647 476 3833  |   $9 Bowls + Extras

It’s noon, your office is freezing, you have a ton of noodle options around, but you want THE bowl of noodles. You turn to a coworker, your go-to-foodie, looking for a nugget of wisdom. She tells you, “if it’s ramen you crave, Sansotei’s the place”. Jovial with this surefire recommendation, you race to the elevator, bust out the doors of your building, and make a beeline to 179 Dundas West.

Your problem? You’re already too late. There’s a huge line, it doesn’t move particularly fast, and you’re going to freeze your ass off outside.

Moral of the story: you can’t just show up here. I know you’ve heard it’s awesome, but so has everyone else, so plan ahead, leave early, and you too can enjoy a bowl of warm goodness.

Food

OK, enough with the narrative, let’s talk food. The menu is very focused on a few key variations of ramen. Wikipedia has a great description of all four: shio (salty), shoya (soy sauce), miso, and tonkotsu (pork bone). With each one of these you can add some extra egg, pork belly, veggies if you want to pack your soup with even more goodies. In addition to ramen, Sansotei also offers some sides like seaweed salad, gyoza, and a couple rice dishes.

I’m a big fan of seaweed salads, so we started with the one above. It should be exactly what you’re looking for: fresh, clean, and a tiny bit chewy for texture.

While Sansotei is known for the Tonkotsu ramen more than any other, I figured I might as well order another kind just for variety. Enter Miso (above).

Miso ramen originated in Hokkaido, Japan (see Bourdain video above for more) and has the familiar taste you’ve come to love, just amped up and combined with complimentary flavours like pork, green onion and corn (generally not found in other ramens). I was a big fan of the bowl myself: noodles had great chewy texture, the broth perfectly salty, and the portion was satisfying. 

I’m no ramen connoisseur, but I very much enjoyed these.

For the hell of it, I also ordered gyoza, and found them to be steaming hot inside their thin crispy noodle exterior and full of pork flavour.

Service and Ambience

Once you step inside the restaurant space, you realize why there’s a line outside: it’s tiny; my best guess is around 20-25 seats max. While a hole in the wall, the interior’s very unique with an intricate rock wall lit from above and a giant rope that looks to have once been used to secure large ships to shore.

From a service perspective, the first thing to know is that you’ll be given a number when standing in line. Servers will pop out from the restaurant and call you in from the cold when it’s your turn for soup. 

Once inside, best to ask your server to help you understand what comes in each ramen, as the menu isn’t very detailed in that regard. Your server may not have an awesome command of the English language, but she’ll do her best with a smile on her face, and you’ll eventually be able to make an informed choice.

The Reco?

I waited in line for about 15 minutes, and thought the meal definitely justified it. The purpose for your visit is straightforward, the menu is good value, and if you’re informed enough to arrive early, I’m certain you’ll have a pleasurable experience. Enjoy!

Other Reviews? 
 Where Jess Ate   |      blogTO

 Posted by: Jacob, Visited Nov 1, 2012

416-979-6688    |    $16 -$24 lunch mains

As far as good restaurants go in Toronto, I feel like people forget this place exists at the AGO. People know about C5 in the ROM, but otherwise the fact it’s in a museum seems to hide it a bit. Been meaning to stop by the Frank Gehry-designed spot, found a good reason to, and off we went.

Photo Credit: Lost at A Minor

Food

The Frank lunch menu is essentially two succinct sets of starters and mains, many of which should dramatically improve what you normally eat for lunch. There’s a wide variety of interesting choices that aren’t too adventurous, but are just right for a ‘fancy’ lunch.

The three of us shared four apps to start:

• Carrot and ginger soup: Nothing surprising here, a well-made soup that more or less yelled ‘carrot!’

• Smoked paprika marinated grilled octopus with chickpeas, merguez, pequillo peppers and spinach (below): Really nice Spanish-inspired dish whose flavours were bright and balanced; also a beautifully-plated dish. Only thing was the octopus wasn’t quite as tender as it needed to be to knock this out of the park.
   

• Seared halloumi on chickpea polenta and caper peperonata (below): Nothing really stood out here, but a pleasant dish. Think the halloumi could have been crispy or something, the sear didn’t change much and the chickpea part of the polenta didn’t add anything. Peperonata was a flavourful touch though.
   

• Blue crab cakes with herbed ailoi (below): Golden and crispy on outside, soft and warm on the inside, really nice aioli with a bunch of greens. This made for a very tasty series of bites. Enjoyed these a lot.
  

Each of us then ordered very different mains. The first was the special of the day, a wild mushroom risotto with cipollini onions done to perfection. Flavours were dead-on (earthy and buttery), the texture was exactly where you’d want it to be and the portion wasn’t too large. 

