Totto Ramen — Restaurant in Somerville

Ever since moving here, I have been looking for a good ramen place, I have been to a lot of them here in Boston and New York, and they are all okay. Thus far there is nothing to really rave about when rating the overall service, ambiance, quality of the ramen, and the price.

I heard a lot of great things about Totto Ramen when the first one opened in Boston, I have yet to get over to try their Boston Location, however, last week after work, my co-worker wanted to try this place out.

The place is an open restaurant with a feel of it being once a mechanics garage. With the open kitchen, you can see the noodles and the assembly of the beautiful dishes. The merchandise is cool and I'm still thinking about going back and buying one of their t-shirts.

I had ordered the Mega Paitan and my co-worker ordered the Miso Paitan We also got the Char Siu Pork Bun as an appetizer. The Pork Bun was good, the bun was soft white and chewy and the pork had just the right amount of fat to lean. However, my Co-worker was not such a big fan of the fatty portion of the pork belly.

When the Ramen came, I was pleased with the plating and the portion size. However, maybe because I'm not a fan of the thick style broth, I found it to be too heavy and thick to enjoy. My coworker also felt the same way and felt like it was, "Kind of Slimy". However, the flavor was great the toppings that came with our noodles had great texture and balance to the flavor.

The price reflects the going rate for ramen here in Boston, but when comparing to prices in Japan, where ramen is supposed to be an inexpensive and quick meal for people on the go. It's very expensive. This is by no means a bash on Totto Ramen, rather the general pricing of ramen...

My friends and I gathered at Totto Ramen in the Assembly Square area of Somerville for a great conversation over ramen. Since we got there shortly after they opened, we got to pick where to sit. It was great that we had almost the entire dining room to ourselves. For drinks, my boyfriend enjoyed a Night Shift Brewing Co. Santilli American IPA and I enjoyed a Downeast Cider Original Blend. For appetizers, we shared an order of Takoyaki and Fried Chicken, both of them came piping hot. The Takoyaki consisted of Japanese style deep fried octopus cakes topped with house mayo and kagome sauce and garnished with fish flakes and ginger. Unlike most karaage I've had, the Fried Chicken consisted of spicy marinated fried chicken tenders served over a bed of lettuce and finished with a yuzu mayo.

My friend Matt had his usual - Mega Ramen with a few modifications - he wanted it spicy and with an onsen egg. The Mega Ramen consisted of paitan ramen with 3 types of tender pork belly, topped with scallion, onion, fried garlic, garlic paste, napa, and bean sprouts. My boyfriend had the Spicy Paitan Ramen, which consisted of a creamy broth mixed with Rayu (Japanese chili oil) and spicy sesame oil, pork charsiu, bean sprouts, and nori. The Paitan Ramen consisted of a creamy broth, straight noodles, chicken charsiu, scallion, shredded pork, onion, and nori. I liked how you could pick between pork and chicken charsiu. Shredded pork and onion were an interesting addition to the bowl but would have preferred...

I am a frequent customer here as I live on the row. When we first came here 3-4 years ago, the price definitely has the Assembly premium, that's fine then but the price is up at least 50-70% in the span of 3-4 year so it's making more sense now to just Uber to(or UberEats from) a better Ramen house in Boston or Cambridge.

Today was the last straw, I wanted to try other than pork ramen, got the shrimp ramen, half way through, I found out that the shrimp was raw. Bit into one and it was stone cold in the middle. Gordon would even say that a good surgeon can still put them back swimming in the mystic.

The shrimp looks like its been torched and was not cooked but the torch job was likely from an intern or a waitress.

I told the waitress that the shrimp is uncooked, it's clearly translucent in places. The waitress asked me to give her a shrimp to show the kitchen, and they shout from the kitchen saying it's cooked, "we cook it like that", the owner also chime in.

"If the shrimp is translucent throughout, maybe I can't tell if it's raw, but they are raw spots on them like a Dalmatian, unless this is a shrimp species I'm not familiar with." "Yes, it is like that from the frozen package"

Not a single apology heard.

Now I'm very worried that the pork is also torched sashimi. I hope food inspection can do a better job and give a better food safety rating...