Toki Underground, DC

Since I happened to be going to a show in DC Friday night, I decided to drop in to new ramen place, Toki Underground, which was having it's grand opening on H Street in the Atlas District.
They describe themselves as a Taiwanese ramen restaurant, but when you walk in, they greet you with "irasshaimase", the Japanese greeting. Ramen is originally a Chinese dish, and I do understand the distinction between native Taiwanese and Chinese, but a Japanese greeting in a Taiwanese place is a bit odd.
So I started with a cocktail from their fun sounding drink menu. I got the Toki Monster, made with Bulliet bourbon, pepper honey liqueur, Peat Monster scotch, and topped with a skewer of pork belly. It was a good mix pairing the warm salty fatty pork with the bourbon. They also serve Mr. Brown, a Taiwanese ice coffee, Ramune, Calpico, and Apple Sidra.
I started with an order of Taiwanese style cold tofu. It's covered with shaved bonito and a thick soy sauce. It was good. I wonder if the chef considered adding thousand year egg to the dish.
I tried a small side of their kimchee, which was actually pretty fresh. Not too bad either.
I knew I wanted to try some of their dumplings as they make them from scratch. You can order various fillings and there is the option of having them steamed, pan fried, or deep fried. I decided for the staple- steamed pork dumplings. You get 6 dumplings in a small bamboo steamer. The skins were good. I think I tasted ginger in the pork, and the whole group is covered with a tare sauce, which is a like a thick soy sauce. In a lot of Chinese places they have cabbage on the bottom of the steamer, but in this case, it was cheesecloth. Because they kept the place pretty dark, I almost ate this.
I would say my favorite dish was their ramen. I ordered their Toki Hakata classic ramen, which came with nori, sesame seeds, pickled ginger, char siu pork, and a sousvide egg. The broth, made with pork bones, was flavorful, and the noodles they use are quite good as well. The sousvide egg was pretty awesome, but I do like my pork a little more fatty.
For dessert, I had the milk & cookies. The chocolate chip cookies were baked fresh and were still warm. It was served with some ice cold milk.
I would say Toki is good, but I'm not sure if it's worth a long wait. With ramen & dumplings, I expect a quick turnaround for seating, but I heard wait times were up to 3 hours. Hopefully, over time, they will get into a groove.

Din Tai Fung Dumpling House, Arcadia, CA

We went early one Sunday morning to the LA branch of Din Tai Fung, a Taiwan restaurant specializing in dumplings, and in particular xiaolongbao, or soup dumplings.
Despite the wait to get it, the dumplings were simply great. We got several trays of the pork and crab & pork soup dumplings. With a little vinegar and ginger, I could probably eat several dozen of these things.
We also tried their fish dumplings which were also light and delicious.
I'm always partial to vegetarian dumplings, and the ones at Din Tai Fung were also quite good.











1108 S Baldwin Ave
Arcadia, CA 91007
(626) 574-7068

Best North Dumpling Shop, Flushing, NY

We all went to Chinatown in Flushing, Queens this past Sunday to try various places in the area. We started at the Best Northern Dumpling Shop, which was a stand in a small mall.
We ordered 3 kinds of dumplings: mutton dumplings (left), fennel & pork dumplings (below), and leek & aquatic food dumplings.
All of the dumplings were clearly handmade with nice thick skins. They were all really juicy as well, indicating freshness. I really liked the pork & leek ones; as I recall, Fougoo liked the lamb dumplings.
Great prices, too- for 30 dumplings- $10.


135-08 Roosevelt Ave A4
Flushing, NY 11354
(917) 834-4991

Giant Mandoo, Insadong, Seoul

Our friend GH took us out again in the traditional Insadong neighborhood to this famous mandoo (dumpling) place. I wish this picture actually portrayed the size of these mandoo - like I had a Swiss Army Knife held up to them for scale. Each mandoo above was about 4 inches in length and 2 inches wide!

We had our mandoo in a big hotpot that cooked on a burner on our table - here it is in still-raw state -- raw beef, raw egg, enoki and other mushrooms, cabbage. While the stew cooked, we had cold noodles, bulgogi, and panchan.

Girls Cooking Night: Sushi

The first theme for our girls' cooking night was sushi. I opted to make guo tie (potstickers) as my contribution to complement the sushi.

I made the filling the night before: 1 lb ground beef and chopped mustard greens, mixed with salt, pepper, soy, sesame oil, and egg white. The tricky part of course is that you have to stuff the dumplings with raw filling, so it's hard to gauge if you've seasoned enough. I know I shouldn't but I usually taste a little of the raw filling...

The night of the party, I mixed the dough -- just 3 cups flour to one cup boiling hot water, mixed and kneaded well. The hot water gets the gluten in the flour going, and also allows the dough to cook quicker for fried dumplings. If you're steaming or boiling your dumplings, you can just use cold water. Then you cover the dough with a warm wet towel and let it sit for 45 minutes or so.

The dough should now be nice and springy and not at all sticky. I usually divide the dough into quarters, keeping whatever I'm not working with under the wet towel to stay moist. I form one quarter into a long snake (about 1 inch thick), then cut the snake into around 10 one-inch pieces.

Form each 1-inch piece into a little ball and start rolling, and rolling, and rolling... I ended up with 40 round wrappers.






Now it's time to wrap -- a spoonful of filing in the middle is enough - don't be too greedy. The dough should be pliable enough you can just push together to seal, but if it's starting to dry out, you can also use a little water.



I seal first on the top, then start at the bottom of the sides and crimp as I go up, to make them pretty.






Pour about 2 tablespoons of oil in a non-stick frying pan, and arrange all your dumplings in a pretty pattern.






Then add about 2 cups of water, put the pan on high, cover tightly, and let it go. Keep an ear out for when the pan starts to sizzle. After all the water has boiled off, the oil will crisp the bottoms.




Then the piece de resistance is to turn out all the guo tie onto a plate in one beautiful unbroken array.


While I'd been busy stuffing dumplings, the girls had been busy rolling sushi. They did quite nicely with the help up of some sushi packing and rolling implements.

















Rounded out the meal with sorbet, cookies, and mochi for dessert. Mochi is like the T1000 of desserts, you can cut it up all you want, but the pieces will just meld back together. In fact, I think this simple combo of sticky rice flour and sugar is basically what the ancient Chinese used as mortar between the bricks of the Great Wall! All in all a fun and yummy dinner!