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| - Straight from northern Japan, the Santouka chain has cashed in on Toronto's ramen craze (where it seems like a new ramen house opens every week), by opening a location on Dundas, just a tad east of Yonge.
The place has a reputation for its long lineups to get in. Luckily for me, there was none when we entered early in the lunch period on a Sunday. We just walked in right when a family was done and leaving.
The noodle dishes come in small portions, and sans boiled egg (which apparently is a charged extra). The broth is savoury, but very salty. So unfilling this puny bowl before me, that I had to order not one, but two sets of gyoza to get my tummy to shut up. It was also small--which seems to be a defining theme of this restaurant--and very juicy.
Santouka is quite small for a restaurant. It is housed in a location that previously hosted a rundown greasy spoon joint I would pass by a lot in my Ryerson days. They took over the whole building, got rid of the second floor and converted its joists into a decorative overhead feature. That decision might make the place seem bigger, but deprives it of additional service space that could be used for, I dunno, seating additional patrons so I don't have to hear about the lineups!
For the size of the meals they serve, and the prices they charge for them, what an overrated ripoff. Santouka does not even come close to blowing my mind like some of the other ramen joints in town. It is a place more suited for moneyed yuppies than Ryerson students, despite the proximity to campus.
{TTC: 505 streetcar @ Victoria or Church, or just walk your lazy ass east from Dundas station.}
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