Toki Underground - Washington, DC

Before I left for my vacation I did a look at the restaurant scene in the DC area and one restaurant kept popping up, Toki Underground.  A look at their website proclaims it to be DC's first ramen house.  This kind of blew my mind because their are many ramen shops in Chicago, including 5 within a 15 minute bike ride of where I live, so it was a place that I was going to have to visit.  The neighborhood in which it is located could kindly be called "up and coming".  It does have a run down look to it, but their are also indications that hipsters are starting to move in.  While it's located on a major street, it wasn't obvious where it was located.  This wasn't surprising to me considering the fact that it has "Underground" in the name.  I expected to find it in a basement space.  I was mistaken.  It was actually located above a dive bar called The Pug, sharing the same entrance.  The logo for Toki Underground was on the door, but it was admittedly a little confusing to go upstairs to a restaurant with underground in it's name.  After the fact, I think the Underground could be ironic, it could mean not yet in the mainstream, or it could mean both.  Walking up the stairs, I saw that it was a very small space (seating about 25) with an open kitchen.  While there were a few tables, most of the seating was at the bar, at a counter in front of the kitchen, or a counter looking out the front windows.  The restaurant seemed to employ the reduce-reuse-recycle aesthetic heavily.  The rail/fence above the stairs was made up of skateboards that had been cut like a picket fence.  The tails of the boards were used above the divider between the kitchen and the bar.  There was a small dead tree used to hang Christmas lights. The walls had a street art design with both painting and stickers, and the bar top was uneven and resin covered with this found art sculpture embedded in it made up of nails and clips that kind of reminded me of a pinball machine.  Their liquor selection, while not huge, did have a good selection, not just using the usual suspects when it came to whiskey, vodka, gin, rum, etc.

We started out with some Pork Dumplings served with Sesame and a Spicy Teriyaki Sauce.  The dumplings looked like they were grilled, but they did have the standard steamed dumpling texture.  They were very tender, a little spicy, and very good.  While I didn't order these, my dining partners did, and I was glad to be able to try them, because they were very good.

The reason that I came here though was to try their Ramen.  While they did offer several ramens, they all seemed variations on the same theme.  I went with the Toki Classic with Braised Pork, Greens, Soft Egg, Pickled Ginger, topped with Nori, Sesame Seeds, and Scallions, and added more pork with some Berkshire Pork Belly.  I went with the Classic to see what their standard ramen was like.  I added the pork belly, because pork belly.  The nori came as a big piece on top and as could be expected it tasted very salty and green.  The taste of nori reminds me of spinach.  The two porks were very tender and while they were each served in a solid piece, they were easily shredded with the spoon or chop sticks provided.  The egg was a perfectly soft boiled egg, and broken open, it added another savory flavor to the already savory broth.  The noodles were plentiful, tender, and slurpable.  It was all very good and worked well together, the only issue that I had was that I thought that it could have used a little more heat and I saw no hot sauce readily available.  Having said that, I would gladly return to have it again. I really enjoyed the space and the food even if I wished for a little more heat.