Totoya on Dalhousie

Well, I have finally ventured on to Totoya, since I had heard so much about it on ottawafoodies.com, the place where I learnt that there is actually a Swiss restaurant in Ottawa… fondue everything….

But first a few words about current trends in eating….

Poutine, see montrealpoutine.com as the new cuisine canadiana, now where could that go….? Heard that it was good for hangovers, but any milk product is good for hangovers… try a glass of milk before you pass out after a night on the town…. Or better still before you go out on the town… The morning after poutine would probably be too late…. Maybe in a century it’ll replace pizza as the true north’s cuisine des arts. And I wonder what Health Canada would have to say…

And eating in the dark….! Now that’s a trend that the blind can follow…. Jap food is definitely out, because all they have is presentation! I wonder if they cover the laundry bill after….?

Back to Totoya and why I went… alone, for lunch on a cold winter’s day… I had heard so much about it from the web sites in Ottawa that I had to give it a try… (They had jap pizza too…)

Disappointment is the only word I have for it….. And it is run by Japanese…..!!! $80 pp for lunch is very expensive, but then jap food in Ottawa is expensive… except those run by those frugal chinks… Takara just up the street is a case in point….. I had heard so much about the ramen though…..

I asked if they had toro and uni … and surprise…. they had uni... (By the way, uni comes in from Boston on Thursdays… and I am beginning to wonder whether the larger cities have usurped all of the toro…)

So I said I’ll have the omakasi…. you choose… six pieces…. And I’ll have the uni in it…. Sure test of freshness of the sushi… They said they didn’t have any omakasi, but they would bring six pieces of sushi as an appetizer…. Great… test failure… I had expected that I would get six different pieces to please…, instead I got two uni, two salmon and two maguro…. The uni was fresh enough… (and believe me… I have had bad uni in Kingston, Ont., at an established jap restaurant…), the salmon was quite fresh, but you know my thoughts on salmon…. most parasitic of the sushi’s and not really eaten by the japs…and the maguro was pretty bad… also the choice was non existent… still think Ichibei has the best sushi in Ottawa… benchmark that….yuck….

Then the piece de resistance… ramen is only available at lunch… fine, it’s hamburgers for the japs or kfc…. And it was pretty so so… granted I have never had it in Japan… but those ottawafoodies.com folks who have, must have been to some pretty so so restaurants in Japan. The broth was ok…a little low in quantity and thick in taste… but the ingredients were easy to come by… (like the viet pho’s, the soup broth and au dent-ness of the noodles is the thing…), and I can do it better at home with the packaged noodles and for less than the $17 price tag…. The noodles were overcooked… a cardinal sin… and the pepper was… well… pepper… not the jap stuff….

I toyed with the idea of having the sushi lunch… but was only interested in the nigiri sushi… mistake… The difference in price was $10… quite a bit…. (uni $13, salmon $10 and maguro $7). And I didn’t get soup, salad and rice…

In short… not a place for sushi; and totoya ramen was the only ramen on the menu… the other two noodles were udons with tempura… I had expected much more… like 6 different pieces of nigiri sushi and a number of ramen to choose from…. With tea and saki (the cold booze, not the salmon), for lunch $80…choke… next time I will try the little jap fast food place in the market mall... which had udons for under $7…..

Checked out the dinner menu and it was not much better… definitely not a ‘full’ jap restaurant like Suisha or even Ichibei…. There were some domburis, but not much else…. Definitely trying to be a ‘fast food jap place’.

0/5 on my scale of restaurants to eat at… for Japanese; and my benchmark Suisha Gardens only gets 2/5… Mark it up appropriately…..

Interesting clientèle though… mostly locals who frequent the place, it was ¾ empty at lunch in the market on a holiday Friday… a francophone that spoke Japanese, who spoke constantly to the chef, rather than his guest…. wonder what he ate... and most people greeted by name… doesn’t impress me as I only look at the food, but puts context around other comments I have heard….

Picture was taken by ottawafoodies.com and my ramen was not as colourful, no greens and reds, but two half eggs…must have run out of ingredients….