We went to the newly opened Raku Ramen + Tonkatsu, which is located next to the Super H Mart on Pleasant Hill. Being a ramen-otaku, I was super excited to eat there (especially considered the lovefest happening on other Atlanta food blogs), but our meal fell incredibly short of my expectations. Scattered service–like my husband’s ramen just never arriving.

Weak and watery broths across the board.

My ramen.

Moon junior’s ramen.

Thick tonkatsu with no flavor.

The dumplings were the only redeeming part of our entire meal. I’m sad to report that, as of today, this is not a destination. I was actually so dissatisfied with my meal that I went to Dan Moo Ji afterwards to grab some spicy rice cakes. Win.

We visited Kaleidoscope Bistro after reading a very favorable review by Christiane Lauterbach, the only person whose advice I follow when it comes to restaurants. Seriously, the woman is a goddess. I was especially intrigued by her mention of the incredible burger (big surprise). Before the burger, a little ambiance.

Berkshire pork rinds. Good form.

Really good chicken wings made with Springer Mountain Chicken and a homemade sauce that was kick-ass. I love the smattering of blue cheese just applied directly to the wings. Only downside was finding a few wings to be very undercooked.

My burger, which was honestly just okay. The meat tasted kind of like a hotel room service burger and was underseasoned. Definitely not splurge-worthy like Bocado or Five Guys. Yeah, I said Five Guys. Fries were kind of meh–definitely frozen.

Moon’s fish and chips, which he declared excellent.

Verdict: Not a destination, but I can see it why the restaurant appeals to people. It’s quirky spot with a nice patio and an interesting–although almost weirdly 90′s–menu. Can’t say I’ll be back though.

I’ve also been to Delia’s Chicken Sausage Stand a few times recently, but I am holding my tongue for my review, which will come out in Creative Loafing eventually.

In other news, according to the Georgia Asian Times, Nam Phuong (one of my favorite Vietnamese restaurants) is slated to open a second Atlanta Location on Buford Highway sometime in April. Moon also spotted a new Thai restaurant called Thai Pointe on BuHi, which we will be visiting as soon as they have had time to settle in.

As you can see, $15 buys 5 dishes and one cocktail from the happy hour drink menu.

We got a few dishes from the menu such as the fried tofu (above) and slutty sushi rolls (below).

Of course, I am incapable of sticking to the menu, so I had to order some nigiri.

Verdict: A great little deal with delicious food.

Taka Sushi Café (385 Pharr Road, 404-869-2802, www.takasushiatlanta.com) is a curious restaurant. People either love it or hate it, and I speak as someone who wasn’t initially impressed with the Buckhead Japanese restaurant. When I moved back to Atlanta from San Francisco — long before I blogged or wrote professionally about food — my parents suggested I eat at Taka. I didn’t like it. However, my family urged me to return with them to give it another shot. I was so glad I did. While I was living in California, my family had formed a good relationship with the chef. As a result, my visit with them was infinitely better. While dining there, we encountered many more obscure dishes and new flavor combinations than I had on my solo visit. Now, Taka is a place I go to eat alone at the bar, the food I crave when I’m under the weather (the fresh ginger and honey tea will change your life), and a restaurant I visit when I want to eat clean, interesting food.

Taka, like many neighborhood Japanese restaurants, is the sort of place where your experience varies depending on how much interaction you have with the chef. It seems unfair that you can’t just duck into a corner unnoticed, but you will have a considerably better experience if you engage the people who make your food. It’s a matter of appreciation for appreciation; recognition for recognition.

Taka recently started offering lunch service, which means I can feed my addiction to all things Japanese during lunchtime — a notoriously hard hour to find clean Japanese food, especially in Buckhead.

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Falling in love with an old friend is sweeter than new love. You know him better. You trust him. It’s like discovering something wonderful that was always there, right in front of you. Falling in love again with an old favorite restaurant is also a beautiful thing. I abandoned Haru Ichiban (3646 Satellite Blvd., Duluth, 770-622-4060, www.haruichibanjapaneserestaurant.com) years ago for what I thought were newer and more exciting Japanese options. Those flings were a good time, but I missed the stability of Haru’s unwavering consistency.

The spark reignited simply, with uni nigiri topped with a raw quail egg. The quality of a restaurant’s uni speaks volumes about the rest of its seafood. Haru’s uni promised great things were to come, melting on the tongue like an oceanic creamsicle.

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I went to Miso Izakaya twice after it opened. I can’t sugarcoat the experience with niceties because it just plain sucked. The fact that they didn’t have their liquor license forever only compounded my frustration with the new restaurant. So, I chose to hold off writing a review. I can’t say it was out of fairness. My reticence was more about hope. The place had to improve. Intown needs a decent Japanese restaurant that isn’t an overpriced sushi spot or bastardized noodle shop. After hearing murmurings that Miso was better–good even–I dragged Moon for dinner one Saturday night not too long ago. Every seat was taken. The room felt alive…fun.

