Iru Izakaya Ste-Foy — Restaurant in Quebec

We came in for lunch, the staff was courteous and professional, the music was awesome (namely some 1980s Japanese pop which fits well with the vibe). We ordered a couple of cocktails and they were pretty awesome.

We had the karage chicken to start with the Korean spicy sauce. I found the sauce was bland and tasted more of Buffalo sauce rather than a proper gochujan sauce. The chicken pieces were okay, although the breading was nothing special. not a good value. All in all, below average.

We then had our bowls of ramen, the IRU ramen. and in my opinion they were borderline disgusting, the noodles were stuck together in clumps of dough and of obvious low quality, practically greasy. The broth reassembled a thin gravy with MSG rather than a proper ramen broth. 0 hints of any depth, a bland salty gravy. The chunks of ground pork had zero flavor and tasted bowled. The soft boiled egg was cold and felt like it came right out of the fridge. 20 bucks + tips and tax for such a low quality dull bowl of matter, luckily I was quite hungry... I'm pretty disappointed.

Whatever else that was coming out of the kitchen other than the ramen smelt pretty good, if I were to go back, I'd try something else off the menu. But I am in no rush to eat there again. Maybe just stop for a cocktail while I'm...

I'm very disappointed with my first visit at Iru. I ordered a drink, a miso soup, 2 appetizers and a ramen. I informed the staff of a mushroom allergy I have.

First the server tells me that the miso paste has mushrooms and I ask not to add mushrooms and I'll be ok. He proceeds to convince me that miso is a mushroom based recipe. I told him that he's probably mistaking Koji for mushroom which it is not. It is a fungi, but not all fungis are mushrooms, it's a common mistake that people make. So he says he's still not comfortable serving me the soup. I asked him to just forget the soup.

I then receive my appetizers, had the karaage and the yakiniku which were average at best. After I finished the appetizers, I waited for 15-20 minutes before the server tells me that they can't serve me the ramen as it has the miso in it. So I get annoyed and I ask for the bill.

There are 2 issues here, first, it's worrying that a chef doesn't know the difference between mold and mushrooms, secondly is that I've been seated for 45 minutes and had finished my appetizers 15-20 min ago before they decide to tell me that I need to choose another main. The only redeeming factor is that my server was actually nice...

We had a very unpleasant experience at this restaurant, mainly due to the service at the entrance. When we arrived, we first spoke to one staff member to ask about getting a table, but she completely ignored us, the second person told us to check in at the front counter — and that’s when the real issue began.

The person at the front counter ignored us at first too. We stood there and spoke to him, but he didn’t reply or even look at us until another staff member came over and reminded him to help us. He finally brought us to a table — the worst one in the restaurant, right by the entrance, even though there were clearly better seats available.

To make things worse, he handed us French menus, even though we had been speaking English the entire time. It made us feel singled out and unwelcome. Whether or not it was intentional, it felt dismissive and disrespectful.

To be fair, our server Nathan was very kind, professional, and attentive. His attitude made a big difference and helped make the rest of the experience more bearable — we really appreciated him.

As for the food, the ramen wasn’t particularly good or bad — just average. But considering this isn’t a dedicated ramen shop, that was...