Love Me Sweet - Scarborough Town Centre

Apparently Japanese cheesecakes are still in demand.  No more hour long lineups at Mr Tetsu on Bay St., but I did hear somewhat recently lineups can still be found at Mr Tetsu in Unionville.  So if you don't want to wait in line, an alternative is Love Me Sweet.  This particular location I visited was inside Scarborough Town Centre.  No lineup at all, not sure if it was because it was still early in the morning, or that because there's so many Japanese cheesecake options, the demand has been spread thinner.

Now on to Love Me Sweet's cheesecake.  Taste wise, tastes good, just like any other Japanese cheesecake.  Slight tang from the cream cheese, light and fluffy and not too sweet.  Texture wise, it almost seemed like there were two layers in the cake.  Majority of the cake had the same moist texture, but the top centimetre of the cake I found to be dry.

Japanese Cheesecake

Love Me Sweet - Scarborough Town Centre

300 Borough Drive, Suite 226
Toronto, ON 

M1P 4P5

Phone:  (647) 894-1399

Hours:   Monday - Friday 10:00a - 9:00p

              Saturday 9:30a - 9:00p

              Sunday 11:00a - 7:00p

https://lovemesweet.ca

Sakawa Coffee

The name of this place is a bit misleading, well at least I thought so.  Because theres the name "Coffee", I originally assumed that it was just a cafe (that serves coffees and cakes).  They do serve coffee and cakes, but they also do meals, including traditional Japanese breakfasts, lunches and dinner.  We popped in for dinner.

When we arrived, the restaurant was empty except for one table (the place is pretty small, as with most places downtown).  As soon as we got in the door, we were greeted by an older Japanese man, very friendly, and told us to sit down, while he brought us the menus.  One was laminated (their regular dishes I assume), another was on a regular piece of paper, their specials, and their drink menu.  The hubby ordered off of their special menu, the curry tsukemen.  And I ordered off their regular menu.  I wish I remembered to take a picture of the menu, because now I can't remember then name of the dish I ordered!  All I remember is that its the last dish on their regular menu.

The curry sauce for the tsukemen was very good and flavourful.  And the noodles, were different than the ramen noodles that I was used to eating.  These looked flat, almost like a linguine.  The chasiu was a bit dry, but once it was warmed with the curry, it got better.  And the best part, there were veggies in the dish!  Again, never seen choy sum in Japanese dishes, but I love my veggies, so I won't complain.

Curry Tsukemen

My dish, reminded me of Fukien style fried rice, without the fried rice part.  There was shrimp, chicken, ham, chasiu, onions, eggplant, peppers and choy sum in sauce of some sort served over plain Japanese rice.  Wasn't what I was expecting, but was quite good.

Last Dish on Regular Menu

Overall, I liked this place quite a bit.  For the price that you pay and the food that you get, I think it's worth checking out for sure.  And by the time we left, the restaurant was full.

Sakawa Coffee
867 Danforth Ave.,
Toronto, ON
M4J 1L8

Phone: (647) 347-4932

Hours:  Monday CLOSED
             Tuesday - Sunday 900a-400p, 500p-900p

Market 707: NomNomNom, Gushi, Petit Nuage

The idea of Market 707 is pretty cool.  Its like a normal small restaurant crossed with a food truck, resulting in food being served out of a shipping container.  I would assume since it's a place with actual running water and fixed gas/electricity, food prep and storage wise would be safer than a food truck as well.  The only downside is that you end up eating the food at a picnic table with busy road traffic running down Bathurst St.

NomNomNom
Known for their poutine and crepes.  I wasn't feeling for crepes that day, so was looking at their poutines.  They have lots of options on their menu, but because of the purist that I am, I ordered the plain or regular poutine.  Portion was quite big!  The fries, cut in house, and fried fresh, topped with real squeaky cheese curds and gravy that wasn't overly salty.  Love their poutine.  Probably one of my faves in the city now.

