Jinsei Ramen is a little gem hidden in plain sight! They just opened in March 2023 in the L'esplanade Laurier building. They are on the second floor, so you can use the exterior stairs to get to their exterior entrance, or you can enter the building and take the elevators to get to one of their 2 interior entrances. The place is much bigger than I expected. It's also brand spanking new, and very clean and tidy looking.
My husband and I got a few appetizers to share, as we weren't particularly hungry but are always up for snacks, lol. It was close to 2pm on a Saturday. We got the Chicken Karaage ($7.65), Gyoza (3 for $4) and Pumpkin Croquettes (2 for $5).
We got our food fairly quickly because we were the only customers in the entire restaurant. I had advised the server that I can't eat sesame seeds, as I know some places like to sprinkle sesame seeds on everything, lol. The server was very vigilant and after speaking with the kitchen told me that some of the items contained sesame oil. Fortunately for me, I just can't have the seeds but the oil is ok. I appreciated her thoroughness. She was great. Very pleasant and refilled our waters when she saw they were getting low.
On to the food! The Chicken Karaage was by far our favourite. It was so crispy and crunchy on the outside and so tender and juicy on the inside. It was thigh meat, which my husband loved. I personally always prefer breast meat, but I really enjoyed it anyway. It was so flavourful and delicious. I dipped it in the accompanying mustard-based sauce, but it didn't really need any sauce. It was totally good on its own. I definitely recommend this dish.
The Gyoza were good too. They were deep-fried and so crunchy. The skin was all blistery which I loved. It had ground pork, onion and leeks in it. It came with a soy-based sauce.
The Pumpkin Croquettes were good too. I liked them, but my husband was less of a fan. They were breaded and crunchy on the outside and smooth and creamy on the inside. The pumpkin was sweet and tasted like it was pureed. I would compare liken them to mashed potato croquettes.
The presentation was simple, yet beautiful, on black rectangular plates. They provided both chopsticks and a fork for utensils.
Looking forward to trying out their ramen. They only have 4 ramen varieties right now, and 3 of them contain chashu, which I personally find too fatty, and the other ramen is vegetarian. I would love to see a grilled chicken or chicken karaage ramen option :)
I realize that I'm reviewing a ramen place without trying the ramen, lol, but I just wanted to get the word out there about this new restaurant. They have very little internet presence and other than a sandwich board at the base of the stairs, very little advertisement. I was most impressed by what I experienced, so I'm hoping they do well.
Street parking only. read more