Sansotei Ramen — Restaurant in Ottawa

Great place for ramen you can enjoy alone, or with friends or relatives. The hosts/waitresses welcome you in Japanese like most ramen restaurants in Canada, especially the ones in Vancouver. Small menu with six ramens, five sides, two desserts, two alcohol drinks from Japan (Sapporo and Japanese Peach). I highly recommend to add Onigiri for the side and Mochi for desserts, so customers can appreciate a typical variety of Japanese cuisine.

On the first meal picture, I ordered a Miso Black for $14.50 (the most expensive ramen and very tasty) and a Ganzi (Hokkaido style fried chicken) for a $5 side. The second meal picture, I ordered the delicious and popular Tonkotsu Black for $12.75 and the classic Seaweed Salad for $5. Only two desserts, mango cheesecake and mango sorbet. The third meal picture, I ordered the Spicy Tantan for $12.50 and Spicy Slow Cooked Wings for $6 – people who love spicy food will enjoy both, and I recommend the restaurant to put a humid wipe aside the wings. The fourth meal picture, I ordered Tomato for $12.75, which is a good ramen mixing scallop and pork. The fifth meal picture, I ordered Shoyu for $12 (the cheapest ramen) and Gyudon (bowl of rice with shredded beef onion for $5.50 – Japanese Peach is a great sake drink to share with a friend or partner $30/2=$15. The sixth meal picture, I ordered Tonkotsu for $12.50 and Gyoza on the side for $5.

Overall, great experience and service, just plan ahead to eat there, the waiting line can be big because of popularity. If you sit close to the cashier/kitchen area, you’ll be able to listen to great lounge music they cannot put louder for noise...

Terrible customer service. We ordered food ($60 worth of it) for takeout but it wasn't ready yet. So we simply asked if we could sit down and enjoy a pint of their craft beer that they had advertised in front of the store (which they stated as being Japan's best, hence why we wanted to try it while we waited for our food), only to have been very rudely told that this was not a bar so you can't just order a drink. We again stated that we ordered food and was simply waiting for it to be done and instead of standing around waiting we thought we'd enjoy a nice drink. But instead we were treated so poorly with so much disrespect for simply asking to have a beer. After the incident we could hear the waitresses speaking out loud how "this was not a bar, you must order food if you want to have a drink here." To give more context as to how loud they were speaking, we were at the front of the restaurant and they were towards the back where the kitchen is located and we were able to hear their whole conversation. We have been long time customers of this place but suffice to say that after this incident we will be bringing our business elsewhere. Very unfortunate to see such poor customer service/overall disrespect that some people can...

Excited to try this restaurant...so much hype online with reviews vouching for it being the best ramen restaurant in town. I beg to differ...maybe because I've tried the real McCoy!?

Pros: fried chicken was excellent; option to choose the thickness for ramen noodles (thick=ordinary Japanese ramen).

Cons: I ordered the black garlic oil tonkotsu (pork bone) soup base--way too oily and salty, no pork bone flavour at all, the soup was not even hot and neither were many of the toppings understandably these were already cooked/prepared. Worst of all--the entire soup tasted burnt (over-roasted) garlic which created an overpowering unpleasant aftertaste to the entire bowl of ramen. I have previously eaten at a ramen restaurant on College Street in Toronto near UofT and their garlic oil tonkotsu soup base was absolutely exquisite. $18+ taxes for a bowl of noodles...definitely once-in-a-while visit.

I also found the miso soup base quite bland...not enough miso paste.

Advice: Go early for dinner. The lineup is quite unreal since space is limited--about six tables for two, two tables for four and a 3/4 circular table for 6-8.

😤Wanted to remove one star...