Poutine

http://nnncrepes.com

Gushi
This is a place I knew the hubby would be interested in checking out.  One of their best sellers is the chicken kaarage.  We got a large order of Original Gushi Chicken on Rice.  We probably shouldn't have ordered the large, but the hubby always has an issue with thinking we can eat more than our stomachs can handle.  So in the end, he stuffed his stomach.  I loved how the rice was a purple rice rather than a white rice.  Just something different, and I think purple rice is supposed to be healthier right?  The kaarage was good, a piece or two was a little fatty for me, but the hubby didn't notice, i'm probably just pickier about food having hunks of fat on it.  I have to say that there quite a few pieces of kaarage in the order.  Worth the price paid for sure.

Original Gushi Chicken on Rice

https://www.facebook.com/gushitoronto

Petit Nuage
Last but not least, saved some room for dessert.  I got 2 macarons, and a cream puff.  To be honest, I don't remember which macarons I bought, and I don't remember if they were good or not.  But, I LOVED the cream puff.  I've never had a cream puff like this before.  The outside, pastry, was like the normal pastry crossed with the top of a pineapple bun.  Amazing!  The inside cream filling was a matcha filling, that filled the pastry to the brim!

Daily Selection

Matcha Cream Puff

http://www.petitnuage.ca

Market 707
707 Dundas St. W.,
Toronto, ON
M5T 2W6

Hours:  Spring & Summer (April to September) Tuesday - Saturday 11:30a - 7:00p*
             Fall (October to December) Tuesday - Saurday 11:30a - 5:00p*
             Winter (January - March) Hours vary depending on the vendor
* Hours of individual vendors may vary

Millie Creperie

What is a mille crêpes cake?  Its essentially a 'cake' that is composed of several layers of crêpes with a cream filling in between each of the layers.  I'm not sure if there's a typical number of layers that is usually used to make the cake, but the direct translation is 1000.  I highly doubt that there's any bakery that will make the cake with 1000 crêpes.  It would be too heavy, too labour intensive, and too big to eat!  

Millie Creperie, as their name indicates, makes crêpes, including the mille crêpes cake.  They come in different flavours, I chose to try the vanilla flavour.  The vanilla cream was very good.  I wish I could have had more.  I found the crêpe layers to be a bit too soft, to the point of being a bit mushy/soggy.  I have to say that I didn't try the cake fresh, it was purchased in the afternoon, I didn't eat it until late at night.  So I'm not sure if thats why the cake is softer than I would like.  My friend said that his (different flavour), was ok, even though he ate it late at night too.

Crêpes Cake

Seems like I need to make a trip down to Kensington Market to give them a try when the cake is 'fresh'.  But I know if i'm down at the store, I'll be tempted to try their other offerings, mainly the crêpe with Japanese green tea gelato.

Millie Creperie

161 Baldwin St.,

Kensington Market,

Toronto, ON M5V 3H9

Phone:  (416) 977-1922

Hours:  Monday - Thursday 12:30p - 8:30p

             Friday - Saturday 12:30 - 10:00p

             Sunday 12:30p - 8:30p

http://milliecreperie.com

Nomé Izakaya

A buck a shuck oysters!  Need I say more?  Pair that with some drinks, and some snacky type food means an awesome girls night out.  We didn’t have reservations, so the hostess said that if we wanted a table for 2, they had one available, but we would have to leave by 7pm (that gave us 1.5 hours, reading reviews, they only give you 2 hour seatings anyways).  But if we chose to sit at the bar, we could sit for as long as we wanted.  Probably not a good choice for 2 short Asian girls, but we managed to get up on those stools….

Nomé Izakaya has a large list of drinks that look quite fun with interesting names, some not so kid friendly.  But kids shouldn’t be looking at alcoholic drinks anyways right?  I ordered a very kid friendly drink named Soho Singapore Sling, flavours of whole lychees, cucumbers and mint leaves muddled with gin, soho and sake.  Very delicious for a hot summer day, what made it better was that I could barely taste the alcohol.  On tap, they also had an interesting beer, an oyster beer.  We were told that it was brewed with oysters, and the shells.  My friend decided to order that to go with our buck a shuck oysters.  It took several minutes to pour, because they said that they didn’t have the right tap for it.  I’m not sure what that means.  In any case, my friend liked the beer, says it reminded her of Guinness.

