Daikaya

I have a serious ramen problem.  I would probably eat it every day if I could.  There's just something so comforting about a giant bowl of noodles in soul-warming broth.  My absolute favorite bowl of ramen is the Hakata Classic (with extra noodles and endorphin sauce) at Toki Underground.  But, for the days when I can't wait hours for a table, I'm glad there are other ramen places popping onto the scene.

Daikaya on 6th Street NW (next to Graffiato) had been rumored to be coming forever.  They built the restaurant from the ground up.  Seriously.  It was a dirt lot a couple of years ago.  After a long wait and approximately 86 bazillion articles and tweets about when it would open, Daikaya finally began serving ramen on Valentine's Day this year.

The 40 seat ramen bar on the ground floor is open but the 90 seat izakaya section will open upstairs later this month.

We went after 9:00 p.m. on a rainy weekday and scored one of the two booths with no wait.  Aside from the booths, there are seats at the bar and a few communal tables with stools.  I hear they are working on more coat/purse hooks (a key feature in my book).

The menu is limited, placing the focus squarely on the ramen.  We ordered the only appetizer, gyoza, which were about the same as all the other gyoza in this town.  If you've had one, you've had these.

There are four types of ramen to choose from: Shio (salt); Shoyu (soy sauce); Mugi-Miso (barley-miso); and Vegetable Shio (salt with vegan stock).

I ordered the Shoyu and liked the roast pork and soy-marinated egg a lot.  I also thought the noodles had a nice snap to them.  The balance was thrown off by too many bean sprouts that imparted a strong sprouty flavor and a heavy soy sauce component.  I know it's a soy sauce ramen, but I stopped tasting the complexities of the beef/pork/chicken broth after a few slurps and felt like I was slurping soy sauce.  I read somewhere that it takes a while to figure out the balance of the Shoyu broth and I think they need more time to figure it out.

B was the big winner with his Mugi-Miso ramen.  The barley-miso broth was deliciously complicated and interesting.  This is more like the Toki broth that I've come to love and I'll be ordering this bowl o' noodles the next time we eat at Daikaya.

Will there be a next time?  Definitely.  I think Daikaya has a lot of promise and I like its convenient location and lack of crazy long wait times.  If you do encounter a wait for your table, you can grab a drink next door at Graffiato (psssst....they have prosecco on tap!).  They are also now open at lunch time in case you get a noodle hankering while you're at work.

Have you been to Daikaya yet?  What did you think?

Second Thoughts From B

Depending on your position on noodle soup, I'm either lucky or cursed.  Thankfully, I'm on board and enjoy our frequent sojourns to the ends of the earth (Cambodia, Wheaton, etc.) to find J's favorite comfort food.

While I do love a hot bowl of ramen or pho or Campbell's, I'm clearly not the connoisseur that J is.  As long as it is hot and salty and has some form of noodle-like substance, I'm a happy camper.  This is not to say that I don't recognize the good from the great.  Toki Underground and others certainly deserve the praise they receive.  It is more to say that I don't need a chef's touch to be happy.  Therefore, speed, availability, friendly staff, and cost are bigger factors for me.

In Daikaya, you have all of those things, plus J-approved ramen, within a short 15 minute walk of our place (and less than 5 minutes from Gallery Place-Chinatown's metro stop).  Sounds like a winner to me!

H&Pizza

H Street NE has so many great restaurants, it can be hard to choose. However, since most of the popular H Street places don't take reservations, it can be mighty tricky trying to pick a place for a group of friends to meet for a quick dinner prior to a show at the Atlas Theater.

The need for quick and easy led me to H&Pizza, a new-ish kid on the block, that makes individual-sized pizzas fast. I hate to say it's the "Chipotle of pizza" (the "Chipotle of ____" is as played out as "____ is the new black") but it's a similar concept.

You can tell the very friendly pizza topper what you want on your pizza and what kind of crust you want it on (traditional, whole wheat, or multigrain) or you can choose from one of their suggested combos. They've got everything to top your pizza from shrimp to strawberry balsamic finishing oil to vegan cheese.

All the topping options overwhelmed me so I ordered the pre-designed Farmer's Daughter (spicy tomato, housemade mozzarella, hot sausage, farm eggs, spinach, parmesan, red pepper chili oil). You can ask for them to make the farm egg topper runny or scrambled (the answer is runny, duh).

B went a little crazy and ordered a side salad, Moonstruck pizza, and a dessert pizza!

The Moonstruck was topped with "mushroom truffle" (is that a truffle truffle?), goat cheese, roasted mushrooms, fig marsala, red pepper chili oil, and crushed black pepper.

The dessert pizza, which we shared with friends, was nutella, sweet ricotta, strawberries, powdered sugar, and pecans. You really can't go wrong with this combo (though I'd vote for fresh strawberries or at least something less syrupy).

We left very impressed with H&Pizza. First, it's hard to beat the prices. $8.64 for a pizza packed with gourmet-ish toppings is a steal. It's only $6.82 for a simple pizza with dough, sauce, cheese. Second, it was good pizza. It wasn't the very best ultimate fantastic pizza in DC but it tasted high quality and the crust had a nice crispy/soft combo texture going on. Third, the people were really nice. We went on a Friday night and the place was packed full of people (including a huge group of Gallaudet students having some sort of meet-up). The staff handled the crowd really well and our pizzas came out of the oven in minutes.

My only complaint is the space and set-up is a bit awkward. It would be nice if you could pay for your order while you are waiting for your pizza to come out of the oven. Having everyone crammed into the small space near the pizza oven didn't work well. There is also little counter space to put your tray o'pizza while you're trying to move from the pick up area to the cashier area. It all felt a little jumbled and confusing. Finally, the ventilation system could use some work. There was a thick haze of smoke in the air and my winter coat smelled strongly of smokey pizza fumes for days.

