Research coupled with traditional cooking and voila! – you have a dish that’s worth a try. Exploring age-old techniques and methods used to create the most delectable Asian cuisine is not an easy thing to do. From the Land of the Rising Sun to the Sleeping Dragon of the East all the way to the Pearl of the Orient, the diversity of the flavors in the world’s biggest continent is as wide as the ocean that separates Vancouver from it. This is one stop that leaves one’s palate craving for more.
Ramen Quest – the search for Vancouver’s hidden Japanese Ramen.
You can download the this week’s PDF format HERE (or grab the full newspaper HERE,) or just keep reading (the unrated version) below.
Episode 5 – Sit Down and Take Notice
Image cutline: When it comes to Ramen, Oru doesn’t mess around – from noodle to broth, their Ramen is just the tip of the iceberg.
If there’s ever a place that will make you sit up and notice the food, it’s Oru. The restaurant’s concept is simple – serve home cooking from various Asian countries in an attempt to one-up Grandma. Located in the recently-opened and beautifully designed Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel, Chef David Wong has extraordinarily big shoes to step into. During the development of his menu, Wong made it clear that his staff need to impart their traditional generations’ past recipes and that his research would be carried out over home-cooked meals. The result is food that most anyone will have an opinion about – whether it’s two chefs under Wong’s command having to meet in the middle as to the consistency of their Adobo or visitors enjoying freshly made Naan bread, cooked in Oru’s very own Tandoor oven, that blows away variations available on Main Street’s Punjabi Market.
On one hand, the Chef’s lack of compromise on the quality may have something to do with the immense popularity of this restaurant, but on the other hand maybe he’s just that loveable of a guy and the various Grandmas who have helped Wong develop the menu may have just spilled their secrets. Either way, messing with grandma is a daunting task. I recall once challenging my mom in making an Indian meal. The resultant bruises on my psyche quickly taught that I can’t beat momma’s cooking so to Chef Wong, I wish him all the luck.
As for the Ramen, as in everything they serve at Oru, they did a ton of research to come up with the recipe. It’s a Shoyu Ramen which is much lighter than all the others I’ve reviewed thus far and they’ve gone all the way by making their own noodles – somewhat of an anomaly in the ramen business. Perhaps it’s not too lofty of a vision considering they’re selling dozens, not hundreds of bowls during the course of the day and given the quality that’s built in, it’s a worthwhile stop on the trip to ramen-discovery in Vancouver.
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Raj Taneja is part technologist, part entrepreneur, part social media juggernaut and part foodie. He runs urbanmixer.com, publishes a miscellany of his musings at raj.jp and can be found on twitter with the username ‘tinhead.’