The drink menu–especially the shochu heavy section–is phenomenal. Love that they have stuff like Hi-sour you can use as a mixer or just drink straight up.

Gorgeous gyoza: This was a true surprise. I don’t know if they make the dumplings fresh or what, but they tasted homemade. I love it when a dumpling skin melts in your mouth. I bogarted these like any good dumpling fiend.

Marinated and grilled squid with Japanese mayo. Love this. The squid was super tender.

Tonkatsu sandwich: This brought back fond memories of quickie lunches in Tokyo. The pork was still juicy and the coating crisp without any traces of oil. There’s a little dab of tonkatsu sauce and shredded cabbage inside as well. Very good.

Nobody in town makes Chinese buns right. Seriously. They are always woefully heavy without the requisite pouf. Color me happy when I bit into this duck bun. It was so good, we ordered another round. The pork is good, but the duck is better. Can’t wait to explore the bun section more thoroughly.

The only disappointment of the meal: an assortment of sushi. It was watery and lacking any real flavor. You know the sushi is no good when I leave uni and toro on the plate. What a waste of tummy space and money.

My favorite dish of the meal: A soy-poached egg served over a crispy rice cake. Swoon-worthy.

Verdict: Miso is much much improved. The extensive drink menu and wide assortment of delicious dishes are good reasons to go to this energetic intown Japanese fusion spot. Just stay away from the sushi. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

After a week of cooking and relaxing in Miami with my family, I’m back in the saddle with a clean bill of health (yay!) and have been eating my way around Atlanta. I found the most insanely good Vietnamese restaurant and that review is coming out in Creative Loafing this week. So, stay tuned.

I made a trip to Young Augustine’s for lunch with Moon and we had a good–not great–lunch.

Loved this Chicago style dog. It had all the right ingredients, textures, and the price was right.

And this pimento cheese appetizer with homemade kimchi was awesome even if the bread was a bit stale. I loved the creamy, creamy pimento cheese though. I want to bathe myself in it. The place also has a great beer list and a load of other items worth trying.

Like every other blogger and food critic around town, I visited Miller Union–my favorite new restaurant of 2009–for lunch before I left for Miami. I started with one of the homemade rhubarb sodas.

It was gorgeous; tart, sweet, and the perfect foil to my main, a cheeseburger.

The cheeseburger was cooked to my liking and the patty had a nice amount of juicy fat. My only complaint was the bun. It fell apart too easily and made eating the monster a little tough without some knife and fork intervention. The restaurant does get points for the enchanting homemade French fries and ketchup.

Speaking of Rhubarb, I drove out to Roswell to check out The Pie Hole, a cuter than cute pie shop near downtown Roswell.

Deciding was hard, but I settled on a strawberry rhubarb pie. I didn’t get a picture of the pie, but it was awesome. The crust was super flaky and the filling was pleasantly sour. There were so many other delicious looking pies to choose from so a return visit is definitely in order. Just a note: the bakery also sells pies by slice if you don’t want the temptation of a whole pie at home.

In home-cooking news, I bought a new rice cooker for my kitchen since my old one broke a few years ago. I decided to go a little fancier and get one of the fuzzy logic cookers so I could have all the nifty timer settings.

I went for the Zojirushi 10-Cup Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker and Warmer. I have made a bunch of things in it already–congee, every rice under the sun, and steel-cut oatmeal. It has pushed me to cook more Asian dishes at home. I adore this thing.

I was driving up Buford Highway to meet a friend for lunch and spotted this odd sign:

Mexican pizza? Color me intrigued.

Turns out this Pizza Patron is the first location of a franchise based out of–big surprise–Texas. I ordered La Mexicana and a cajeta filled churro.

The pizza was decent. It tasted a lot like Domino’s pizza with Mexican toppings. Yeah, it’s no Antico, but the oddity of the place–and price point–make it blog worthy.

We took Moon Junior to Nakato for her first hibachi experience since it was her birthday. I have a soft spot for hibachi despite its cheesiness factor. We normally eat shabu shabu in the Garden room, so this was my first visit to the hibachi side. The amount of food was redunkulous and our chef was a cut-up.

Since I do love sushi, I couldn’t resist ordering an uni handroll. It was some of the best–read: fresh and creamy–uni I have had in a long time.

I’m a Super H-Mart junkie. The Korea-based chain of mega grocery stores is the kind of place where every visit uncovers a new treasure. In the past, the problem with Super H-Marts was that most are located way OTP. However, the newest location (6035 Peachtree Road, Doraville, 770-986-2300, www.hmart.com) is right at the Perimeter and it has all the standard yummy wonderment (i.e., every single Asian ingredient you could ever need and many other delights) and, like all Super H-Marts, a food court that trumps the mall version.

