Toki Underground

People who follow the restaurant scene in DC have most likely heard about the new ramen joint on H St - Toki Underground.  Toki has only been in business for a little over 2 months, has over 100 reviews on yelp and earned at 4/5 stars rating.  Therefore, a few of my friends who are ramen enthusiasts have decided to pay a visit to Toki Underground and see what the hype is all about.

Japanese toy figures

The interior of Toki Underground is decorated with a skateboard theme, very colorful and urban.  There are no tables in the entire restaurant, only an extended bar wrapping around wall, like a noodle bar.

The Menu

The menu is relatively simple, 5 choices of ramen, 5 types of dumplings, steamed or pan fried, ramen toppings, and some sides.

Oolong cocktail

Oolong cocktail, tastes like oolong tea, very refreshing, can  barely taste the alcohol.

Steamed seafood dumplings

The steamed dumplings and pan fried dumplings kind of taste the same to me, they have the same sauce on it
 maybe that's the reason why.

Pan fried seafood dumplings

We had both the pork and seafood dumpling, I seriously can't taste the pork in the pork dumpling, I almost thought they gave us the vegetable dumplings by mistake. Definitely go for the seafood one, it's much better.  The sauce tastes good though.

Grilled corn

Their grilled corn is really good, kind of pricey, but worth a try.

Toki Hakata Classic

There all five types of ramen on the menu, but all five of us got the classic.  I wanted to try the classic type because every ramen house serves the classic soup base, and I wanted to compared it to one of my favorite ramen house  - Ren's Ramen (which recently reopened in Wheaton, but I haven't gotten a chance to visit it yet)  Also, making a decent classic ramen is the minimum requirement of a good ramen house.  To me, the soup base is the most important component of a good ramen.  I like my soup base really flavorful so I can taste pork in every sip.  I like Toki's classic ramen, but I don't love it.  I think the soup is not flavorful enough, they need to throw more pork bones to make the soup base.  I also thought their noodle is a little too thin, but one of my friends said she actually prefers the thinner noodle, it's a personally preference I guess.  The good thing is, they give you a lot of sliced pork, even though my pork was a little dry.  During the whole time I was eating, I keep trying to compare it to Ren and I want to say I like Ren slightly more, but base on the fact that Ren has been closed for almost a year, I am basing it on memory, which can't be too accurate.  So, after our meal, a few of us actually drove to the new Ren's Ramen at Wheaton and was ready to do an immediate comparison.  Unfortunately, Ren closes on every second and third Tuesday, so we couldn't.       

Half boiled egg

I don't think Toki Underground is worth the 4 stars on yelp, it's good, but not on that level, I would give 3 stars personally.   I can see why people will hype about it though, ramen houses are so hard to come by, especially in DC.  I was excited just to see they have ramen house in DC.  I will go to Toki again, whenever I am in the area, and feel like eating ramen.  There's no way I will wait 3 hours for it though, like other people have.  Even Ippudo is not worth the 3 hours wait. But I am very happy to see the ramen culture spreading, and Toki Underground had done a decent job.

Coming Up: NY Food Adventure