I have a soft spot for J-town, I love getting sushi from their fish market and the Cafe Green tea has the best Japanese curry with bread chicken ever! So I thought I would give Niwatei a try since my sister was raving about their ramen, also because they had a Groupon for $20 worth of food for only $10.

It’s a tiny restaurant with about 10 or so tables and an open kitchen.

It got kind of busy while we were eating even on a Tuesday night.

I came here with my mom and we got one ramen set, one ramen and a appetizer.
This is my Miso Ramen for $7.80; I thought the soup base was too salty and there wasn’t enough chashu in my bowl, only two small slices.   The upside to my meal was that the ramen noodles were really good, they were perfectly cooked with a nice chewy texture.

My mom got the Tonkotsu Shio Ramen set for $12.80 which comes with an appetizer of your choice and dessert. My mom also made a comment about the temperature of the broth, it just wasn’t as hot as we wanted it.
*Note the ramen set is only available for dinner and weekends, also J-town in closed on Mondays.

This is the karaange chicken which is basically fried chicken. It was nicely fried with a light crust and a hint of spice.

My mom got the Mini seasoned Beef with rice as her appetizer. I had one bite and needless to say I ate the whole thing, the beef was tender, the onions were nicely caramelized and the sauce was sweet and savoury at the same time. It was so good, I stopped eating my ramen just so I could eat this.

Chocolate Chiffon Cake was the dessert of the day, it was dry and lacked chocolate flavour. My mom said it was probably day old from the grocery store which is probably true…sadly.

Honestly I don’t think I will be going back Niwatei anytime soon, I would rather pay a little more at Ippai and get hotter broth and more chashu or pay less and go to Cafe Green Tea for basically the same thing I would get at Niwatei.