The new Super H is a one-stop shop, where you can get your weekly Saturday grocery shopping excursions out of the way and grab a bite from one of the many stands. Since it’s a new store, a couple of the options – Kokai Express and Snack World – have not yet opened. The existing establishments provide more than enough variety, however.

Daejanggum Korean Cuisine serves Korean specialties in the traditional vessels if you are eating in. Sizzling dolsot bibimbap arrives in a blazing hot cast-iron dish (dolsot) with a red squeeze bottle of spicy sauce to drizzle over the crisp rice, vegetables, and crumbled beef. Mix it with the accompanying spoon and dig in. A stainless steel bowl of mandu duk contains a cloudy broth filled with plump egg and pork dumplings, a tangle of deep green seaweed, and slices of glutinous rice cake. It is traditionally mild in flavor – as it should be – but big on texture. Bubbling soondubu jigae (a kimchee-laden spicy, silken tofu stew) comes with your choice of seafood, beef, oyster, mushroom or a combination of your choice. For an appetizer, tiny water dumplings are glistening and supple. A swipe through the accompanying sauce makes the pork and scallion mixture pop.

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I hadn’t been back in a while and kept meaning to return for the ramen, which many of my readers said was amazing.

One Saturday afternoon, my friends and I were jonesing for some sushi. Many of my favorite (and affordable) spots were closed. We’d almost given up hope until I remembered Haru was open for lunch AND they serve ramen.

We started out with some uni, which was some of the freshest, creamiest and tastiest uni I’ve eaten in recent memory.

Since we were celebrating Moon’s brother’s birthday, we splurged on a platter of sashimi even though we’d already ordered ramen. All of the fish was pristine and served at the perfect temperature—my favorites were the giant clam and conch. We also got some maki rolls made with natto (fermented soy beans), oshinko (pickles), and ume (plum).

When our ramen finally arrived, we were incredibly stuffed. But a good glutton doesn’t let ramen go to waste. Three of us got the special ramen with tonkotsu broth, a poached egg, pork, and many types of seaweed.

It was quite good. I give it a B+ overall only because the pork was a bit dry and the seaweed overwhelmed the delicate, yet lovely, broth. Our fourth tablemate, the birthday boy, got the tonkotsu broth with fried chicken in it. He loved it. I just wish we had eaten less sashimi so we could have eaten more of the ramen because it was that good.

Verdict: A great ramen spot with stellar sushi. There are loads of other dishes I still need to try, but I want to dig into some more of that ramen first. I would put the broth second under my beloved Yakitori Jinbei.

Owner Jackie Fukuya Merkel seems to know nearly every customer who walks through the door of Bishoku (5920 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs, 404-252-7998). Jackie is the daughter of Kimio Fukuya, the now retired owner of Sushi Huku, which Zagat once rated Atlanta’s best Japanese restaurant. Bishoku is just a few miles from Jackie’s father’s former restaurant, and the customers have followed.

According to one of the waitresses, Bishoku means, “beautiful dining.” The restaurant lives up to its name. Glossy modern woods and furnishings bear tiny winks of traditional Japanese decor. A keen eye for subtle details is also evident in the dinnerware. It’s not uncommon for the chopstick rests to change visit to visit.

Lunch and dinner menus are short (you can order from both during lunch). Tonkatsu – a crunchy fried pork cutlet sliced with precision – is served with sinus-clearing Japanese mustard, feathery shredded cabbage, sticky white rice and a molasses-thick sweet and sour tonkatsu sauce. Mix in a dollop of mustard for sensory overload. As katsu don, the same fried pork is served on top of a bowl of vegetables and silky eggs over rice.

Continue Reading “Ethnic.city: Bishoku”

Real ramen – not the kind on which you subsisted in college – has an obsessive following in Japan and around the world. A good bowl of ramen, if it’s made right, transcends the dreariest of days. Making ramen is an art form that takes a lifetime to master. Ramen chefs work as apprentices for years before they are considered qualified enough to open their own ramen-ya, a small restaurant specializing in ramen. You must perfect your broth and noodles, which explains why older chefs generally make the best ramen.

Umaido (2790 Lawrenceville Suwanee Road, Suwanee, 678-318-8568, www.umaido.co.kr) is Georgia’s first ramen-ya. Other local Japanese restaurants – such as Yakitori Jinbei, Shoya and Blue Fin Sushi – also serve the delicacy, but Umaido is the only restaurant to specialize in the once elusive comfort food.

In a surprising turn of events, Umaido is Korean-owned. You see Korean influences in little touches – such as the large pitchers of barley tea and airtight stainless steel canisters of housemade kimchi cabbage – that grace the tables. The menu’s simplicity is mirrored in the minimalist décor of the loft-ish space, which is more modern than other Japanese restaurants of its ilk in Atlanta. Electronic music pumps through the speakers and most tables are occupied by young Asian teens laughing between slurps from large white bowls.

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