Dennis Tay and Carl Heinrich from Richmond Station (Image: Igor Yu)
The city’s hard-core ramen fixation has been going strong for about a year now, but it was an earlier Toronto noodle love, Vietnamese pho, which inspired Suresh Doss (Food Truck Eats) to host yesterday’s Slurp Noodlefest. The idea stemmed from a dinner conversation that Doss had with chefs Susur Lee and Carl Heinrich about Toronto’s many excellent pho options. Doss wanted to see what the younger generation of chefs, who’ve had plenty of exposure to pho, could come up with, so he invited them down to The Great Hall to show off their best noodle dishes. The all-star roster included Heinrich, A-OK’s Chris Jang, Nick Liu of the upcoming GwaiLo, Sabai Sabai’s Nuit Regular, Matthew Sullivan of Skin and Bones and even Splendido’s Victor Barry, who stayed true to his restaurant’s haute-cuisine with a porcini and perigord truffle ramen with a sous-vide egg.
Skin and Bones’ Matthew Sullivan served ramen made with goose consommé, which was flavoured with dried oysters and topped with slow-cooked goose breast that had been brined Szechuan peppers. He served it with a sheet made of egg yolk
A-OK’s Chris Jang was the only vendor to eschew soup for his noodle dish. His blanched soba noodles were tossed with sesame oil, chili, Szechuan peppers and chinese celery and topped with spicy pulled chicken
Nuit Regular served a tom yum–style soup made with palm sugar, tamarind, peanut and lime. Inside were rice noodles, spicy braised veal medallions, thai coriander and bean sprouts
Nick Liu of GwaiLo served a hakka-style soup with homemade rice noodles. Liu’s “master stock” (a soup base that’s been used over and over for braising various meats) was topped with pressed pork hock, crispy pork hock, pickled onions, coriander, chili and lime
El Gastrónomo Vagabundo’s Adam Hynam-Smith came up with a take on tom yum, the sweet, sour and hot Thai soup. Hynam-Smith started with his own mildly fermented curry paste, which he added to duck stock and served with rice noodles, chicken, cherry tomatoes, kaffir lime, fried shallots, thai basil and coriander
Splendido’s Victor Barry brought his A-game with a porcini and perigord truffle ramen with a sous-vide egg. The tonkotsu broth required 100 pounds of pork bone and 10 whole chickens, all of which was smoked in a Big Green Egg for 48 hours before being simmered with veal trotters and ham hocks for another 24 hours
<em>Top Chef Canada</em> Season 2 winner Carl Heinrich relied on his saucier Dennis Tay, who learned to make traditional pho from his fiancé’s Vietnamese mother. Their broth was filled with broad rice noodles, shaved beef brisket from Dingo Farms, bean sprouts, mint leaves and a sprinkle of chili peppers