Sonoya Japanese Noodle House

Sonoya is a surprisingly good place to grab Ramen. Is it worth making an effort to get to… no. But if it’s on your way to school, work, or wherever definitely worth a try.
Sonoya can’t compete with noodle houses such as kinton or sansotei (dt location). However it is a great choice north of steeles. First of service is slow and the food takes a while to come out… very unusual for a ramen house. The takoyaki took 20 mins so use that as a marker.
The ramen itself is good. The broth has a deep and and rich flavour but can get a bit salty. The noodles however while not soggy lacked a certain chewiness you would come to expect. They are generous with their meat toppings as I got 2 large pieces of chashu.
The takoyaki is what ruined for me. What would have been 3.5 is now a 3. While it looks good with the bonito flakes it has the texture of saggy balls. No lie I only had one small piece of octopus in that thing. every bite I took was a bite of disappointment
It’s not a bad place to grab ramen uptown. Just remember to bring cash as there is a minimum of 15 for the machine

My rating is actually about a 3.5 star, I’ve been to Sonoya several times now. Consistently, I have enjoyed their tonkotsu ramen. It’s chock full of sodium, but damn, it’s tasty. The chashu are thick, grilled pieces of meat that aren’t too dry. There is also a healthy amount of fresh veggies which I always appreciate. The ramen sizes are very adequate. I can never finish my bowl and have to give some away or take some home. My boyfriend always orders the combo with the tonkatsu, or crispy pork cutlet. For an additional $ 5, it’s a decently portioned side dish.
Now onto why it’s not rated higher, the service is quite slow. There’s one or two people (usually only one) servicing the entire restaurant. Though it’s not a really big space, this means it takes awhile to get your orders in and a little while longer to get your food. This all adds up in the end.
Overall, it’s a decent place to get ramen. $ 12 for a tasty, well-​portioned bowl with a generous amount of toppings isn’t something I can complain about.

WHAT HORRIBLE, UNFRIENDLY AND SLOW SERVICE!!! There are a few ramen places in the Richmond Hill /​Markham area and this one is by far the WORST. One waitress to serve the entire restaurant and it looks like it may be one chef in the back too. I think they are Koreans, not Japanese. And they don’t bother putting your name down if there is a lineup in this small restaurant so be ready to be aggressive with other patrons to get a table.
As for the food, $ 12 for a bowl of vegetarian ramen, what a rip off! As for the other ramens that we did try, the broth was way too salty and fatty and the meat too fatty. I ordered mild spicy and my friend very spicy but both our ramen broth came out the same spicyness! Not attentive at all.
I would suggest going to J-​Town or Jyuban instead for superior, polite service, quality authentic ramen and slightly cheaper prices.

I’ll be quite honest and say that not a huge fan of ramen priced at $ 12+ for skimpy pieces of meat in salty broth. So I ordered the noodle omelette, and to my surprise I LOVED it! It comes with a side salad for everyone who needs their fix of greens. The omelette is drizzled with teriyaki sauce and mayo, and underneath that is their stir fried ramen. It’s a good amount of food for what it’s priced at.
What’s terrible is the slow service, so be prepared to wait longer than average times for your food. Also you need a minimum of $ 15 before you can pay with debit — which is a first. I can understand credit but it’s extremely inconvenient to not accept debit. If you’re coming with friends, make sure one of you guys are carrying cash.

This place is decent. Of the four ramen dishes we ordered, the best was the omelette ramen. It could have benefited from a little more sauce, but it was the clear standout.
The other two «normal» ramen — King and the other I forget — were good as well.
I had the vegetarian ramen and it was decent, but I wasn’t convinced it was worth $ 12, especially because it was the same price or more than others that came with meat. The bean sprouts, cherry tomatoes, eggplant, broccoli, tofu, and vegetable broth just lack the flavour I’ve come to expect from quality ramen. I wouldn’t order it again or recommend it.
While I love spicy, I don’t have a great tolerance for it. I’d say the «0.5 spicy» is a small step above mild. Maybe more like a moderate. 0.25 would have been perfect.
The takoyaki was quite yummy, although because I don’t have it very often, I don’t know what the standard is. There was a tiny single piece of octopus inside and the whole ball was kind of soft because there was virtually nothing in it.
Service on the Sunday afternoon was kind of slow, whether it was being seated at empty waiting tables, ordering, or getting the bill, but it wasn’t at the fault of the server. She was the only wait staff there, serving around 10 tables.
This place is not bad. Not quite a destination or a first choice, but it isn’t a place to avoid either.

