Touhenboku Ramen Restaurant

The service and food are consistently excellent. I’ve gone about 10 times and haven’t had any issues.
This place specializes in chicken broth based ramen which is either rare or otherwise non existent in Toronto (I’m not a ramen expert, so not 100% sure). Generally you’re going to be served Pork based broth ramen, so this place stands out in Toronto.
The broth is rich and creamy, very flavourful and delicious. You can’t go wrong with any of the ramen dishes.
For my tastes, their chicken karaage is perfect. It has a very clean taste as though the frying oil and equipment is ultra clean, and is just insanely delicious fried chicken.
Some folks I go here with order their soup unseasoned, or half seasoned with sea salt to reduce their sodium intake which is a tip you may want, although I personally go for the full shot of sea salt!
If you even remotely enjoy ramen or the style of side dishes they serve, I’d say this is a must-​try place.

Been here 3 or 4 times and it is always consistent. Love their ramen especially the soup base– it’s slightly thicker than other noodle shops I have been to.
My kids and I love the fried chicken rice. My kids go there just to eat that!
The fried octopus balls wasn’t quite what I had in mind… it was a bit ooey in the center… and maybe that’s the way it should be? I just found the texture a hit unusual.
OverAll: great comfort food. Lunch special — ramen and chicken rice is a good price for parents and kids to share!

This spot was more of a 3.5 stars, really.
I’m just starting to get into ramen and was excited to try another location when I came across this restaurant. The space inside is quite small, but I like the atmosphere. The exposed brick and somewhat open kitchen give it a cozy feel, and the servers I interacted with were both friendly.
My friends and I started with the takoyaki (fried octopus balls) before moving onto our ramen bowls. The appetizer was nice and perfect to split between three people (2 balls each!).
I ordered the vegetarian ramen with thick noodles (you can choose between thick and thin) and two extra toppings (corn and bamboo) for an additional $ 2. I was really happy with the cook of the noodles as well as the size. I can’t imagine the thin noodles being better, but you never know. The vegetarian ramen comes with beansprouts, mushroom, seaweed, and a soft boiled egg. The toppings were all great but the one that stood out for me was the perfectly cooked soft boiled egg! The only letdown was the broth, which should really be the star of the show. I felt it was lacking in flavour. There are different broths available and I feel like the others would probably have fared better with me. I went with the classic miso broth but I would definitely like to come back and try the garlic or spicy broth next time!

My friend and I went to Touhenboku at the Yonge & Eglinton location on Feb 23 for dinner. We both order the winter special ramen. It was fast and quick. The service was standard service.
Both of us got sick from the ramen from Touhenboku few hours later. We had stomach issues the same night. I spent the night with a plastic bag beside my bed. I am very certain it was the ramen since I didn’t consume anything after the dinner.
Definitely will not return!

Take the extra 10 minutes North of Yonge to make the trek to Kinton, or south to where there’s a million other ramen places. Not only they are over priced, noodles game out soggy… toppings are bland. nothing out of the ordinary.

My rating is based solely on the ramen (because it’s a ramen restaurant)
Ordered karaage and black garlicky ramen (chose sea-​salt seasoning, pork shoulder, thick noodles) with extra soft-​boiled egg.
Karaage: not the usual karaage that you get in Japanese restaurants. It’s coated with a different batter, but juicy nonetheless. For 5+ dollars, the pieces were huge!
Ramen: Soup was lukewarm which I didn’t like. Not very flavorful either. Noodles were nicely done. Soft-​boiled eggs was too cooked (read: hard-​boiled).
Servers were friendly and the place is clean and cozy.

With so many ramen houses in Toronto, one really needs to be at least 4 stars to stand out. Unfortunately, they’re one star short for me to go out my way to visit.
Their soup base with half the sea salt was fine. Full dosage of any one of the three (miso and soy sauce) would have been unbearably salty.
The soup base lack substance. The overbearing miso detracted from what a good soup base ought to be.
The noodles was just ok. Nothing amazing, but not that bad either (I’ve had worse, so it’s well worth the 3 stars).

Ordered some ramen for delivery from this place. Overall the food was very mediocre and the service was great however towards the end of my meal, I chewed on something that almost broke my tooth… After investigating, and showing everyone around me, we came to the conclusion that it was very obviously a piece of gravel/​stone…
The ramen was definitely not worth a visit to the dentist.

Great ramen place in mid-​town Toronto. This area needed one.
My go-​to is the red (spicy) ramen with pork belly & thick noodle, I’ll have to try other types after seeing all the reviews here!
Overall a great place for some ramen fix!

