Restaurant review: Kanada-ya, Causeway Bay - delicious Japanese noodles

We're getting tired of the endless wave of new ramen shops, so we weren't too keen to visit when Kanada-ya, a Fukuoka-based brand founded by Kanada Kazuhiro in 2009, opened in April.

It claims to have won a number of awards for ramen, and gained more than four points on Tabelog, the respected Japanese restaurant website.

In the end, we were glad that we did visit because the food is simple yet delicious. The shop looks empty during rush hour, especially compared with Butao, which is just a few steps away and always attracts a long queue. It's great for us, though, as we prefer to avoid queuing on a hot summer's day. Plus we know from experience that a long line doesn't always mean it's worth the wait.

The menu is simple, as there are only three choices for ramen — classic (HK$78), lite (HK$85) and supreme (HK$98).

All are based on the same pork broth which takes 15 hours to prepare daily. While the first two are topped with slices of pork belly, lite got its name because of the generous serving of bean sprouts. For the supreme, the char siu is made from pork shoulder. We tried both the classic and supreme.

The pork belly is great for those who love layered textures in their meat, while the pork shoulder is melt-in-your-mouth tender and has a subtle sweetness to it which goes well with the rich, creamy but not greasy broth. The straight wheat noodles, which can be ordered at four different levels of chewiness, are smooth.