menami

this was an unplanned visit as we were house hunting and walked into the first place we saw.

we were quite surprised by the interiors, the lively music and ambience were soothing for a weekday dinner. the service is quick and the staff was polite and well informed.

we had the mushrooms. and vegetable udon without the fish cake and the shrimp tempura udon. both were served quick, hot and tasted good.

they have some variety for vegetarians with their tapas but not so much with the udon, something i would have really liked.

good food, nice place. recommended.

i had the salmon cream sauce udon - salmon just barely cooked (like sous vide), pretty good, and i liked the cream sauce. honestly i don't taste much difference from regular frozen udon, but this udon is more soft and less chewy. . the mentaiko udon and albacore tuna tataki were good and i liked the watercress in the spicy seafood soup. yaki udon very flavorful sauce as well. also tried the popular corn kakiage which tastes like it sounds - deep fried battered sweet corn - nothing mind-blowing.

really good food! the salmon was flavourful and the cream sauce was delicious. the wasabi raw octopus was really tasty. it came with some seaweed as well. the salmon dish came with a side of radishes. there was only one waitress serving so i felt a bit bad.

great food but service could be better. the short ribs and dumplings were awesome. they also have a oyster special some nights. the chicken wings were just okay. service could improve. this place is busy and waiter disappeared for a while. they made us wait for our table to be ready then told us we only had 2 hours to eat then never came back to take our dessert order. i would go back because the food was worth it! good price point too.

one of the best udon places i’ve ever eaten at! the noodles are so fresh, delicious and perfectly cooked. better to make a reservation if you have a big group or else you’ll be waiting for a while.

heard a lot of good things about this place so we stopped by for lunch. the udon was pretty good but the salad was a bit sad. some of the leaves were past wilted. the service was extremely slow when there were only 3 tables seated in the whole restaurant. we were not impressed and probably not coming back.

love the decor and atmosphere here. sultry jazz playing in the background. had the spicy pork udon which was great. definitely coming back to try the draft sake.

i wish zomato would get rid of the 140 char minimum!!

2017/03/02
working my way down yonge street, and today i stopped in at menami for lunch. it had a bit of an industrial feel to it, with the corrugated steel facing on the bar.

i had a quick look at the menu, and saw that they had a couple of specials, including something that i had never had before: dondeki (pork jowl steak) for $13. i was feeling adventurous, so that's what i ordered. not my favourite dish. i don't know if it was cooked correctly or not, but for me it was not tender enough and too chewy, as well as too much fat on the one side. the meal came with a small bowl of udon soup, which had a very flavourful and slightly salty broth. the lunch special was supposed to include a salad and a can of pop, but they forgot to bring the salad.

the udon came piping hot and was perfectly cooked. it was definitely the perfect dish for a cold evening, but i couldn’t help but fawn over the saucy noodles my friends were having.

i started thinking about menami over the next few weeks and was itching to go back to try their pasta-like dishes. i finally returned a few weeks ago, and ordered the mentaiko cream sauce udon while my friend ordered the seafood yaki udon.

we decided to check out menami on the weekend for lunch after hearing all the hype. i mean, fresh housemade udon? that's pretty cool and unique in toronto. they even imported an udon making machine from japan! we got the corn kaki-age as an appetizer and that was good (not amazing like other reviews have said). the sauce went well with the deep fried corn. for our udon mains, we got the tsuke udon & mentaiko cream udon. i love dipping noodles but i was surprised the tsuke udon was served with cold noodles and broth. mentaiko was good at first bite but you get sick of the cream sauce fast.

the service was fast and for me, it was an interesting experience to try their housemade udon (verdict: slight difference, more chewy texture). overall, i won't be coming back and i'm not sure what others are so excited for. but if you are *really* curious about what fresh udon tastes like, then sure, give this a try (but that's the only reason i can think of to go here).

tldr: pass on menami – extremely poor customer service and underwhelming and overpriced food. . if you’ve been following me on social media long enough, you probably have noticed that i no longer write “food blog” type posts any more. i felt that my writing wasn’t very good over time and that i was writing more to have a post than to truly share an interesting experience.  nowadays i only write about certain restaurants that i go to that are more unique / new, but it has still been quite rare.

came here with pretty high expectations, alas my experience fell a little short of that. came by late on a friday night, our appetizer came very quickly, but we had to wait 45 min before our entees arrived. did not expect to have to wait for so long. the deep fried okra batter was laced with wasabi; i would've preferred a warning beforehand. the inside of the okra was still slimy, a tell-tale sign that they weren't fried for long enough. the salmon cream sauce udon was fine, pretty much what you expect it to taste like. however, the seafood yaki udon was wayyy too sweet! i was really looking forward to that dish because i've heard good things. the sauce was so sweet i had to mix it with the remaining cream sauce from our other udon dish to make it palatable.

so this summer, i've been feeling very unmotivated to blog as of late, mainly because i haven't done anything really blog-worthy that i haven't already posted about before. or rather, i've been feeling very unmotivated to drag my large camera around everywhere i go and risk everyone complaining about me "paparazzi-ing" them all meal.

the food is great! definitely come for the udon. beef broth udon was the only slightly let down - soup was quite plain. baked udon sounds weird but so good. cold chicken udon had the best texture; i enjoy firm noodles. the protein is generous and fried well. the karaage app is also cooked well and the accompanying mayo is addictive.

service leaves a little to be desired. efficient, but distant. a place like this is screaming for energetic, outgoing staff.

address:  5469 yonge street.  toronto, on m2n 5s1phone: (416) 229 – 6191website: . conveniently located on yonge street, near finch avenue makes this udon specialized restaurant easily accessible and noticeable.  but you have to be walking to really notice the entrance because the sign is on an angle and indifferent from a lot of other storefronts, on the darker shade.  when we drove down yonge street, we missed it twice, as big as our eyes were.  but, if you are purposely making a trip to visit the restaurant, just use a gps, especially to find parking because we had to park at the church on the side street.  hopefully, they were not mad at us.  thank you god. =)