"I don't know when we're opening," says proprietor Cizuka Seki, citing issues with gas service that make an exact target date a bit hard to pinpoint at the moment.

Seki is opening the restaurant with her father, Hiroshi Seki, a veteran chef of some 50 years who spent the most recent two decades running his own eatery outside St. Louis. "This is his baby," the younger Seki says, explaining that cooking in D.C., as opposed to the Midwestern suburbs, will allow her dad to "be creative and do whatever he wants rather than having to make food that he has to tweak to American tastes."

Like many astute restaurateurs these days, the father-daughter team bought the building. Public records show the $450,000 sale closed last July.

Seki does divulge a few details about the place: Plans for the first floor include a nine-seat counter looking out on an open kitchen. "Whoever is lucky enough to sit there gets to be served directly by my dad," she says. The second floor will serve as the primary dining room.

The menu hasn't quite been finalized. "But," she says, "it'll be food that he and I love, things we want to eat when we drink." Expect udon and soba noodle dishes (the latter variety will be shipped directly from Japan). But, no sushi (raw sashimi courses certainly, but no nigiri or maki.) No ramen, either (at least not at first, anyway). And, no bartender. "There's no space for a bar," she points out. But there will be drinks, including beer, sake and a curated selection of shōchū, a Japanese spirit that Seki hopes to become a sort of house specialty.

Expect a more modern look than your typical dark wooden izakaya-style joint in Japan, or even New York.

The overall goal, Seki says, is to offer the sort of high-quality cuisine at a mid-range price point that D.C. generally lacks. "I do think we're filling a gap that doesn't exist for casual Japanese dining," she says.

Photo by Chris Shott

"There have been some setbacks resulting in delayed construction; however they're still shooting for that estimated time frame to open, although it's most likely going to be an early summer opening. The people behind Daikaya right now aren’t wanting to reveal too much about what’s going on, given that any further information before construction even begins would most likely come across as just hype, so unfortunately that’s all the information I have for you right now."

Having heard all sorts of overly optimistic opening-date projections over the years and witnessing countless delays and missed target dates along the way, I've been asking various restaurateurs lately to help me translate: When an operator says they're opening on a given date, how many months should I automatically add to get the realistic time frame? Responses so far have ranged from one to three months. In Daikaya's case, I'm not even sure the more pessimistic extra three-month window is enough time. At this rate, the proprietors might be better served by fudging the timeline, altogether, à la hotelier Andre Balazs: "Coming Soonish."

Photo by avlxyz/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Estadio owner Mark Kuller says there aren't many tapas bars in Spain any better than his own place right here in D.C.  Admittedly, he's biased. [Washingtonian]

Westend Bistro's Eric Ripert thinks National Airport's Matsutake Sushi is actually pretty good. You know, for airport food. [Wall Street Journal]

Good Stuff Eatery's Spike Mendelsohn can't wait for the current tenant of his new Georgetown location to get out. Until then, he's keeping mum on the address. Estimated time of opening: Fall 2012. [Patch]

A former jumbo slice and kabob dive in Adams Morgan might become a ramen house. At least that's what it sounded like the owner was saying. [Prince of Petworth]

Slurp it up! A visual tour of D.C.'s soup scene. [HuffPo]

The Hamilton's executive chef, Brian Stickel, with a tray of sticky buns

"Wouldn't this be a cool place to grab a burger at lunchtime?" asks Tom Meyer, president of Clyde's Restaurant Group. He's leaning against a long wooden counter running the length of a massive window overlooking bustling 14th Street NW in downtown D.C.

We're hanging out in the main bar area of The Hamilton, the Clyde's group's new sprawling 37,000-square-foot restaurant and live music venue that is scheduled to open for dinner service on Dec. 18 and stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with the lone exception of Christmas Day.

The decor of this harmonic and gastronomic behemoth is essentially summed up in two elements: (1) a veritable forest's worth of shiny dark wood, and (2) a whole bunch of artworks depicting a whole bunch of birds, from handsome framed paintings of  eagles and other winged creatures adorning the walls to whimsical geese mobiles hanging in the hallway.

