Toshi’s Ramen
Toshi’s Ramen
1520 Pearl St
Eugene, OR 97401
(541) 683-7833
Eugenified.com rating: 
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Toshi’s serves Japanese-style ramen. No, not the Cup O’ Noodle type, but rather the real type like they serve in Japan (Taiwan and, believe it or not, mainland China also have good ramen restaurants…omg, did I just compliment something about mainland China?!)
Ordering: Stand at the front counter and order your ramen of choice from the giant sign board with faded photos of the noodle soup options. Then find a table and wait for delivery. Then wait. Then wait some more. Keep waiting. Shut up and wait.
Are they actually growing the wheat in the kitchen to make the noodles? Are they raising a pig to full maturity for the pork? What the hell can they possibly be doing all this time?! The noodles are all prepared in advance and take about 3 minutes to cook in the big pot of already-boiling water (3 minutes). The veggies are all pre-cut and just waiting to be grabbed and thrown in a bowl (12 seconds). The pork is probably pre-cut also, but even cutting a couple of slices of pork shouldn’t take much time (8 seconds). The soup stock is sitting in a big pot and ready to pour over the noodles (7 seconds). By my calculations, maximum prep time for the whole bowl of ramen soup should be 3 minutes and 27 seconds. Add 3 minutes for admin and chatting amongst the staff. That’s a total of 6 minutes and 27 seconds. So why do I have to routinely wait 25 minutes or more for my food at Toshi’s? It’s a mystery.
How’s the ramen at Toshi’s? Well, it depends on You:
You A: If you have seen the movie Tampopo and actually eaten ramen in Japan, then you will think Toshi’s is just so so and give it two stars.
You B: If you have not seen the movie Tampopo AND not eaten ramen in Japan AND/OR are a homesick Japanese person who is completely sick of eating Eugene hippie food…then you will love it and give Toshi’s 4 stars. You might also rave about how authentic it is and how you think it is cool/exotic when Japanese-American girls put chopsticks in their hair as style accoutrements…or are those Chinese-Americans that do that?…Vietnamese-Americans? Whatever. You’ll love Toshi’s!
Finally: Bus your own table, damn it! It’s Eugene.
Summary: (2 + 4) / 2 = 3 stars
Eugenified.com rating:
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May 16th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Liked Toshi’s ramen but soon was turned off by
the “turtle crawling” service. I suspected back in the kitchen they counted how many “strings” of noodles to put in a bowl. Stopped going because of that.
The other day in the afternoon before the dinner hour, my husband and I drove by Toshi’s and saw their parking lot full of cars. My husband just rattled off: it must be from the lunch customers!!
May 16th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Weirdly, on Urbanspoon.com, the Eugene Burger Blog guy commented about how fast the service was at Toshi’s! I must have had “bad luck” the last 8 times I ate there. (8 times out of 8!)
April 26th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Haha, I’m just now seeing this post. I guess I may have been a little overzealous with my speed comment, because on reflection of the now several times I have been back I can’t remember ever feeling like it was super quick. Still good food.