The grand opening of Kanada-Ya in Islington included a soft 50% discount. We (foolishly) arrived at 1205pm for the 12pm opening and the queue suggested at least an hour wait. 50% saving is about £5-6 for a bowl, so not really worth an hour of time necessarily. It was nice to see that on a Sunday evening at 8pm there were free tables and only a minimal <5min wait. I'm not sure if that's foreboding for them but it's good for those of us who live a walkable distance to it.
The menu is no different to the others branches (that I remember) and the special Tonkotsu (pork bone broth, chashu pork belly, wood ear fungus, seaweed, spring onion) £10.5 was a thickish, murky, nearly congealing broth with a deep blended pig flavour. It was excellent. My flatmates commented they had thicker broth at Shoryu and in Japan but I don't think I want it much thicker (and I don't remember thinking very much of Shoryu either). The chashu was soft and not too fatty. I could eat the whole piece.
Spicy yuzu ramen (spicy yuzu, pork and corn fed chicken broth, chashu pork collar, wood ear fungus, seaweed, spring onion) £12 had a distinctive yuzu tangy flavour but was more powerful in terms of the umami and salt qualities. I thought it was pretty good and a different twist although not necessarily better than the tonkotsu's relatively less complex flavour. Is it worth the extra £1.5? Probably not but moreso because the tonkotsu is so good. The pork collar is not as soft as the chashu. And the hardboiled egg (£2 extra) is a lovely addition but quite expensive for the luxury.
I had my first set of noodles as hard and the extra serve (kaedama £2) extra hard. I certainly preferred the extra chewy texture of the extra hard and would pick that as my preference next time.