Sansotei Ramen

A brand new plaza opened up very recently in the newly developed downtown Markham area and up popped up a Sansotei Restaurant which specializes in hand made rice noodles with very tasty additions and ingredients in every bowl of noodles one orders.  Their sister restaurant is located in the heart of downtown Toronto and I have had the chance to have been there a few times and have loved every minute of it.  People who know and have been to the downtown location know how busy that restaurant was and how crazy lineups were.  Unfortunately, even though this place just opened recently, this restaurant was humming with people lined up outside the door at five-o-clock on a weekend evening.  After about a twenty minute wait, we were finally crammed into the back somewhere where three of my friends and I finally sat down a table.

With so many great noodles to choose from, many of my friends and I each finally settled on their Tonkotsu Black ($9.45) while others took up the Tomato Seafood ($9.45). I also decided get a side order of Spicy Slow Cooked Chicken Wings ($6.00) to feed our empty stomachs.

The chicken wings themselves appeared to have been marinated with sweet soya sauce and then once the wings were fully cooked, they were sprinkled with chili oil.  The wings themselves were rather of the small variety and each wing was spicy, but not overly spicy.  There were five of them served in a wooden bowl. 

Spicy Slow Cooked Chicken Wings

The Black Tonkotsu arrived and it looked wild.  The black pepper sauce mixed with the green onions and pork belly soup made this dish look radical.  There was also one soft bowl egg, some corn, thick noodles and several pieces of pork belly in the bowl.  Of note, one gets to choose between thin, thick or vermicelli as their choice for noodles.  The entire bowl tasted absolutely amazing.  The pork belly was half lean and half fat and had plenty of taste to it.  The pork belly soup base really brought out the entire pork taste to this dish. Unlike its sister restaurant in the downtown area, the pork and pork belly soup base was not overwhelming and not as salty.  This time around it was just absolutely perfect.  Everything tasted just about right!!

Black Tonkotsu

The Tomato Seafood combination also tasted pretty good from all accounts.  Although not as wild looking as the Black Tonkotsu, the Tomato Seafood I was told was equally tasty.  I mainly tried the soup base and found it to be very strong and condense with the sense tomato truly captured within the base itself.  It was certainly not watered down and one could also sense a bit of seafood in it.  There was also a small piece of scallop and I believe there was also some corn in the bottom of the bowl. 

Overall, it was a wonderful experience and for sure I would go back for round 2 and round 3.  The noodles were fantastic, service was fast, and as I looked up, the lineup never seemed to have wanted to end.  If you really love ramen, then this is definitely one of the better stops in Markham.  Overall, I give it a 4.5 out of 5.

Sansotei Ramen
3987 Highway 7
Markham, Ontario

905-604-7118