Taki Ramen — Restaurant in Ottawa

I visited here again today after coming about 2–3 months ago. Last time, my friends and I were so hungry after waiting in line that we just dove right in and didn’t even take any photos.

This time we came with another couple so we ordered more. The fried clams (which I already loved before) were excellent again, and the takoyaki was really good. We also tried the plum wine this time—it was delicious! The tea was great too. We also ordered the chicken katsu this time. I thought it was a little on the mild side for my taste, but everything else was really solid.

The ramen broth is rich and flavorful—you can tell it’s carefully made and not just heavy or overly salty like some places. We also ordered the sukiyaki, which was a fun experience because the server brought it over and did a live torching of the river fish at the table. That was such a nice touch.

The atmosphere is fantastic. The music and vibe are super comfortable and relaxing.

Also, just to mention: on the way here today, I was checking reviews to see if anyone had uploaded photos or recommended any new dishes to try, and I noticed one saying they give you something for writing a good review. For what it’s worth, both times I’ve been here that never happened. This review is just because I really liked it. The quality was just as good this time as last time. All of us thought it was delicious.As someone who really loves ramen and takoyaki, I know I’ll be coming back often.

One tip if you’re driving: they do have parking up the slope in the back upstairs, but the first time I came I didn’t see any sign for it and spent a while looking—so just...

We walked in here a bit past 8pm and were excited to try this new ramen spot! We ordered the asari fry (fried clams) to start and it was pretty good, the batter was nice and light. Then it started to go downhill from there. The ramen took forever to arrive. We are used to places like Sansotei where the ramen arrives quickly, so we were quickly getting impatient. It’s okay though, as long as the ramen was worth the wait. IT WASN’T.

First of all, the tomato ramen that my partner ordered tasted exactly like tomato soup hot pot base that was watered down a lot. It has a very specific flavour so it could only be that. I don’t have anything against tomato hot pot base, but if I’m going out to eat ramen, I expect the broth to be homemade. The shrimp was not deveined, so there was literally shrimp poop left in the shrimp (see photo below). Not very hygienic.

The tonkotsu black wasn’t much better. The broth lacked the complexity and depth that I was expecting. It barely had any pork flavour and was thin (as opposed to creamy). The noodles also seemed like they were instant ramen. The shiitake mushrooms that I had replaced the bamboo shoots with were also lacking umami.

Overall, the ramen was a miss. The service and atmosphere were average. The only redeeming quality of the restaurant was the fried clams. We will not be returning. Save your money and go to...

Reservations for 6:30pm, we arrived at 6:30pm. Server came by and we notified her of our reservation. She walked away, and we thought maybe they still needed to clean our table. Two tables are now empty, instead of seating our group, the server tells us to stand somewhere else while she seats other guests.

Speaking with the server again, she stated she didn’t even know about our reservations, even though we had told her when we first came in. We spoke with another employee who the server stated was her “boss man”, who looked at the reservations list, and we could see our name for 6:30pm written clearly. It wasent until 7:30pm did we get seated, and even then they tried to split up our party.

The server then proceeded to take another 20 minutes before taking anyone’s order or giving anyone water. Food was okay, but the service was absolutely terrible. The server nor the “boss man” took any responsibility, there is no excuse for why a group that had made reservations and came on time would need to wait over an hour to even be seated and order.

The “boss man” while we were leaving then came up to us and questioned if we had left a bad review on their page. I did not originally...