
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 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.
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.

1 comment:
Hi Howard,
I agree that the ramen here is good but the long wait was helped by drinks at the bar next door. However, I really enjoyed the Toki Monster drink. I went this past June 2013.
Post a Comment