Soho Singapore Sling

Oyster Beer

We ordered a dozen of the $1 oysters, Malpeques from what I remember.  They weren’t too big, good size for the novice raw oyster eaters, me.  Sweet, not fishy, a bit irony.  There were a bunch of sauces that they give for you to pair with the oysters.  We gravitated to one that tasted salsa like.  I can’t remember many of the other options except for pesto, yuzu, horseradish, regular hot sauce. 

Oysters

Next dish was the Tuna Tango.  Lightly seared tuna with ground daikon, shallot chips, and Nome’s original ponzu sauce.  This dish, I don’t think is worth ordering.  The amount of tuna that you get is so little.  The pieces itself were small, and it was cut very thinly, and there was barely any sear on it.  The upside, it wasn’t fishy.

Tuna Tango

The Marinated Black Cod was very good, black cod that was marinated with a citrus soy sauce.  Again the portion was small, but it was very meaty, and most importantly not fishy, even for such an oily fish.  Not much of a citrus flavour in the soy sauce though.

Marinated Black Cod

The last dish we shared were the Bulgogi Tacos, bulgogi with lettuce, sliced onion, fresh jalapeno, kimchi, Japense beni shoga, garlic mayo and spicy salsa.  This was my favorite dish, although spicy it was not, I did enjoy the garlic mayo, but was a tad salty for me.  I think I enjoyed it the most cuz it was fun.  It would have been even better if they used corn tortillas instead of flour tortillas.  Just a note, one order comes with 3 tacos.  We added a fourth so we could share it easier.  The price of an extra taco was $2.90.

Bulgogi Tacos

In the grand scheme of things, worth it to visit for a drink and the $1 oysters, the rest of the food, not so much. 

Nomé Izakaya

4848 Yonge St.,

Toronto, ON

M2N 5N2

Phone:  (647) 347-7937

Hours:  Monday - Sunday 5:00p - 2:00a

http://nomeizakaya.com/#!/home

Sansotei Ramen Markham

I'm still super behind on my blogging.  The posts actually have been written, I'm really behind on posting.  But even though I'm so far behind, I feel like I need to post about Sansotei now, rather than waiting.  The reason for this is to let you know how bad I found the food to be.  A warning to stay away if you want good ramen.

Our line up on a Tuesday night, took abut 25 minutes, even though we arrived at 815p, which I thought should have been late enough for no lineup.  But given that it was still new, I guess a lot of people wanted to try?  We got in, and we were seated at a communal booth table.  We were starving, so we quickly placed an order for zangi (fried chicken), gyu don, tonkotsu black ramen and tomato ramen both with thick noodle.  Our waiter told us that they were sold out of the zangi, so we ordered the spicy slow cooked wings.

The slow cooked wings arrived first.  They did not look appetizing at all.  I guess partly because I didn't expect them to be soy sauce chicken wings.  The sauce was a combination of soy sauce, star anise, and chilis.  They were cooked well you could say, stewed for a long time, the meat was fall off the bone.  But I can't stand rubbery/soft chicken skin, so it was kinda gross.

Spicy Slow Cooked Wings

Gyu don arrived shortly after.  Beef and onions on rice.  The beef looked extremely fatty.  I hate the texture of fat, so I picked it off.  I wasn't left with much beef.  It was also ridiculously over sauced.  And for some reason the sauce was super watery.  After we scooped out a spoonful of rice, it was like a pool of sauce filled the empty space.  Shouldn't the sauce be thicker?  The sauce was also too salty.  What drove me nuts too was that the rice didn't appear to be Japanese rice, the grains didn't stick together, making me think it was Chinese rice.