Relatively small place with maybe seats for 25 people. Their ordering process is pretty straight forward with lots of customization (thin vs thick noodles, soy sauce or sea salt, shoulder or belly).
Ramen here is pretty good. Karaage is pretty juicy despite the big pieces. The cha sui rice bowl is my favorite tho.

Everything here is pricey (especially after coming back from Japan), but the karaage is always juicy and tasty without being too oily. And who doesn’t like japanese mayo? The ramen is good, I always choose the black (garlic) soup base and drink it all like they do in Japan, even though I know it’s definitely not good for me.
I do find that the service here is a bit slow, which makes it hard to have a lunch during business lunch hours. There aren’t all that many seats in the restaurant, but I’ve never had trouble getting a seat.
No parking — pay on Yonge St or park further away on a residential road. They do take credit cards.

It is simple to order — one thing — soup — but so many options and add-​ins that you need to take notes so you know what you had last time that was so good you had to come back!
My favourite: Ramen — black (garlicky) — pork belly — with a bowl of chicken on the side.

Having a casual dinner with friends. We have fried chicken, squid ball to share. I ordered a spicy ramen.
Today is not a busy day, so food comes up pretty quick. The ramen looks a bit small. However, it is enough if you are looking for something light weight, or leave room for appetizers. The appetizers are very delicious, you can tell they only make it after you ordered.
The place is spacious, however, it might not be a good place for chilling. Just like other ramen restaurants, they collect your bowl once you finish.
I give a ⁴⁄₅ as atmosphere makes you feel like it is fast food restaurant. Paying ~18 dollar for fast food experience. It is kind of hard to judge.

3.5 Stars
I’ve walked by this place a dozens times so of course today on what is possibly the hottest day on earth, I decided I needed to have some hot ramen!
It’s a cute place inside — exposed brick, crystal chandeliers and clean. It is small so for big groups it might be a bit crowded
Their menu is simple for ramen — choose your broth/​meat/​noodles (thick/​thin) etc. so you can really customize it to your liking.
I got the light/​soya sauce/​chicken/​thin noodles. It was just slightly too salty for me. but overall good. The noodles had a nice chewy texture but I didn’t like the chicken. It tasted of nothing… and kinda looked like mystery meat lol
You can get extra toppings… but honestly paying $ 1 for extra scallions is a high. They have a limited beer/​sake drink list (maybe more expansive at dinner? I went for lunch) but that’s fine with me. Sapporo and a few sakes — too many choices sometimes muddy the experience
I haven’t tried any other dishes here but look forward to trying a few others.

My first experience in this ramen joint was good. Easy to spot location, clean, friendly staff. It wasn’t busy when I went on a Sunday for lunch at around 1pm.
I enjoy chicken ramen broths because they tend to be less rich than tonkotsus. I like both broths in general actually. I ordered the lunch ramen special that includes a buri: black garlic ramen with thick noodles and karaage on rice. Noodles were not mushy, the pork was tender and juicy, and broth was balanced with the strong garlic and lightness of chicken broth. I love garlic so hands down for the garlicky taste. One star down for the egg. It was not as soft boiled as what I expected. The chicken was juicy and tender. A lot of kewpie mayo though but that can be easily scraped off. No biggie. I didn’t finish my rice because I wanted to finish my ramen.
Definitely eating here again. I like their menu setup a lot for mix and matching.

4.5 stars
The extra .5 is because of the very zen ambiance; relaxing music, beautiful chandeliers, and wooden details that give you the impression that something nice is about to happen…
Fortunately the decoration matched the quality and flavour of the food.
I know that talking about the weather is small talk or used to «fill» awkward silences or situations, but today it is just necessary to complain about him and his moodiness (we are having such a rainy and cold situation that they even canceled the Digital Dreams event. WTF???). Where did the Spring went on vacations, and why is the Summer angry with us???
Ramen is the perfect lunch, dinner, or meal for one of this cloudy/​feeling like doing nothing but cuddle kind of days. It recomforts you, it’s fun to eat, it reminds you some of those Japanese cartoons you used to watch when kid, satisfies you, it’s affordable, and it’s elaboration requires so much dedication/time&effort, that you better buy&enjoy.
This place made the 2^nd place in my about to write list of best ramen joints of Toronto. It was busy at 12:30, the attendants included several Japanese with their beautiful multicultural families. But when I really realized the food was good, was when a more than 70 years young senior Japanese fellow, ate his ramen and made a head approbating movement while eating.
The octopus appetizer had lots of dry fish flakes on the top, tasted like Spanish creamy croquetas, and were deliciously accompanied with green onion, mayo, and soy something sauce!!! I burnt my tongue, but it was worth.
Picking your ramen is didactic and the kids in the concurrence seemed to enjoy everything. Pick 1 of the flavours, pick 1 of the meat/​vegetarian options, pick in between tick or thin noodles, and add extra items if you want.
I really liked this place!!!

