The Long Awaited Review: Toki Underground
To start with this review is far too long in coming. They say you always hurt the ones you love, and given how much I adore this place it seems to hold true. Even the staff (What's up Eric!) have given me a hard time for this. Consider it corrected.
Spoiler: I am a huge fan of Toki Underground. Embarrassingly so. This will be one of those insane gushing reviews that doesn't really fit with my cynical, picky, judgemental, difficult to please foodie side. I am completely ok with this as few restaurants have earned my unabashed adoration. You've been warned.
This is one of the first times I find myself really conflicted on how to start a review (aside from the spoiler...). I've already written and deleted paragraphs on the evolution of taste in various styles of food, under the thesis that new tastes migrate from a cultures most formal dining and eventually come around to their comfort food. I was going to suggest this is common as societies in general learn new food cultures, and explains why now is the right time for Toki Underground; America started with sushi, we've done other Japanese/Chinese dishes, moved on to Thai, then Vietnamese, then Korean,and now we're ready for what amounts to basically comfort food. I think all that is true, but not really fleshed out. So I'm going to make this simple.
Food:
Toki, at it's simplest form, is all about two things: Taiwanese style ramen and dumplings. You have a lot of options in how these are prepared (dumplings steamed, pan fried (my favorite), or deep fried; ramen with pork, curry chicken, kimchi, etc) but really those are the two centers of the menu. As I've already highlighted in a previous post this is kind of a staple of DC restaurants: pick a limited number of major items, do those very well, and give people tons of options to customize them.
Ramen:
- Toki Hakata Classic - My original go to and my recommendation for newbies.
- Curry Chicken Hakata - My current favorite, this brings out some rich flavors that one seldom gets in chicken.
- Miso Hakata - I haven't tried it, but a friend of mine raved about it.
- Kimchi Ramen - This was my latest try, delicious, but bring some heat.
- Masumi Vegetarian
These come with various "add-ons" to allow you to customize your ramen, from something as simple as additional noodles to pork cheak to their own homemade adreline sauce (siracha) to daily specials including a piece of pork belly that rivals the one I had at French Laundry (yes, I realize what I'm suggesting with that, I stand by it).
Recommendation: Try the Hakata Classic on it's own your first time with adrenaline sauce (again, watch out, it's got some heat) and get the Curry Chicken Hakata with pork cheek or belly as an add on the next time.
Dumplings:
"Your choice of beef, pork, chicken, seasonal vegetable, or seasonal seafood. Pan-fried, fried or steamed."
Now I've had dumplings before. Dumplings are one of those foods that (and there needs to be a word for this) are never bad, but rarely amazing. Pizza like. Not here. Ratios of filling to shell are perfect, and so many combinations mean even having been here 8+ times in the past two months I haven't had the same combo twice. The rich teriyaki sauce they come with is so flavorful and well balanced you'll want to sop it all up.
Recommendation: Deep fried pork is the easy go to but I say get the pan fried seafood. It has the most going on and really shows off all the ingredients best.
Toki also does some truly amazing sounding daily specials and has some great deserts, including hot cookies and milk, that are also worth checking out.
Before I move on to drinks theres one other thing I have to give props for on food. One of the things that makes this blog interesting, and makes our friendship tense sometimes, is that Crimson Cupcake and I have very different takes on meat. She wants to hug cows, I want to eat them. I think that in most places vegetarian food is simply filler and rarely worth the prices charged for it because most chefs are like me and honestly don't care very much about putting the same resources into vegetarian dishes. This is one place Toki shines. The first time I went I asked for a dumpling suggestion and was told to get the vegetarian dumplings with the explanation "the chef knows how hard it is to find good vegetarian food, so he puts in some extra effort" and it couldn't have been more right. My disinclination to get vegetarian food is not out of a desire to up my "body count" but simply because vegetarian food is usually an afterthought and it's a breath of fresh air to go to a place that doesn't treat it that way.
Drinks:
I admit I feel under prepared to judge the beverage selections at Toki Underground. The first time I walked in I asked for a beer recommendation (have I mentioned I'm big on getting recommendations?) and was immediately told to try the Yona Yona. Without turning this into a beer review I have to say this: this is a fantastic beer that pairs really well with every dish I've had at Toki. This beer doesn't have any pretentions, it's not insanely unique, it doesn't have some crazy element to it: it's just a solid, well rounded, straight forward, pale ale. It's like really good chocolate chip cookies; straight forward, simple, but really well done.
I have also had a couple of their sakes. I feel pitifully uneducated about sake but enjoyed the ones I tried, especially the Hakushika Snow Beauty and Suigei "Drunken Whale" House Junmai, the last of which was nice for a dry saki and picked entirely based on the name.
Recommendation: Do you need to ask? Get the Yona Yona. After that I'd ask for a saki suggestion.
Experience:
Having gone all fanboy about the food and drink it hardly seems like there is more to say, yet one of the most interesting things about Toki is the decor and overall ambiance. For the decor I'll refer you to the pictures below and an actual visit, because it's something else, like an odd mashup of a otaku anime fan with a skate shop yet without being so chaotic I find it jarring (and it doesn't take much for my minimal sense of decor to be offended).
It's a small restaurant and they pack a lot of people in without being crowded. Most of the seats are stools along the walls with a few at the bar and a chefs tasting bar that looks over their compact but efficient looking kitchen. These last seats are my favorite; you can watch your meals being made and have things handed straight over while getting a comment or two every so often from the kitchen staff, especially during a football (that's soccer for those of you from the middle of the US) game. It's a great atmosphere that fits the food well, friendly, inviting, comfortable, and interesting without being pretentious.
The downside to this intimate dining experience: Toki nearly always has a wait. It's never as bad as they suggest (I've often had two hours quoted, only to get called 45 minutes later) and there are plenty of places nearby to go for a drink, but it does take a little planning ahead. They also don't do take out, unwilling to compromise the food for a few more customers. You can't argue with that.
The staff especially fits this experience well as they all seem to genuinely like their jobs, not simply working a shift, both the kitchen and floor staff really seem to like the food, each other, their customers, and the vibe, which really leads to a unified experience. Whatever the owners did, whether it's training, hiring the right people, or using a Disney style hypnotic indoctrination seems to have worked and makes the whole experience even better for patrons.
Overall:
Go, just go. This is my favorite sub $50 (easily sub $20 if you're easy on the alcohol and extras) per person meal in Washington DC, knocking off my beloved Good Stuff Eatery. This is a favorite for me to take foodie friends and non foodie friends alike. Toki has a winning formula in my book my hope is they don't change a thing and have a long, successful run. It's places like this that are really making H Street the new foodie neighborhood in DC.