Logistical hiccups aside, I recommend H&Pizza for a quick and easy bite on H Street NE.

Second Thoughts From B 

In my defense, I arrived at H&Pizza after a long day at work which caused me to skip lunch. Despite my huge order, I would have made my 16 year old self proud by polishing off everything with ease (not to mention gusto!), plus a few slices of J's pizza. I don't say this because I'm proud of my most recent gluttonous exploits. Rather, I want the readers to know that my thoughts on H&Pizza were heavily influenced by a rumbling tummy.

Just like no one should call Chipotle fantastic Mexican food, I don't think you'll confuse H&Pizza with gourmet pizza. You probably wouldn't even put them in the same class as some of the District's more accomplished pie slingers like 2Amys, RedRocks, or We, the Pizza. But in a country that loves the freedom to make choices, as well as immediate results for a cheap price, this place is a winner.

Since we so unpatriotically forfeited our right to create our own pizza and went with items on the menu, I can also say that H&Pizza is more than an oven at the end of a toppings buffet. I was impressed with the quality of ingredients and the contrasting flavors and textures that demonstrated more culinary expertise than your average college pizza joint. And the people were nice. Say what you want about my hunger bias, I am confident that the people were nice.

TwoDC Turns Four!

Four years ago today, we started chronicling our adventures in DC.  We had no idea that our little journal would turn into a blog with over 400 posts covering our lives in DC from A (Acadiana) to Z (zpizza).  In fact, we've written about at least one restaurant from every letter of the alphabet except X.  2013 will be the year we complete the alphabet!

On 2/10/2009, DC was welcoming a brand new President to town.  On 2/10/2013, DC has the same President but an entirely new crop of restaurants to dazzle him with.  New restaurants are popping up so fast, we can't come close to keeping track.  4 years ago we never would have thought that H Street NE and the 14th Street Corridor would be the hot places in town to slurp a bowl of noodles or eat a toffee bacon donut.

We are thrilled you've joined us for every up and down over the past 1,460 days.  Without readers like you, we'd just be writing to our parents.  It kind of bewilders us that anybody except our parents is even out there.  Hello not-our-parents-readers and hello to our parents too.  Here's to more adventures in DC (culinary and otherwise)!

Second Thoughts From B

4 years is a long time to do anything.  Seems like we should be graduating with a degree by now.  I guess that is one of the great things about this city that we call home.  After 4 years of exploration, there is still so much for us to see and do.  Glad to have everyone along for the ride!

Hank's on the Hill

Catching up on some culinary adventures, we take you to Hank's Oyster Bar on Capitol Hill.  You may be familiar with the Hank's near Logan/Dupont or the Old Town Alexandria location.  Hank's on the Hill is the youngest sibling in owner Jamie Leeds' mini-chain. 

The space is narrow and dominated by a large bar on one wall.  DC's master mixologist Gina Chersevani (of Buffalo and Bergen fame) has partnered with Hank's to create "Eddy Bar" featuring a wild menu of cocktail creations.

On this visit with a group of friends, we shared a plate of fried oysters for the table.  If you can't get down with the slippy slidey-ness of raw oysters, these lightly-coated fried bivalves are for you.

Hank's has a chalkboard that lists where the raw oysters are from that day.  Since we know approximately nothing about oysters, we let our waiter choose a selection.  He explained which ones were brinier and which had a smoother finish.  I dump cocktail sauce and horseradish on them and they taste pretty much the same to me.  An oyster expert I am not.

I've never met a lobster roll I didn't like, so I couldn't resist ordering the Hank's version.  I was pleased with the large lobster chunks and light touch of mayo.  The onion rings were a big disappointment.  They were bland and two of the four (yes, four onion rings) were made from the stringiest part of the onion, making them very hard to eat.

Since apparently B didn't have enough oysters for the appetizer course, he ordered the oyster po boy.  Though it was oyster overload, I think he liked the sandwich version of the fried oyster appetizer.

One of the coolest things about the Dupont Hank's location, the half price raw bar from 10pm to midnight every night, does not appear to have made its way to the Capitol Hill location.  This late night happy hour is what makes Hank's stand out in our minds, so I hope they'll consider adding it to the Hill location. 

Even without the late night discount, Hank's makes a nice addition to Pennsylvania Avenue SE and I'm glad to see their recent roof fire didn't keep them closed.

Second Thoughts from B

I've written the latter half of nearly 400 blog posts under the heading, "Second Thoughts."  The title is simply an allusion to our TwoDC theme that provides two perspectives on all the wonderful, and sometimes not so wonderful, things to do and eat in Washington.  In this post, however, "second thoughts" takes on a more traditional meaning... regret.

Any loyal reader knows that I enjoy eating almost anything and that allows me the flexibility to order the "best" thing on the menu.  Sometimes this is determined by the masses (i.e., Google), sometimes a waiter/waitress gets an assist, and sometimes the answer is written in giant letters over my head.  In other words, when I go to Hank's Oyster Bar, I'm ordering oysters.

The problem with that strategy is that on this particular night, I got a bit carried away.  I'm sure some of you love oysters enough to have them featured on three different plates.  I'm not one of those people.  By the time my po boy showed up, I was oystered out.  Don't get me wrong, they were good.  Really good.  But I had enough of the rich, salty, sliminess and was wishing I ordered a salad.

So to the good people of Washington, learn from my mistake.  Skip the third straight oyster dish, but don't skip a trip to Hank's.