Was meaning to check out this ramen shop in my neighborhood because we usually go downtown for our noodle fix. Looking at the photos and reading some great reviews, I was very excited (and obviously had high expectations); however, Touhenboku disappointed me.
We ordered gyoza as an appetizer; I would skip these. When they came to the table, they looked delicious. After one bite, all I could taste was water; the meat filling was quite bland as well. They’re frozen and just microwaved so the texture was rubbery. As my main, I ordered the ramen + donburi set. The garlic flavored ramen with ‘thick’ noodles was ‘meh’ for me; the menu raved about the strong garlic flavor and how it’s a Touhenboku classic. I’m a huge fan of garlic and found my ramen to be underwhelming. For the donburi, I ordered the chicken karaage bowl. It was bland tasting fried chicken drenched with mayonnaise over plain rice. All in all, the one word that describes the food here — b l a n d.
We went for a late-​ish Saturday lunch at around one o’clock. The restaurant was not too packed; there were maybe 2 or 3 other patrons so the staff: patron ratio was definitely in our favor. Anyway, the service was terrible. It was quite slow to begin with. Once finished our meals, we waited for our server to return because I wanted to order the mille feuille. I said ‘excuse me’ to one server; she saw me and just walked off. ‘That’s rude,’ I thought, but I gave this person the benefit of the doubt. Another server passed by my table and again I said ‘excuse me’. He saw me as our eyes met, but he too just walked off. Finally, another server came by after about an additional 10 minutes of waiting. In this time, we managed to stack all our plates and place them on the side of the table. The restaurant is quite small so it’s not like we were hidden in a corner.
The food was ‘meh’ and the service was so bad that I don’t think there’s a reason for me to return.

Good ramen, definitely better than Kinton, IMO. You choose your broth, seasoning, ramen and meat. I had the black garlic broth with soy sauce, thin ramen and pork shoulder. The broth was rich but not greasy. I wouldn’t have known it wasn’t pork broth if I didn’t look at the menu. There was a smoky aroma from the pork.
They have a lunch set which is a bowl of ramen and a don for $ 14 (savings of $ 1). My other half had the kaarage don with his set. It was rather ordinary, definitely come here for their noodles and not the rice bowl.
Service is friendly and prompt.

3.5÷5, +.5 for service
I expected to put Touhenboku somewhere in the top tier of ramen restaurants in Toronto after looking at the reviews. At the end, it was a very good place, but it’s still one notch below the Kinton/​Santouka/​Sansotei/​Isshin empire.
This place was extremely quiet on a Wednesday lunch hour. In a way it benefited me as I was in a bit of a rush that day, but I did have second thoughts on whether I should stay or leave. Seeing as how I got complete attention from the waitress and even the chefs, I decided to stay.
I ordered the Touhenboku original with thick ramen and pork belly. The bowl came quite fast, as I received my food in around 5 – 7 minutes. My first reaction was that the broth was quite light, despite the fact I ordered the original, creamier version. I only realized later that they use chicken broth for their soup base, so I’ll give them a pass for that. The pork belly was decent though paled compared to Kinton, however the egg and seaweed add-​ons were excellent! The ramen was not of the yellow kind; it was a lot more white compared to the other ramen restaurants I’ve been to. It tasted good, but not what I’m normally accustomed to.
Service was excellent, but probably because I was the only customer for most of the time there. Will I return? I would wanna try the miso soup base and perhaps the black garlic version, but to say this is the best ramen in Toronto would be a bit of a stretch.

Came here tonight. Décor was nice. I didn’t leave as happy or as satisfied as I usually am when I leave Toukenboku. I am a regular of the Queen St location.
All but 3 of the tables were taken. One large group of 6 – 8 and the rest were tables of 2. Let’s say there is approximately 10 – 12 tables in total. There were 3 servers, one of them was probably the busser.
Service was quiet slow — not as quick as the other location. The servers seemed really flustered but they were really friendly. Food came pretty slow but it was good (YUMMMM, karaage. Crepes were yummy as well). Our server kept forgetting to refill our water — we were so thirsty. We felt pretty ignored. They would walk by our table so many times but they never checked up on us.
Also, this is the first asian place I have ever been to that does not offer complimentary tea?! It’s cold outside! $ 1.50 for a tiny cup of peach green tea?! No thanks.
I would probably stick to the Queen St location.