Ramen and Mr. Brown

Such impressive stretches of time have passed between posts that I think the concept of blogging has become passe during this period of neglect. Never mind, I shall press on and wax poetic about Toki Underground, a Taiwanese-style (!) ramen (!!) place on H Street NE in DC (!!!).

First, despite its name, Toki Underground is located on the second story above The Pug bar, so I could not resist adding "which is above ground" each time I said the name. (Yes, I understand that "underground" here was not intended to connote subterranean. I just really like wordplay.) You enter through a door marked with the restaurant symbol and go upstairs to a very small space with pachinko boards embedded in the bar and graffiti art everywhere. It was all so very counter-culture Asian -- "underground," some might say -- so very hip and, there is no other way to say this, so much more NYC than DC. (To wit, we had a short 15 minute wait at 11 pm on a Saturday night.)

Second, far more important than the first, is that they have all sorts of Taiwanese drinks on the menu -- Apple Sidra, Hey Song Sarsaparilla, and Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown! An irrationally exuberant response, perhaps, but I've only ever seen the canned coffee drink in Asian grocery stores.

Finally, the ramen, which are $10 per bowl. We tried the Hakata Classic, made with tonkatsu noodle soup, and the Miso Hakata, made with shiitake kombu noodle soup. Both were excellent, though I preferred the slightly lighter mushroom-seaweed broth than the tonkatsu broth, which was quite deep and rich. We also enjoyed the Taiwanese style cold tofu, slices of luxurious tofu dressed with dark soy sauce, scallions, and sesame seeds, and topped with fluttery bonito flakes. Then, somehow, we rolled ourselves out of there.

I've far exceeded my quota of exclamation points for this post, but I'm still dumbfounded that there is a Taiwanese-style ramen place that's really quite tasty and far cooler than one could ever expect in DC. I'm easily dissuaded by long waits and H Street in general, but the ramen and Mr. Brown make a compelling case for a return visit.