Ask anyone in New Westminster where to get a proper bowl of ramen, and you will get a long pause.
That gap is about to close.
A Noms community member (foodtfoodt) spotted the poster for Horin Ramen up across from New Westminster Station, on the ground floor of the Ovation building that already houses Galbi KBBQ.
This will be Horin’s first location in New Westminster, and its fifth in British Columbia.
The Ovation unit puts it next to Galbi KBBQ, giving the building a small cluster of destination food right at the SkyTrain door.
It joins the chain’s Robson Street shop downtown, its Burnaby location at Metrotown, its Victoria outpost, and an upcoming Richmond shop on No. 3 Road.
The brand carries a genuinely unusual claim to fame.
Horin traces back to a restaurant in Ogori, Fukuoka Prefecture, that opened in 1966 and became known across Japan as the place where chili ramen was created.
Its founder was the first person in Japan to add a spicy tare to classic tonkotsu, a move that earned the original shop the title of the birthplace of chili ramen.
That first restaurant closed after the founder fell ill, and the family later started fresh under the Horin name to carry the recipe forward.
The broth is the whole point.
Horin runs a pure pork bone tonkotsu with no filler ingredients, a build the brand describes as light yet rich, adjusted daily against the weather and the season.
It is paired with an ultra-fine noodle the brand designed specifically for the way it feels going down, matched to the soup rather than picked off a supplier’s shelf.
Adjusting a broth by the day and the weather is the kind of obsessive detail that tends to separate a serious tonkotsu shop from a functional one.
The chain still runs three shops in Fukuoka, and it has been busy on this side of the Pacific.
Last year it launched a separate ninja shiba themed concept called Nin-Nin, and the BC map has been filling in fast.
No opening date has been announced for the New Westminster shop yet.
For a SkyTrain-front spot in a city that has been thin on ramen, this is the kind of arrival people will actually plan around.
Horin New Westminster joins other upcoming Metro Vancouver food spots like Mr. Noodle Chen, Crepe Spot, No.1 Beef Noodle Richmond.
For more new and upcoming food spots in Metro Vancouver, take a peek at our tracker here, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
Address: 815 Carnarvon Street, New Westminster, BC