Gyu Don

My tomato ramen was a tomato based broth, not sure if it used the same tonkotsu base, topped with pork belly, scallop and egg.  A bowl of perfectly cooked ramen must include a properly cooked egg, noodles cooked just enough, and a broth that has been simmering on the stove for a long time to produce the deep, smooth flavour.  First glance, it looked good.  But when I looked closer, the egg was slightly overcooked.  The egg yolk should still be soft.  It was mostly soft, but at the edge, I noticed that it was solid.  Cooking the egg this way is difficult, almost an art.  Maybe the chef is new and still trying to figure timing out?  The broth was just ok, it was smooth, it tasted tomatoey, but it also tasted like Thai tom yom flavouring was added.  The noodle was cooked really well.  I had read reviews where people said that the thick noodle was undercooked.  I thought mine was cooked perfect.  The scallop looked pretty.  It had the main scallop part, the frilly part and the roe sack.  But when I took one bite, that was it, I almost spat it out.  Way too fishy for me to handle.  The pork belly had good char marks on it, which I like.  Gives it extra flavour.  As I picked up the pork belly and put it near my mouth, I smelled it.  I sniffed it again make sure I was smelling it.  The smell of stinky old pork.  It's not the smell of rotten pork.  The pork did not go bad, and is edible.  This smell usually comes from lesser quality of pork, or older pigs.  I couldn't eat it.  My husband ate my scallop and pork belly, and gave me half of his egg.  So I was left to eating noodles, and 1.5 eggs.

Tomato Ramen

The tonkotsu black is the tonkotsu but just with added black garlic oil.  Broth was ok, not the best I've had, but also not the worst I've had either.  The noodles, thick noodles, was cooked perfect.  Pork belly again had the stinky old pork smell.  The egg was also overcooked.

Tonkotsu Black Ramen

If you want ramen, please go downtown, or go to Kinton at Yonge and Finch.  If you want soupy noodles within Markham or Richmond Hill, go find yourself a wonton noodle, or pho place instead.

Sansotei Ramen Markham
3987 Highway 7E,
Markham, ON
L3R 5M6

Hours:  Still on soft opening, so not sure if the hours will change in the future.
             Monday - Sunday 5pm - 11pm

Uncle Tetsu

Uncle Tetsu is all the rage right now.  To get your hands on one of these fluffy Japanese cheesecakes means you would have had to line up for 2 or more hours.  Luckily for me, I didn't have to.  My food boyfriend (my husband gave him that name), went to pick one up and shared a slice with me.  I guess because he went within the first couple of days of opening (before the news broke that Uncle Tetsu has arrived), he only had to wait for about an hour.

The Japanese cheesecake is almost a 180 from the more well known New York styled cheesecake.  Where the New York is heavy and dense, the Japanese is light and fluffy.  It's similar to very a very smooth, more moist angel food cake, with a slight tang of cream cheese.  Very good, but I don't think I would wait 2 hours in line for it.  I'm sure i'll buy another one, one day....only if the line ups die down.  The honey cake, theres another name for it, but I forgot.  This one I didn't like so much.  Good honey flavour, but too dry in my opinion.  Dry to the point of it being crumbly.

Uncle Tetsu Japanese Cheesecake

Honey Cake

Uncle Tetsu
598 Bay St.
Toronto, ON
M5G 1M5

Phone:  647-941-1806

Hours:  Monday - Sunday 11am - 11pm

http://uncle-tetsu.com/system/english/?lang=en

Izakaya Tsuki

Another restaurant I visited during my diet's food introduction phase.  The night started out with me at a bar.  My friends who I haven't seen in 10 years wanted to meet at a bar.  I couldn't eat anything there or drink anything there.  So I only stayed for a short while, and searched for a place that would have some food for me to eat.  By that time, it was too late for me to buy groceries and then go home and cook.  I thought of Japanese food, since there's some sashimi.  Yes I realize sashimi is fish.  But because of my food limitations, thats what I had to resort to.  Izakaya Tsuki was nearby and they use brown rice instead of white rice!  Means I can have maki as well! While we were waiting, I called up another friend that lives nearby to join us, since I haven't seen him in a couple of months.  More people means we can order a larger variety of food.

