Fredericcc
Google
Let me start with the good things, because, well, there aren’t many, but credit where it’s due. The staff were very polite and efficient, the place was clean, and the location is fairly convenient if you’re coming from Old Québec. So yes, that’s pretty much everything nice I can say.
Now, onto the disappointing part, which is, unfortunately, most of the experience.
First, the portion. I’m not sure if the kitchen uses a jeweler’s scale to weigh noodles, but my bowl couldn’t have had more than 100 grams of ramen. The restaurant is called Tora-Ya, “Tiger’s Den”, but this portion isn’t for a tiger. It’s more like something you’d serve to a Neko, which means a kitten in Japanese.
Then, the flavor, or should I say… the salt. Because that’s pretty much all there was. No depth, no complexity, no umami flavor, just salt. I kept drinking water to dilute it, and by the end, I felt like a water balloon. Even my burps afterward were tasteless. Honestly, this isn’t just far from the ramen I had in Sapporo back in 2017...it’s not even close to what you’d get at a Chinese-run Japanese restaurant in Toronto.
Oh, and one more awkward thing: the restrooms. There are two, and the signs were so “artistically” ambiguous that I genuinely couldn’t tell which was for men and which was for women. I picked an empty one, only to be politely informed by other customers on my way out that I’d used the women’s. Upon closer inspection, yeah, maybe that stick figure had a skirt. Or maybe it was a ghost. Who knows? I understand the store wants to be unique. But just put an “M” and an “F,” or “Homme/Femme,” or even the kanji 男/女.
All in all...my experience was disappointing, overpriced, and oddly confusing. I would not recommend unless you’re on a very strict low-carb, low-flavor, high-sodium diet. And yeah enjoy the guessing games at the bathroom door.