I simply had to ask, What's with all the birds? "I don't have a real reason," Meyer says. "I mean, they're just kind of cool." He later points out one creepy bird whose beady little eyes seem to follow your every move as you pass down the corridor.

The food, meanwhile, cannot be summed up so simply. The latest draft of menu offerings spans 14 pages, broken down by meal time and specific dining area.

A few notable bites: the place will serve sushi—a first for the vast Clyde's empire. At a 12-seat sushi bar, flanked by shiny statues of Japanese kitchen gods, former Zentan chef Jason Zheng will be dishing up stuff like sea urchin and Tasmanian ocean trout. Meyer seems pretty adamant about pushing the raw fish envelope and not just serving the same ol' boring California and Philadelphia rolls.  "I want him to really do hot shit," Meyer says. "I want the live uni, I want the abalone, I want the toro."

Patrons can also order a $14 bowl of house-made ramen noodles with pork belly, served up in hand-crafted bowls by a local artisan.

Another tantalizing menu item: hanger steak poutine, priced at $21 and made with house-cut fries and short-rib gravy, topped with slices of grilled beef.

One notable menu omission: no oysters to speak of. What's the point? Heralded mollusk mecca Old Ebbitt Grill, another Clyde's property, is right around the corner.

In yet another first for Clyde's, the Hamilton's army of servers (total workforce: around 300) will carry hand-held electronic devices to take your order, as well as tiny printers to run your bill.

Down an intricately sound-proofed staircase is where the music happens. The cavernous basement, which sort of recalls B.B. King's Blues Club in New York,  features a semi-circular stage and, of course, the most newfangled state-of-the-art sound system of the day. "It's real high-tech," Meyer tells me. "You know, sound travels not so fast, like the crack of a bat at a baseball game. But these speakers are timed so the sound hits everybody at the same time."

Legendary gospel singer Mavis Staples will serve as the new venue's splashy opening act on Jan. 19.

The concert hall component has its own separate menu, consisting of charcuterie, sushi, pizza, sliders and other finger foods. The room will offer table seating for 260 and bar stools to accommodate another 100.

Once it's finished, the walls will be lined with portraits—no, not more birds, thankfully, but rock stars. Meyer rattles off some of the names: Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Jerry Garcia, Elvis Presley, Tupac Shakur, Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa, and The Ramones.

No Ian MacKaye? "I don't know who that is," Meyer says. "Who's that?" [For the Clyde's boss' benefit, MacKaye is sort of the godfather of the D.C. punk rock scene.]  "Is he alive?" Meyer asks. "Most of the people here are dead except for Dylan."

Photos by Chris Shott

Duck neck chawanmushi at Toki Underground

Last night, H Street ramen shop Toki Underground rang in the Thanksgiving holiday with a one-night-only Peking duck (and only duck) 10-course tasting menu. And, no big surprise, it was really tasty! As expected, there was plenty of fatty deliciousness in the form of the crispy duck skin, duck fat mayo and even a duck fat glaze on a delicious slice of pecan pie. But there were more complicated dishes, too: The duck neck chawanmushi arrived as a hot, salty-sweet custard with duck on the bottom and salmon roe on top. And the duck nigiri offered a nicely cooked slice of breast served over a ball of flavorful sticky rice. The less remarkable dishes—like the duck liver mousse on a scallion pancake—served as a palate cleanser between each bite of decadence.

Never fear, ramen fiends: Toki is closed today and tomorrow, but will reopen on Friday with its regular menu.

Photo by Shani Hilton

Peaches and pigs’ feet. That’s the secret. Or, at least, part of it, anyway.

I’m referring to the ambrosial broth at Toki Underground. That alluring aroma tickles your nose hairs the moment you ascend the stairs, wooing you onward to the jovial host with the clipboard, where the fragrance reveals itself to be a cruel, teasing mistress. Take a number, pal. You think you’re the first guy to be seduced by that scent? We’ll call you in an hour and a half or so.

But that wait is finally worth it. After four months of tinkering at the stock pot, Toki’s tantalizing tonkotsu-based ramen has developed into a steamy addiction, just in time for chilly autumn.