Izakya Tsuki has quite large menu with large variety of raw and cooked items ranging from sushi and sashimi to ramen to takoyaki balls. For the three of us, I think we ordered a lot of food.  But that's also because my friend can eat quite a bit. :)  We ordered sashimi salad, takoyaki, ramen, tuna tataki, grilled squid, grill beef tongue, gindara, sushi+sashimi plate

The sashimi salad was pretty much the same fish as the sashimi and sushi plate.  I still haven't acquired the love for salmon yet.  So I pretty much ate tuna, and some other fish that I don't know the name of.  Was, just ok I think.  Wasn't mushy and overly fishy smelling and tasting.  So a pass for me.  I also can't compare to other sushi joints in Toronto.  When you compare with places like Japan and Vancouver, you just can't.....

Sashimi Salad

Sushi+Sashimi Platter

Tuna tataki is usually my go to dish.  For some reason I find that with the slight sear on the fish, it gives the fish a better texture than fully cooked or fully raw.  So I ate quite a bit of this one.

Tuna Tataki

The best dish of the night (of what I did eat) was the gindara.  I think it's better than Guu's!  The fish was not fishy at all.  Cooked perfect which a slight crust, while being moist on the inside.  I think I ate most of this dish too.

Gindara

The squid was just so-so.  Not the best that I've had, and not the worst.  I would say order something else instead.  I didn't try the beef tongue or the ramen.  The boys liked the beef tongue.  The ramen was meh.  They have their favourites downtown.  They also liked the takoyaki balls.  But when looking at it, it looked firmer than what I remember from Kyoto.  But then again most Japanese restaurants here in Toronto make them firm.

Beef Tongue & Squid

Ramen

Takoyaki

I think if I were to return, it would be for the gindara.  So many other restaurants along Yonge St. for me to try.  It is super convenient for people who take the TTC since it's on the subway line.  And I just noticed they also have a location in Markham.

Izakya Tsuki
5182 Yonge St.
North York, ON
M2N 5P6

Phone:  416-229-6719

Hours:  Monday - Sunday 5pm-2am

http://www.tsuki.ca

Inaho Japanese Restaurant

My friend suggested we meet at this restaurant.  He frequents it quite a bit, at least once a week he said.  But this particular week, it would be his second visit.  We didn't make a reservation, and when we walked in, all their tables already had the plastic reserved plaque on them, and this was a weeknight!  Must be a good place since they seem to be so busy, regulars I assume.  So we sat at the sushi bar.  And as it turns out, they were all regulars.  From what I observed, everyone that walked in seemed to know the owners, and they seemed to all be like family.

My friend ordered some soba noodles, and hand roll, both of which I forgot take pictures of.  And I ordered a tempura don.  The reason my friend said that he loves this place is because the fish is fresh. He spent the last few months on the west coast eating really fresh fish, and he says this is the closest to the west coast he's had here since he's been back.  I took his word for it, since at that time I was still anti-fish.  My tempura don was ok, nothing to be crazy over.  I personally found the tempura batter to be a little heavy.  The sushi rice underneath was flavoured well.

Tempura Don

End of the meal came with choice of either ginger, green tea, or black sesame ice cream.  Pretty standard.  The only 'downside' was the little roach critter that I saw scurry by our feet.  I'm sure other restaurants have the same thing, but would have been better that I didn't see it.

Inaho Japanese Restaurant
155 East Beaver Creek Road,
Richmond Hill, ON,
L4B 2N2

Phone: 905-889-8533

Catch up #1: Bakeries, Coffee & Snacks

I feel like my regular life has been put on hold for the last few months because of school.  I expected the course to be hard, but I didn't expect that it would suck up every free moment I had because the material was really THAT difficult.  Now I need to play catch up with blogging.  I just looked and I have posts that I should have done back in June July....so I figure the best way to do this would just be to try and categorize many of the food visits into grouped posts.  I'll try my best to make it short and sweet.  Shouldn't be hard I think because to be honest I no longer remember the fine details.  This past term honestly has fried my brain.

