New Kanata ramen shop Kuma Takumi wows

• Name + address: Kuma Takumi, 484 Hazeldean Rd Unit 6A, Kanata

• Diet: meat, seafood, vegetarian

• Appetizers:

• Mains: $17-$25

• Wheelchair accessibility: Yes

• Licensed: No

• Website: www.instagram.com/kumatakumi_ramen

I was returning from an interview with master distiller Adam Brierley when I thought I would stop in for lunch at one of my favourite Kanata noodle shops.

It was a fortuitous decision as right next door a brand new ramen shop had opened its doors just a week earlier.

Kuma Takumi is the latest in an increasing number of Ottawa ramen restaurants and they’re certainly doing things the right way.

Server Lu (Lucia) Li greeted me and we launched into a conversation about ramen and the opening of this new shop. 

She impressed me with her knowledge of seemingly every other ramen restaurant in Ottawa as if she’d been doing legwork in preparation for the opening of Kuma Takumi. She impressed me further by revealing that she was behind the design for this very modern eatery with some of the more attractive and well-built tables and chairs I’ve come across over the years.

It’s these small touches that signal a concern with quality throughout the enterprise and as it turns out, I wouldn’t be disappointed.

I placed my order and within minutes my appetizer of chicken karaage arrived. Little nuggets of marinated chicken thigh golden fried and served grease-less with a slice of lemon. For $7 it was a very well-prepared starter.

Ramen may be a humble dish but it has its standards and some of these are beyond what we can expect to see in Ottawa.

Noodles, for example, in shops in Japan (a few in Canada) are offered not just in different thicknesses but also in different levels of doneness. The same is true of ramen broth: you can order it according to your preferred concentration with increasing levels of collagen for richness.

Kuma Takumi doesn’t offer that service but they are delivering a broth that will leave your lips sticky with collagen and for me that’s a “tell” about the level of care and focus on authenticity.

With ramen, the focus for the consumer is on the broth. This was a broth executed at a level that I’ve come to expect from Ottawa’s better shops: Jinsei, Ramen Isshin and Kinton. 

The noodles were firm and chewy and the broth had that delicious stickiness I expect from a well-extracted broth. While advertised as “spicy” it was very mild but came with a side of house spicy sauce and I expect this was out of an abundance of caution exercised by a new business.

Everything was on point but here’s something I’ve never encountered: it needed more salt. Now, this is going to be a perfect dish for patrons who can’t have much salt in their diets and that’s important… I would however suggest to Kuma Takumi that they offer a side of Japanese sea salt for those who want to amp up their experience.

The same under-seasoning was evident in the chashu pork. It was a nicely cooked addition but lacked the umami one expects. 

I did add tempura shrimp at $2 a piece and they were decent but had been left in the fryer too long resulting in too firm a prawn.

As a standout, you will however enjoy one of the nicest Ajitsuke Tamago (Ajitama- “ramen eggs”) in Ottawa. The marinade in the egg white was delicate with a magnificent egg yolk custard, the richness of which balanced the seasoning. Pure pleasure and I appreciated the care that went into the preparation.

Owner Tinker Yang’s older brother started this venture out of Japan and, according to Yang, owns three locations in China. He studied ramen in Tokyo and the results are evident via the very proper techniques employed.

A surprise to me was how he volunteered that the water used in their ramen is always filtered. I’ll take his word for it. This was one of the nicest and cleanest broths I’ve experienced in our city. Ramen fans take note and pay them a visit when in Kanata.