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.

Dusek's

If a restaurant is outside places that I normally travel, it can sometimes take some time to get there even if it's a place that I really want to got to.  I was interested in Dusek's when I first heard about it.  Owned by the group that also owns Longman & Eagle, Parsons Chicken and Fish, and The Empty Bottle, I knew that it was going to be a hit, but it's in Pilsen, which while in Chicago, is a little farther than I normally like to bike.   I decided one nice summer evening however, that it was a place I wanted to visit and the weather was great, so it was time to visit.  Dusek's Board and Beer was originally founded by John Dusek in the 1890s as a bar and boarding house in Thalia Hall.  It was refounded after several years dormant at the same location as a three part operation, Dusek's, a beer focused restaurant influenced by the original German, Czech, and Eastern European settlers in Pilsen, Punch Room, the basement Cocktail Lounge, and Thalia Hall, the music venue.  The restaurant space is divided into two large rooms, with hardwood floors, brick walls, and prints and photographs from the 1890's.  The big windows in the front provide a lot of natural light with additional light provided by chandeliers with Edison lights.  The bar serving beer and liquor is at the bar in the front room, but there is an additional bar in the other room which is used for preparing charcuterie and cheese boards.  I was seated next to this bar in an area with a lot of natural light.  While the ham plates and the cheese plates both sounded really good, I started things off with Chicken Fried Veal Sweetbreads which were served with Blue Cheese Gnocchi, a Barigoule (a vegetable dish from Provençal, typically made with artichokes, braised in a seasoned broth of wine and water) of Carrots and Celery, Aerated Ranch, Hot Sauce Gel, and Dill Pollen.  Many people are put off by the idea of eating sweetbreads, which are an animals' thymus glands.  I have little fear of trying something new, but I remember once, a waitress comparing them to chicken nuggets.  With the fact that these sweetbreads were breaded and chicken fried, the comparison was very apt.  In fact, with the hot sauce, the ranch and the blue cheese, this was like boneless buffalo wings.  The carrots and celery added a vegetable flavor to the dish which also enhanced the comparison of the sweetbreads to chicken.  The ranch was aerated to thin it somewhat and the hot sauce was gelled to thicken it so that the sauces had similar consistencies.  Everything worked together very well and it was a great starting dish.

I decided, with my entree, to try a dish that honored the ethnic background of the original settlers of the neighborhood.  I ordered Choucroute, the Alsatian version of Sauerkraut and Sausage, which was served with Sauerkraut, of course, but also with a Duck Confit Leg, Pork Belly, House Garlic Sausage, Confit Red Potatoes, Caraway Pickled Apples, and a side of Country Mustard.  I like sauerkraut and sausage, but this went one step beyond with the addition of the additional meats.  It was all very tender and flavorful and I liked the fact that it was served on an antique-style plate.  Everything was very good, but the surprise of the dish was actually the apples, which were served as little balls.  The pickling added a sour flavor to them, with a little nuttiness from the caraway, but their flavor was completely unlike a normal apple.  The texture of the apple, however,  remained which added some textural variation to the dish.

While my entree honored the original settlers of the neighborhood, my dessert honored the people who are here now.  I ordered  Roasted Chili Churros with Dulce Cream, Bittersweet Chocolate Sorbet, Candied Mango, Sweet Chili Lime Oil, and Mango Gel.  The churros were served warm which provided a hot-cold juxtaposition between them and the rest of the dish.  They were sweet and spicy while the sorbet was bittersweet, and the dulce cream was sweet and sour with a little spice with the candied mangoes and the chili lime oil.  It was a great dish that was well presented, tasted great, and honored the history of the neighborhood.

While it is a little further than what I normally like to travel (on my bike) for dinner, it was very good and I really enjoyed the space and the food.  I will definitely have to return in the future.
 

Parts and Labor

The neighborhood that I live in in Chicago is generally recognized as a hipster hang out and my friends give me a hard time about being a hipster for both my address and for having some of the aspects of the stereotypical hipster.  A list came out recently a list came out listing the most hipster restaurants in Chicago, and as it might be expected, many of them were in Logan Square.  I have also been to and like many of them (which also adds to my hipster cred).  To be clear, I do not think that I'm a hipster myself, I just think it's kind of funny and like to play with it occasionally.  There was a restaurant close to me that had gotten some pretty good press and was also on the hipster list that I hadn't been to so I decided to visit it.  Parts and Labor is a bar and grill with a simple food menu, mostly consisting of their burger, a few sandwiches and salads, and sides.  They do have a very good beer list, though, and I started things off with a Diablo Belga Belgian Style Dubbel from Ale Asylum.  A Dubbel is a high alcohol brown ale with an understated bitterness and flavors of fruit and cereal.  They are generally heavy, but this one really wasn't.  It also didn't have much of a head.  It did have flavors of raisins and granola and it was pretty good.  The restaurant itself is bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside.  It occupies a corner lot with windows on both sides and a small courtyard/patio in the back.  The interior is unfinished and open with many ladders on the walls in the front of the space where the large bar is, and furniture with an 8-bit design in the back.  There are also many flat screens throughout the space.

Parts and Labor is primarily known for their burger and while you can order it on its own, they have two specials built around it.  The first is the burger with fries and a cheap beer and the second is the burger and fries.  As I generally try to avoid cheap beer because it has no taste, I decided to go with the second which I added bacon to.  The burger consists of a couple of thin griddle burgers (like you would find in a diner or many fast food restaurants) and is topped with Iceberg Lettuce, Tomatoes, Onions, American Cheese, "Special Sauce", and the Bacon that I added on.  Ketchup and Mustard are served on the side.  The Fries were crispy Curly Fries seasoned with Seasoned Salt.  As far as ingredients were concerned, the burger really wasn't anything special.  It was however, cooked and assembled well, and was well worth the price.  It was a very good bar burger.  The fries were crispy, flavorful, and very good.  I am sure that they would have been good with ketchup, but it wasn't necessary.

Their dessert was similarly limited, but it definitely hit some comfort food notes, featuring a couple of floats and a Fried Twinkie.  The Fried Twinkie sounded positively decadent, so that's where I had to go.  When it arrived, I saw that it was even more decadent than it sounded.  The trinkie seemed to have been coated in a light tempura batter.  It was light and crispy with a lot of air pockets.  This was liberally covered with raspberry jam and it was surrounded by whipped cream.  It was crunchy, sweet and very good.  The vibe at Parts and Labor is very relaxed, it has a good beer list, and prices are inexpensive, so I will definitely be back.