Allans Pastry:
I used to love eating these Jamaican patties.  Not sure if it was for the flavour, or if it was just because they were affordable as a student.  Allan's makes the best pastry shell for the Jamaican patties.  But this last time I had it, the filling.....kinda lacking.

Jamaican Patty

3064 Don Mills Rd.
North York, ON
M2J 2T9
416-494-5438

Blackbird Baking Co.
On the days that I needed to go to class in the middle of the day, I would park at Kensington Market to save money.  UofT would have cost me $20, but Kensington Market was only $5.50.  10 minutes of walking each way is worth saving the $14.50.  Which in a way allowed me to buy some snack foods from Blackbird, for the super long drive home in rush hour traffic.  They have this chocolate cake/muffin so amazingly good. I don't even know how to describe it.  The closest thing that I think it resembles is a cross between a meringue and a mousse.  I don't think that even exists, but the texture of it just melts in your mouth.  I have some amazing willpower not to grab a snack from here every week!

Chocolate Cake

172 Baldwin St.,
Toronto, ON
M5T 1L8
416-546-2280
http://blackbirdbakingco.com

Baker & Scone
I never would have thought that a bakery could exist by pretty much only selling scones.  But I guess when they do such a good job with the scones, it will work!  Hubby had their brunch 'special' which was a chive and cheese scone with some smoked salmon and micro greens sandwiched in.  I had a current scone.  Sooo good that we bought 6 more scones as we left so we could try other flavours.  All of them were so delicious, crispy crunchy outside, with buttery inside.

Current Scone

Smoke Salmon Scone

693 St. Clair Ave W.
Toronto, ON
M6C 1B2
416-657-2663
http://bakerandscone.com

Pain Perdu Bistro
I actually went to Pain Perdu right after eating at Baker & Scone.  And no, I didn't eat the croissant right after.  I saved it for later.  The scone was pretty darn filling.  The choice to visit Pain Perdu was because of its close proximity to Baker & Scone.  Its pretty much across the street from each other.   From reviews that I read online, I pretty much figured that the croissants were good, but the service is horrible.  And right they were!  The lady at the cash asked me what I wanted in a snotty tone, then immediately left before I could even answer.  To do what I don't know.  She didn't return until a good 5 minutes later.  Not sure how they can survive with such horrible service.  So I expected their croissants to be amazing for customers to want to come back.  When I tried the croissant later on that day, it was just meh.  Nothing that blew me away, not even sure how it made top 10.  So unless you are int he neighbourhood, don't bother.

Pain au Chocolat & Croissant

736 St. Clair Ave W.,
Toronto, ON
M6B 1C7
416-656-7246

JTown Summer Festival
It was one of those weekends where I said that we need to go do something fun.  Majority of the summer was spent at my parents place because I needed help taking care of the dog.  So there was no time to relax. So we decided to check out the JTown Summer Festival.  I knew it would be small, but at least it was something to do.  We got there early, and they were still setting up.  But I saw a lineup. It was a line up for takoyaki balls.  Since visiting Japan a few years back, I still haven't found anything like the takoyaki balls I ate in Japan here! The ones here are like the equivalent of chicken balls served at the Mandarin, but with a piece of octopus instead of chicken.  So happy to have lined up.  Tasted just the way they did in Japan!  I can't remember which restaurant was selling them though.

Takoyaki Balls

3160 Steeles Ave E.
Markham, ON
L3R 4G9

Kekou Gelato House

Gelato, Italian.  But that’s not the type of gelato Kekou makes.  Kekou’s gelato has an Asian twist.  The flavours that they offered off the top of my head are Vietnamese coffee, durian, taro, green tea, something with sago and a few other flavours that I can’t seem to remember.