The second dish was the corn and cheddar souffle on warm cored-apple. Found this one to be bit a bit boring, as the souffle didn’t taste like much - the apple swooped in to save it from blandness.

The last dish (above), a skirt steak on crispy sour dough, triple crunch mustard, caramelized onions and goat’s milk gouda was awesome. The triple crunch mustard caught my eye in the description, but it’s just semi-crunchy grainy mustard. The real crunch is the sour dough along the bottom and the great sear on the meat. The dish reminded me of a deconstructed and elevated steak sandwich - this is a very good thing. It’s a large portion as well, so you get your money’s worth for the priciest of the mains ($24).

We also sampled a few desserts. We found all three to be average, but regrettably cold. The crustless apple tart (above right) I had with spiced whip cream reminded me of a lukewarm Starbucks drink; could be worse I suppose. My friend’s eggnog creme brulee didn’t taste particularly like eggnog, but with a great torching job on the top, it was strangely cold. The chocolate rum lava cake with poached pears was good, but again, not hot. We thought all three were best-served warm. It’s too bad.

Service and Ambience:

I found our server to be very friendly and helpful with the menu, and the supporting staff also were around frequently replacing silverware, water refilling, etc. Food came out at a good pace given the room was busy at lunch.

As for how the place looks, it’s very modern and minimalistic. There’s a great metal sculpture that protrudes out from the cafeteria below that I particularly liked (above). The dining room itself is really big and felt somewhat empty, but that’s minimalism for you. Whether you think that style is suited for a restaurant is your own call, but as a space in a museum, I can understand the design choice.

The Reco?

I liked lunch at Frank. Despite the temperature-challenged desserts and a few small misses, we quite enjoyed the steak, crab cakes, octopus, and risotto. For an area that’s a little short on nicer restaurants, I think it’s a very respectable option. I’d definitely go back to taste more dishes both at lunch and for dinner. 

Other reviews:
 dineTO     |     NOW Toronto

 Posted by: Jacob, Visited Dec 22, 2011

647-288-4715    |    $9-26 lunch entrees,  $15-36 dinner entrees

Dropped by for a Friday lunch on the patio with high expectations. 

Food

The menu was promising for lunch, with items I’d expect to only see on a dinner menu: burrata, roast pork belly, veal flank steak, etc. Unfortunately, I’d categorize the menu as hit and miss based on our group’s experience.

Hits:

Mixed Drinks - ‘Fruit of the luma’ and ‘blackberry charger’ are both cleverly named, not too sweet, and perfect on the patio.

Coconut Poached Red Snapper - Friend of mine enjoyed the lightness of the perfectly cooked fish with the mix of root veg, ginger, lime and tofu. There’s a bit of heat here as well.

Ricotta Gnudi - Light and fluffy, tasty mushroom foam (there’s a ton of it, actually covered the gnudi entirely), and chunks of Parmesan made this affordable lunch portion ($13) a good value.

Misses:

Grilled Octopus - Always a good test for a kitchen. Good flavours (not great) when you got everything in one bite: pickled eggplant, candied olives, romesco, arugala. Problem was there was barely any eggplant or olive on the large portion and the romesco was bland. In addition, the octopus, while not rubbery, wasn’t tender and had a very dense quality reminiscent of steak, making it difficult to chew. Not sure if it was intentionally prepared this way, but it wasn’t pleasant to eat. We saw another table near us send theirs back to the kitchen.

Lobster burger - This was my main, paid $21 for the burger (no side) and was let down. The lobster wasn’t chewy but the delicate flavour got lost in the togarashi mayo, cucumber, and bun. I appreciated the texture of the crispy shallots, and I think it tasted good as a unit, but I needed to be wowed by either the lobster flavour or some great use of spice/acidity. Just wasn’t there. 

We tried the endive salad and shrimp salad as well. Both were neither hit nor miss. Wish I’d ordered the burrata; heard it was delicious.

Service and Ambience

High marks for both. Restaurant is beautiful and located in a convenient location as I’ve come to expect from O&B. The elevated patio, while loud from mid-day traffic, is a cool spot on a nice day and is great for people watching. Food presentation was also impressive for lunch dishes.

Service was friendly, attentive, and didn’t rush us through our long lunch. Our server recommended my friend’s snapper (good call) and was around frequently to check up on us. I’m definitely a fan of the style of service at O&B restaurants.

The Reco?

I’d like to tell people to come here, but my bottom line is food and both of the dishes I ordered didn’t pan out. It’s a great-looking spot, and you could very well pick a satisfying dish - the fact is that I didn’t. For that reason I can’t give Luma more than two stars.

I’ll admit a second visit for dinner might enlighten me, but I think I’m going to lay off the O&B for a while and give the little guys around the city a try.

Other reviews:
National Post    |     Globe and Mail    | Toronto Life

Posted by: Jacob, Visited Oct 7, 2011