Sonoya is not the greatest ramen restaurant but also not the worst. Overall it’s another choice among all the others at First Markham Place. I’ve been here a few times and I’ve stuck with the Tomato Ramen.
The Tomato Ramen is made up of a tomato broth and includes tomatoes, minced beef, cheese and some veggies. The broth is pretty good, it’s not overly salty and fairly light. I wouldn’t consider the noodles to really be ramen but that’s not to say it’s bad.
Also recently tried the Okonomiyaki. While it’s nice they serve it as not many restaurants do, it’s quite forgettable. Decently sized portion but the texture was pretty mushy. Flavor was OK.
Prices range from $ 9 to $ 13 for a bowl of ramen which is pretty standard. Sonoya is worth a try; it just might not be a first choice when you’re at First Markham.

Decent ramen, pretty similar to all the chain ramen places. The noodle omelette was pretty good, something different. There was only one waiter working so had to wait longer for service but he was really nice.

I see many Unilocalers rate this place 3 stars, and I think it’s the most accurate rating I’ve ever seen given to a restaurant. It’s not great, it’s not terrible, it’s decent. And the prices? Decent as well.
We tried the King Ramen, which turns out to be a pretty standard chashu ramen. The broth was neither too thick nor too salty, but is missing a bit of a complexity that we often get at higher quality ramen places. It’s also missing the strong «kick» we get at Ajisen, but that’s most likely because Ajisen’s has lots more sodium in it. So in a way it’s probably better. Spice-​wise, I found 0.5 is almost barely noticeable, so for those who like a bit of spice but not too much, level 1 is probably going to be ideal.
I also ordered the noodle pizza, proudly featured on their new menu (translation: a picture on the wall). And essentially it’s like having a Cantonese Chow Mein that’s a little more burnt, but with cheese instead of the dark coloured sauce. Or put another way, it’s kind of like burnt cheese ramen… without the soup. It was… OK. The texture was great and it had lots of ingredients like ham and pineapple but it needed more salt. It was all too… bland. Good intentions, bad final delivery.
The place gets really full quickly too on weekend mealtimes so make sure you come early if you really want to sample the… um…slightly above mediocrity, I guess. It’s not bad, but there’s just way too many better alternatives.

This is the second location of Kenzo Ramen on Yonge/​Steeles (not the Kenzo franchise). It has been on my list to check out Sonoya.
Food:
The quality of the noodles is consistent with Kenzo. The ramen was chewy, but still not quite as good as Santouka or Sansotei. I ordered a Tonkotsu Miso Ramen. While you can taste the miso in broth, the tonkotsu wasn’t too tender. I really like the amount of veggie like cabbage and bean sprouts in the soup! It was a plus to someone who loves her veggies.
Overall, not a bad option for north of Steeles.

So I know I said never again in my last review, but this time that I went it was for someone’s birthday so it wasn’t my choice.
I ordered the tonkotsu ramen and it was much better than the miso ramen I had the first time. It came out nice and hot and was tasty. Fiancé had the king ramen level 1 spicy and enjoyed it as well.
We came with a large party of 13 and took up most of the space in this small restaurant. There were two waitresses and the man I recognize from the last time served us too (whereas the previous time he just stood behind the cash).
Based on today’s experience, I would come back. Hopefully the next experience is like this one and not the first time.

Once you’ve had really good ramen you can benchmark other places to it. Didn’t think this place was good. Cuts of pork were plain and dry. Didnt seem like noodles were made fresh in-​house. I had the gyoza ramen and it came with 3 dumplings that were a bit salty. Soup was flavoured with soya sauce. Shiki Menya in Calgary or Sentosei downtown Toronto are better choices.

Too much salt and servers lack enthusiasm and i even saw them sending people away an hour away from closing. (despite having seats available) Servers avoid eye contact and often dissappear, owner walks around like hes king $hit and ignores customers. Otherwise the food is essentially the same as Kenzo.

Second time trying this place out and wow my opinion has taken a 180.
Truly disappointed in the service and lack of friendliness. The food was also just average and would much rather venture to the numerous other quality ramen places.
My friend ordered Netsu Ramen and requested no onions/​green onions but they didn’t fulfill this request. I ordered the Sapporo Miso Ramen requesting the same and mines arrived with tons of onions. Also, the flavor of the broth was very meh and lacked depth; there was nothing special about it. Also, the pork was dry and unappealing to eat. I might as well have gone to Kenzo. My friend had also ordered a bottle of Sapporo and after we ate the server attempted to take away her beer when it was not even finish. She never asked but made the assumption.
This is just the beginning.
Afterwards, we left and my stomach started to feel really weird. Ended up that I somehow got food poisoning. It was a very unpleasant experience. Later that night, my friend also experienced an upset stomach and resulted in throwing up.
So would I recommend this place? Heck no. If you want to waste your money and have an upset stomach go right ahead. Never coming back to this restaurant.