 I chose Vietnamese coffee and durian.  The Vietnamese coffee was very good, tastes just like a Vietnamese coffee except in a creamy frozen form.  The durian, I cannot say enough good things about it.  Here is where I would declare my love for durian.  Stinky goodness with a creamy custardy pulp.  That’s exactly how the durian gelato was.  It even had chunks of durian in it!

Kekou Gelato

13 Baldwin St.

Toronto, ON

M5T 1L1

416-792-8858

http://kekou.ca

Sense Appeal Coffee Roasters

I have a friend that tells me his co-workers love the coffee from here, but since he's not a coffee drinker himself, he can't vouch for it.  Paypal had a promo running where you get $5 off your purchase if you use the Paypal app to pay.  Perfect chance to give this coffee a try.  I ordered a flat white and it was delicious! I want to go have another one....but not convenient for me to get to at all.

Flat White

96 Spadina Ave., 

Toronto, ON

M5V 2J6

416-907-8524

http://senseappeal.ca

The Bakery

I still believe the best butter tart is not available in Toronto, it's in Gravenhurst.  When I get the chance to pass by, I make sure to stop off and grab a few butter tarts to eat.  The filling is sweet, but not overly sweet.  I love the fact that it's runny and not gelatinous like most other butter tarts.  Just thinking about it makes me want one now.....Unfortunately I did't take pictures of the butter tarts.  But I did take one of the chicken pot pie and the sausage roll.  This stuff I didn't like as much because I found it to be too salty.  

Chicken Pot Pie

Sausage Roll

141 Brock St.,
Gravenhurst, ON
P1P 1X2
705-687-2579
http://www.thebakeryingravenhurst.com/our-story.html

Tohenboku Ramen

The first place in which I ate a version of ramen that did not include pork or pork based broth of any sort was in Vancouver at Marutama Ramen.  I haven't gotten a chance to blog about my trip which happened last year, because of the sheer number of places I ate it, it would take a super long time time write up a single blog about it.  I promise it's coming.  It will be done before the summer ends.

I was really looking forward to some chicken based broth ramen because it was very good at Marutama.  It can't be that hard right?  I make chicken broth at home all the time.  I do cheat out of convenience sometimes, but it never tastes as good as the homemade stuff.  I ordered the shio original Tohenboku ramen.  The husband ordered garlicky Tohenboku ramen.  They had a special at the time, not sure if it's offered now, that if you follow them on twitter, you can get a free topping on your ramen.  So the husband got an order of pork belly added to his ramen.  We also got an order of karaage to share.

My husband loves karaage, and tends to order it whenever given the opportunity to.  However, we were disappointed in this one.  The karaage was not crispy.  It wasn't soggy either, but the outside was just soft.

Karaage

Visually the ramen didn't look very appealing to me.  My soup had already partly congealed when it arrived, so I had to remove the 'skin'.  And the chicken, looked like headcheese.  It didn't have much taste to it, so it was not properly seasoned, even though you can clearly see pepper in the pictures.  The broth was weak in flavour.  Which makes me wonder what they actually use to make the broth.  Unless we went 'too late' at night and they added water to the broth.  Thats what it tasted like to me.  My husband's ramen was slightly better because the garlic seasoning added additional flavour which mine was lacking.  The noodles were cooked well, so no complaint there.  My egg was a little 'roughed' up, it was missing part of the white.  Which is a sign that the eggs are not particularly fresh. The pork belly tasted extra fatty because there was no charing of the pork.  I hate soggy pork fat.

Shio Original Tohenboku Ramen

Garlicky Tohenboku Ramen

Not sure I would make the trip to Tohenboku again.  The flavours just weren't there, which I found shocking because there are so many ramen restaurants out there competition wise.

Tohenboku Ramen
261 Queen St. W,
Toronto, ON
416-596-8080

Hours:  Monday - Saturday 11am - 12am (midnight)
             Sunday 11am - 10:30pm

http://www.touhenboku.ca