Hello friends! It’s been a year since Ramen Gaoh opened up in Burnaby Heights and they were celebrating their anniversary with 50% off ramen! Luckily Grayson and I went at 2pm because they were packed during lunch and dinner hours! I didn’t know this until I got there but Ramen Gaoh is actually in the same restaurant group as Ramen Butcher and Ramen Danbo!
Although the store front looks pretty big from the outside, the interior was actually quite small. They had two “outdoor” seating sections for larger parties but only had smaller tables and bar seating on the inside.
Ramen Gaoh menu
Ramen Gaoh offers a variety of ramen, dons and appetizers to choose from. We liked that they gave you the option to make your ramen a combo if you’re feeling extra hungry. Instead of just having one spicy ramen option, they had two! I liked how the scorpion ramen let you choose both spicy and numbing levels! Another thing to note is that they offer a free refill of noodles here if you want some at the end of your meal. Just make sure you save some broth when you’re done if you want more noodles!
Since the two of us weren’t feeling too hungry, we opted to try some of their seasonal specials instead of something with tonkotsu broth. I love Yuzu so naturally, this yuzu shio ramen caught my eye.
Yuzu shio ramen
I liked how the broth was chicken based because it remained light enough for you to taste hints of citrus from the yuzu. With that being said, we could have done with more flavor to the soup because it was quite bland compared to your typical tonkotsu. There were a few slices of chicken “chashu” which really meant chicken breast and a couple chicken truffle wontons. Grayson had all of it but he said it was pretty tasty and that the truffle in the wonton was quite interesting. The noodles were cooked on the softer side and they were thinner so if you’re one to enjoy a bite to your ramen, this might not be the best choice for you.
Since it was a hot day, we decided to try their cold kake ramen too. It consisted of thick ramen noodles served cold with grated radish, tempura bits, green onion, poached egg, bonito flakes, chicken and a soy based sauce.
Cold Kake ramen
We both really enjoyed this dish because not only was it refreshing but the noodles were super chewy and delicious! It was a nice contrast to the softer noodles we had with the yuzu ramen. While we both thought that it could have used more sauce since it was quite difficult to mix everything in it, it was flavorful enough for us to taste it in every bite. It could have had a bit more depth to it though because after a while it just tasted like we put soy sauce on our noodles. Overall, this dish was a big winner!
Quick bites:
- A decent variety of ramen to choose from
- Smaller on the portion size but you could always ask for extra noodles if need be
- Make it a combo to try more dishes!