Audrey L.
Yelp
As a Torontonian who is frequently in Montreal, I am beyond THRILLED that Isshin has opened a location in Brossard (located just beside the Five Guys)!
Keep in mind that I LOOOVE the Toronto location and frequent it often. So this is a DIRECT COMPARISON between locations!
As it is a new opening, they don't yet have their liquor license and their service is still fairly... slow. To their credit, on Halloween night, they had 4 visible staff in the dining room: 2 waitresses who were BUSY, a busboy & the host who, during his free time, was helping where he could. There was, predictably, a line, but as this location has more tables than its Toronto counterpart, the lineup still moved fairly quickly. With about 5-6 other couples in front of us, we waited about 25 minutes in line. Then, waited about 10 minutes before anyone even stopped by our table to check in with us.
As we were waiting, I noticed the table of 3 beside us (and had been seated long before us) had 2 of their 3 noodles and the 1 girl still waiting. As polite people do, the other 2 were waiting - patiently - for their last order to arrive. I noticed this with another table as well - one persons order had arrived at LEAST 10 minutes before the other order arrived at the table. I worried that our table would arrive out of sync. Sure enough, my boyfriend had to wait until I got my ramen. This (to me) is a big no-no for any restaurant, but especially ramen where the soup should be somewhat hot to enjoy it!
We ordered our usual: the chicken karaage, the black sesame tan tan & the tsukemen. The chicken was about the same, and then another 10-minute wait after we were done before our ramen(s) arrived (closer to 20 for mine).
At first bite, I bit into a green onion - something I'd specified to the waiter to omit. Upon further inspection, the bowl of noodles seemed to be pre-mixed with them! I did what I could to pick out the bigger pieces before continuing.
As I continued to eat, it became clearer to me that the tsukemen wasn't EXACT to the one I often eat in Toronto but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I *think* the broth just isn't as concentrated as it is in Toronto. But it could also be the noodles...
I would like to think these are all fixable things as the 2 restaurants should be indistinguishable. That being said, I'll likely return to find out if this experience was just an off night or a constant.