Jinsei Ramen Restaurant — Restaurant in Ottawa

New best ramen in Ottawa. Sansotei is great, but this place just hits every point pretty much perfectly.

Starting with the most important part: the broth. This is good tonkotsu. Beautiful layer of oil on top, and rich meaty flavour. The original tonkotsu is good, but the black garlic is really where it's at. Amazing creaminess and relatively complex flavour. Overall this might be one of the better bowls tonkotsu I've had in Canada for some time. They've clearly put some real work into it.

Next: the noodles. These were actually surprisingly good. Definitely the best ramen noodles I've had in Ottawa, and I don't think it's close. They're relatively thin and cooked to the perfect firmness.

And finally: the toppings. They absolutely nailed these. Legitimately some of the most well executed toppings I've had on a bowl of ramen. The pork is slow cooked and then slightly charred to actual perfection. SO in love with this pork. The seasoned egg is absolutely perfectly cooked, and seasoned with a relatively mild flavour but totally delicious. And then the addition of green onion and a little bit of pickled ginger kinda brought me back to Fukuoka and is a real blessing to see in a bowl of tonkotsu in Canada. Amazingly executed all-round.

Side note: the appetizers and deserts are kinda equally awesome. The karaage is legitimately like crack, and the dango is absolutely delicious.

Extremely impressed. Definitely setting the standard for ramen in Ottawa. I'll be back many times.

Overall a...

While visiting Ottawa, I dropped by jinsei for dinner with my infant son, MIL, and husband. My husband and I ordered the black garlic tonkotsu and my MIL ordered their signature tonkotsu ramen. My MIL enjoyed the ramen particularly since she doesn't like fatty chashu, and theirs wasn't fatty. I enjoyed their broth -- it was thick and full of flavour. However, I did find it very oily. Perhaps the most oily ramen broth I've ever had. The thing was that it worked. Anyway. It was interesting to see that they had ginger pieces in their ramen. Perhaps to cut the fattiness of the broth? Anyway. I thought it was actually better than sansotei ramen. Coming from Vancouver, sansotei wasn't as memorable. Somehow, I think I'll remember this one. Perhaps because it was extra oily but nomnom good? Anyway. My infant son enjoyed their chashu pieces and their ramen noodles as well. The one thing we thought it didn't help their business was their location on the second floor. It was tricky to come in and leave with a baby stroller. Luckily there was a security who helped us get upstairs using the elevator (due to constructions closing a part of the building that had accessible elevator). When we were getting out, the restaurant worker helped us go down as well. Either way, hope the construction will end soon for guests using wheelchairs or with strollers to visit this...

Jinsei Ramen is a gem hidden in plain sight! It's in the L'esplanade Laurier building on the second floor. You can take the exterior stairs to their exterior entrance or you can enter the building and take the elevator to one of their 2 interior entrances. They just opened in March 2023.

I stopped by for a snack, so just had some appetizers, but was most impressed. The Chicken Karaage was so delicious. Crunchy on the outside and tender and moist on the inside. One of the best in the city. The Gyoza were good too. Deep-fried with blistery crunchy skin and filled with ground pork, onions and leeks. The Pumpkin Croquettes were also also good. Crunchy breading with smooth pureed sweet pumpkin inside.

Service was so pleasant and attentive without being intrusive. The restaurant is much bigger than I expected. It's spacious, bright and clean.

Looking forward to trying the ramen. I'm hoping they will add a grilled chicken or chicken karaage ramen to their menu because right now they only have 4 ramens and 3 of them have chashu, of which I'm not a fan, and the other ramen is a vegetarian one.

Anyway, happy to see another ramen shop open up in Ottawa. Wishing...