Ordered the Noodle Omelette since it seemed like a popular dish at Sonoya. The dish was alright, tasted nothing special. The service here is… not very good. I asked to refill my tea multiple times but the waitresses kept forgetting. The only good thing about the restaurant was that you can use debit or credit card to pay for your meal.

My friend and I went there during the week for a late lunch. We were a bit hesitant to enter since there was no one eating there. We decided to sit down after viewing their simple menu. My friend had the Chasu Ramen with Pork Broth and Pork Katsu combo, I had the Chasu Ramen with Spicy Pork Broth and Chasu Don combo, we saw the pizza noodle and decided to try that as well.
I have to say that the broths are very good! The aroma and Colorado are all up to par, the noodle is excellent! Not soggy at all, instead, a little on the chewy side. The deep fried pork chop (Katsu) was crispy, the meat was also tender. The Chasu in the Chasu rice is very juicy and it just melts in your mouth. I would not suggest the pizza noodle as cheese and soy sauce stir fried noodle don’t mix.

Came here spontaneously after my shift today and was pleasantly surprised.
Who knew you could get good ramen in markham?
Right off the bat, the restaurant was near empty and extremely quiet which made a (sort-​of) uncofortable environment for my friends and I, especially when we were talking and laughing. The workers play mainstream white music instead of the typical kpop you hear. However, they play it from a scratchy home speaker instead of a store speaker. so it doesn’t sound that great.
Foodwise, I had the tonkatsu ramen which had a huge portion for $ 11ish. The broth was rich without making me feel sick to my stomach with huge portions of oil coating my intestines. The pork was tender and delicious, and that’s coming from somebody who doesn’t enjoy eating pork– that’s right, even bacon.
Their menu was quite large, for a ramen house. They had appetizers like takoyaki and okonomiyaki pancakes, which I MUST try next time I return!
One thing. you can’t use a credit/​debit card if you don’t spend $ 15. really? At one point, I do understand why but usually the stores that do that are stores that don’t earn a lot of $ in the first place, and this place seems to be doing quite well in this location especially.

Not the most incredible ramen ive had, but its not bad. Don’t set your hopes too high for this place in First Markham Place.
Their service is kind of slow, as they only have 1 or 2 servers on Friday nights for dinner. They also don’t accept cards if below $ 15.
Their ramen is tasty, but nothing superb about it. Their miso soup base was okay. They have nice ingredients, but again I did not go «wow!!».

2 friends and I went there around 8:30. The waitress did not bring water/​tea until we asked them for it… I ordered the veggie ramen in miso soup base which had grilled tofu, bean sprouts, cherry tamatoes, eggplant in it. Food came in about 15 minutes.
First of all, good display of food, big portion for about $ 11 so I was excited to try the taste. Noodles were good, grilled tofu was amazing, other veggies tasted like how they are suppose to taste in miso… but eggplants! Ugh. I normally like eggplant but theirs was so undercooked and flavourless that I just picked them out.
Everyone in the restaurant got these fried potato, pea starch nugget sort of thing on the house… Lol it was eh.
Overall, I give it a 3 out of 5. Would go back but there are other places at fmp that I can eat so sonoya might not be my first pick.

Finally. i decent ramen place besides Kenzo and Niwatei in uptown! I notice the store owner puts Kenzo as well on the business card. I assume this maybe a sister restaurant of Kenzo.
Before I get to the food, I want to let you know this store is very small and they only have one waitress and the owner working as servers, so getting seated and food might take longer. But to be honest, the wait is not as crazy as the ones in downtown.
Here comes the food part, I ordered the Tonkotsu Ramen with extra noodle and the Gyoza and the extra noodle portion was just about right for me. The noodles texture is chewy which is a good thing and the soup is full of flavour. The only downfall was the pork, which was a bit drier (rougher) than the downtown ramen places and for some reason, the extra ramen I ordered wasn’t cooked fully. The noodle was still tangled up together sitting at the bottom of the bowl and that was a bit disappointing.
Besides that, I would say this is a decent ramen place in Markham with average price and barely any wait time, what more can you ask for?! If you hate travelling to downtown to have ramen and prefer staying uptown, I would recommend giving this place a try!

When I walked inside Sonoya Japanese Noodle House, I found the interior quite inviting and pleasant. With just one waitress working, I was a little awkward standing at the entrance waiting to be seated until she noticed I was here.
Menu items reminded me of Kenzo’s and when I went on their website, their url directed me to Kenzo’s web page. Apparently this location is the 2^nd location related to the one up at Yonge and Steeles.
Netsu Ramen ($ 8.95) was quite filling. I was happy slurping down my noodle which was cooked with a great bite.
It is great to have Sonoya/​Kenzo opens up in Markham. Now I have another option around my area for my Ramen fix.
Cash only unless you spend $ 20 or more.
Service a little slow. they really needs to hire some more help!