect since it’s usually served warm but we enjoyed it nevertheless!
Hazelnut Tantanmen
I decided to order one of their vegetarian menu items, the Hazelnut Tantanmen, because there were so many raving reviews about it. The bowl of noodles came with hearty mushrooms, bok choy, and vegetarian miso crumbles. I wouldn’t say that the miso crumbles resembled ground pork in any way. It was more like pieces of diced hazelnut flavoured with miso. I did however love the shiitake mushrooms because it had a tender “meaty” texture.
The broth base was full of creamy hazelnut flavour and had the perfect amount of heat to it. If you didn’t tell me I wouldn’t be able to tell that it was vegetarian! And you’re into having meat, they have a non-vegetarian version of this dish as well.
We liked how our take out order came with instructions to heat it up to delicious perfection! It’s always good to know how long to heat up ramen noodles so that they don’t get too soft!
Also, can we take a moment to appreciate how cute the drawing they put on our paper takeout bag was?
