Steam Player
WEP scores a visit with Mimico’s elusive ramen king—the owner of Nobuya, where locals have been trained to wait an hour or two for an unforgettable meal inspired by Japanese street food
Nobuyuki Toyoshima of Mimico’s own Nobuya Ramen. Photo by Christie Vuong.
In his seven years running Nobuya Ramen on Royal York Road near Stanley Avenue, Nobuyuki Toyoshima has cultivated the image of a lone noodle-slinger. He’s the guy in the kitchen wearing a baseball cap, shorts, rubber Under Armour sandals and black socks, the guy who designed the shop’s logo (half maple leaf, half rising sun), decorated it with quirky artwork and slogans, and is its owner, chef, server and cashier. He’s also the guy who, on busy nights, warns you up front that the wait might be up upwards of two hours. “I’m a one-man show,” he tells customers.
Nobuya’s tonkotsu ramen. Photo by Christie Vuong.
Nobuya has built a loyal following for its rich, generous bowls of pork-laden tonkotsu ramen, crunchy-on-the-outside, juicy-on-the inside karaage (boneless chunks of fried chicken), okonomiyaki (savoury pancake) and takoyaki (deep-fried octopus balls).
Most are happy to wait because they love the 11-hour pork-chicken-and-bonito soup broth base that he makes in a 30-litre pot, his go-it-alone ronin attitude, and because he’s trained them to be patient. “I don’t get many complaints,” he says. “People read the reviews, and I explain, ‘If you’re in a hurry, you should go somewhere else.’” He’s affixed his catch phrase, “Worth the Wait!!,” here and there in the restaurant, most cunningly on the ceiling, to meet the gaze of frustrated customers who might sigh and look to the heavens for patience. The call-out quote from a framed Google review reads “Bring a book.” Regulars know to DM him on Instagram and put in their orders in advance. But even this method can come with a 30-minute wait on busy nights.
Preparing takoyaki, deep-fried octopus balls. Photo by Christie Vuong
Despite the waits his fans gladly put up with, Toyoshima’s tale is a far cry from a Jiro Dreams of Sushi-style story about becoming a master craftsperson after decades of self-abnegating apprenticeship. The 40-year-old ramen cook didn’t grow up in an especially food-loving family (his dad’s a realtor) and never dreamed of becoming a chef, though he liked cooking as a hobby.
Instead, his story is that of a sports-obsessed Tokyo kid who got hooked on hockey and just had get himself to Canada, the game’s Holy Land. ”It’s not a major sport in Japan, but when I was a kid we had the semi-pro Seibu hockey team,” he explains, an offshoot of the more famous Seibu Lions baseball team. The team attracted former NHL-ers like ex-Canucks coach Willie Desjardins, who served as Seibu’s coach. “The arena was only a 10-minute train ride from my home, and in elementary and junior high school, we could watch the games for free,” Toyoshima recalls. He played club hockey during high school.
So he packed his bags in 2004, a 23-year-old intent not only on playing hockey in Canada, but also seeing NHL games up close and in person. He was the only Japanese player on his Burnaby club hockey team, and also played soccer on an all-Japanese team, part of serious community league made up of players from all over the world.
During that year spent playing sports in BC, a chance connection with a North Vancouver sushi restaurant employee led to a job, through which he was able to obtain a working visa. He spent three-and-a-half years working in its kitchen before heading east to open his own venture in one of the few places he could afford: Etobicoke.
For the first two years he made California rolls and fish and chips, then, noticing that there were plenty of sushi restaurants but no ramen joints in the area, he switched specialties, learning how to make the iconic noodle dish via YouTube and Google.
The completed takoyaki dish. Photo by Christie Vuong.
He attributes his success to learning the basics of cooking from one of the most skilled chefs in Vancouver, Masa Katsuura, and working 12-hour days six days a week during his first year there. I couldn’t do that physically any more,” he says ruefully, “but it trained me very well in the basics.” Although he admits his early attempts at ramen were fumbling, he adds, “I think it was pretty delicious, and customers seemed to as well.”
Signs of Toyoshima’s sports fandom are everywhere in his royal-blue and cherry-red noodle shop. The colour scheme is that of his beloved FC Tokyo soccer team; a framed newspaper profile of its star midfielder Rei Hirakawa hangs on the wall by an Elias Pettersson Canucks jersey. There are Raptors posters, a Leafs banner and, on a high shelf, action figurines of Aaron Sanchez, Marco Estrada, and Marcus Stroman watch over the restaurant like benevolent gods.
Now that Toyoshima is 40, his sports activities are mainly limited to watching the Blue Jays, Canucks and Leafs, and catching whatever games he can on his frequent road trips through the eastern U.S. Occasionally he joins friends he’s made through the restaurant to play beer hockey at an outdoor rink on Lakeshore Drive. “No body check!” he explains. Since he’s only a five-minute drive from the Ford Performance Centre, where the Leafs practise, he’s even had Leafs players and team president Brendan Shanahan stop by for a bowl of ramen.
Instead of a calling that he has chained his life to, ramen is more a means to a happy work-life balance for Toyoshima. Until the 2014 opening of Nobuya, he worked as a tour guide for Japanese visitors to Toronto, picking them up at Pearson and ferrying them to Niagara Falls for a turn on the Maid of the Mist. He loved the job.
On the night that we visit, a couple, Ken Samuel and Ria Ruiz, stop in. “We’re just checking you out because we’ve driven by so many times and you’re never open,” says Samuel. (Many visitors comment on the shop’s changeable hours, but this only seems to heighten its allure.) Samuel and Ruiz have just moved to Etobicoke from Mississauga and are eager to come back to eat.
On the TV, Sportsnet’s “Tim & Friends” is all over the American League Wild Card race, and Toyoshima is at the deep fryer, coating marinated chicken pieces with potato starch before tossing them into hot oil. Next, he puts together a plate of okonomiyaki, stuffed with udon noodles and topped with two fried eggs, for another couple, Sandy Lam and Felix Kwok. They have the day off work so stopped in at a strategically early hour in order to avoid a long wait. Sandy likes the takoyaki and the okonomiyaki, which satisfy her itch for authentic regional Japanese street food. “Nobuya has hit the right spot in introducing these foods to Canadians,” she says.
His years of solo effort have won Toyoshima a solid place in the community’s collective heart. But like any good athlete, he’s always looking behind to see who’s gaining on him. “For the first seven years, I was the only ramen shop in Etobicoke,” he says. But recent arrivals Ramen Isshin and Kenzo Ramen have changed the game. Like a captain girding his one-man team for battle, he exclaims, “Rivals are coming now!”