My Overall score: 4.3/5

Nancy’s score: 4.3/5

Joyce’s score: Coming Soon

Ordered:

• Kara Miso Cha-Shu Ramen ($15.30)
• Shoyu Cha-Shu Ramen ($15.30)
• Toroniku Shio Ramen ($18.40)
• Gyoza ($5.75)

Lots of choices to choose from! How did we not take an hour to decide?! Well.. we did. (But we did it whilst waiting in line :p). Efficiency and productivity right?!

Toronto boasts a large amount of ramen shops, but what made us choose this place? Well, besides the nicer website compared to other places, the history, the big line-up outside (it was 8 pm and still bustling) and it was the amazing aromas coming from it that pulled us in!

VERY IMPORTANT: You need to have all your party members present in order to get a table.

Lots to choose from on the menu! I was really sad because I wanted the salmon bowl, mango yoghurt, strawberry nigiri sake and some other things but they all ran out!! Just my luck D:

Presentation:                    4/5

It’s pretty standard presentation for the food, but I love just the bit of extra care in the placement of the ingredients. In the photo below, the top right bowl is the kara-miso ramen. You can see how they carefully laid the meat out to fan out and use the space of the container. Love it! Simple move, but effective!

Nancy: 4

Health:                                  4/5

It’s always hard for me because ramen, even if with freshly made noodles and ingredients, it usually has a lot of sodium. But this place is known to use less sodium and has a more mild, gentle flavour. They definitely gets its full flavour from its amazing broth that you can tell has been simmered for hours. Good to get in protein though!!

As most traditional ramen places, this is not a good place for vegetarians. There are some small appetizers like kimchi, corn and soft-boiled eggs, but that’s not really suitable for a meal.

Nancy: 4

Atmosphere/location: 4.3/5

This place is less of a sit-down-and-have-long-conversations-with-your-friends and more of a sit down, eat and go. It’s really busy and the servers are always ready to clean up the tables and get the next group settled in immediately.

You can see the kitchen on the side, all the chefs are really focused and serious, getting the timing right at each station!

It’s still in downtown and was not too bad to walk to so it’s still convenient! Not sure about the parking though.

Nancy: 4.2/5

One thing I have to mention is that I wished they put a sign to point in the direction of the bathroom? They directed me to the back because they were in such a hurry, but I almost fell down the stairs, because amidst looking around, the stairs were literally at my feet when I turned to my right. They also didn’t have a proper light installed in the bathroom (female’s anyways), but used some night lampshade kind of lighting? This is probably TMI, but while I was in this shady looking bathroom, there were sirens outside that I could hear through the walls, and I swear the lights flickered, and I thought how this area would make a good escape room.

Okay. Yeah. Go home Michelle. You’re being a bit crazy for our readers right now.

Cost:                                  4.5/5

It had just the right amount to leave me at a good full, there was a good amount of meat and you can tell they put a lot of time and effort into making that delicious broth. I think this was a pretty good price for what you get!

Nancy: 4.5

Taste: 4.7/5

Nancy: 4.3

Cha-Shu Kara Miso Ramen

It’s a good spicy and everything about this dish was really yummy. It’s really important for us that the separate ingredients taste just as good as how the ingredients fit in with the dish as a whole. I’m not sure how many people would like it, but I believe it’s the black ear fungus that they used. It’s pretty much tasteless and it takes on the flavour of what you boil it in, but it may be the slight crunchy-chewy texture that would turn people off.

On the other note, black fungus is super beneficial for people with high blood pressure.

Shoyu Cha-Shu Ramen

Where do I begin, you get that fatty taste, the melt-in-your-mouth cha-shu but it is surprisingly very light. There’s some ramens where you feel very heavy after eating it, but this made me feel good! The baby bamboo shoot isn’t my favourite as it had a very strong scent but it is common for it to appear in ramen.

Look at that fatty Cha-Shu~ And I didn’t feel guilty gobbling it all up at all.

My favourite consistency of noodles, just a little chewy and when you bite through it you get this nice clean cut.

Gyoza

The gyoza was nicely pan-fried, nice shape, and definitely homemade wrapping too. As for the flavour, it’s pretty standard but still yummy.

Toroniku Ramen

This was an amazing dish, I think Joyce chose the best one out of all of us. Toroniku is pork cheek meat. It has a soft kind of chewiness to it that tears apart easily. I think this would be good for those who don’t want to bite into pork belly or some meat with a fatty texture to it; it’s like eating lean meat.

Service:                              4.5/5

I had an ant in my bowl and the server was very quick in apologizing and making sure it got replaced it with a fresh new bowl right away!

Overall it was fast and efficient. The servers are just really busy to necessarily focus on each table and check up, but they definitely did the best they could!

Nancy: 4.5

We didn’t end the night here! We went over and lined up at Uncle Tetsu’s and then went on a hunt to try to find a place to eat it :’D Which we really didn’t succeed and ending up drinking at a bar to catch up haha.

I live for these kinds of memories ❤

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Which ramen do you love the best?!

-Mish.