Gallery: 8 inventive takes on pho, ramen and other noodle dishes at Slurp Noodlefest

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.