Like most chefs, Toki toque Erik Bruner-Yang is naturally cagey when it comes to the components of his signature dish. And he seems none too pleased to find out that one of his cooks has unwittingly divulged a few of the ingredients while a food critic sits within earshot.

The pig parts I probably could’ve guessed. I’m by no means the world’s preeminent expert on Chinese-cum-Japanese-cum-Taiwanese noodle soups; presumably, no Caucasian is. But any respectable ramen-nosher knows that pork bones have long been the chief component to tonkotsu-style broth. That and salt.

“Just trying to stay on our toes,” the chef says, rather apropos, when I ask about the added trotters.

The peaches, though, are a surprise. Bruner-Yang explains that the sweetness of the fruit is intended to help balance the fattiness of the pork. If it’s doing its job, the fuzzy fruit conducts this business quite subtly. All I taste is pork. Each sip is like slurping pure liquefied swine. It’s as if Bruner-Yang found a juicer big enough to purée an entire Berkshire, snout to tail. And it is divine.

The stuff is sure to get even fattier in the coming months. Peach season is over and the chef plans to refine the sweet summery stew into an even thicker, porkier broth for fall and winter. I, for one, can hardly wait. (And wait. And wait.) But, knowing Toki and its enduring following, I’ll probably have to.

When H Street’s hugely hyped ramen house debuted this past spring, I was among those anxious diners who were immediately underwhelmed by the big bowls of broth. Bland isn’t the right word: The soup had flavor. But it fell a little flat. Maybe it was the flurry of press that heightened expectations beyond the fledgling restaurant’s capabilities. Maybe it was the lengthy wait to snag a seat, around three hours during peak dining times on weekends. Whatever it was, the fare simply couldn’t match up. The food wasn’t bad—but clearly not good enough to justify the hours of precious life lost in the process.

Now it seems the stuff just needed some extra time to simmer.

The food-media frenzy has since shifted to other high-profile D.C. eateries, like America Eats Tavern, Graffiato, and Rogue 24. But the crowds continue to gather at Bruner-Yang’s place. A call to the restaurant at precisely 8 p.m. this past Saturday revealed a three-hour wait rivaling the eatery’s opening weekend. Monday night, the thumb-twiddling time was more reasonable: a mere hour and a half for a table of two at 7:39 p.m. Manager Scott Carder describes the last week of August as the restaurant’s busiest yet—a considerable feat in late summer.

Sure, the eatery’s tiny seating capacity (just 25 stools) lends itself to limited availability. And the utter lack of competing ramen shops in the District ensures some level of demand. (The future arrival of chef Katsuya Fukushima’s own tonkotsu temple Daikaya is bound to test Toki’s endurance in this regard.) The price-point doesn’t dissuade many diners, either: a group of four can eat and drink for around $100—even less if you skip the add-ons and house-made Sriracha-style “endorphin sauce.”

But a kitchen in decline would undoubtedly send discerning soup-slurpers to fiddle with their chopsticks out in the suburbs or at one of the District’s more prevalent pho parlors instead. To the contrary, Toki’s stock only appears to be rising.

When I returned to the ramen house early last month for the first time since April, the improvement was palpable upon the very first sip. My curry chicken hakata had taken on a newfound heartiness. The broth, strewn with sesame seeds and floating slicks of fiery-colored spice, tasted rich, zesty, and delicious.

Several trusted foodie friends making their own return trips came back echoing that assessment. “The first time I went, the broths seemed much less, I don’t know, complex?” noted one regular dining companion.

Even Bruner-Yang admits that his earlier iteration was more or less “just soup.” The chef credits a higher quality of ingredients that he’s been able to procure lately: All his chickens are now organic. All his pork is of the heralded Berkshire variety.

Since Toki’s debut, the broth has been its biggest challenge. If quality was an initial concern, quantity was even more so. Bruner-Yang opened the restaurant with aims of staying open into the wee hours—a helpful service to H Street’s underfed and over-sauced night-crawlers. But he could never whip up enough of the liquid each day in that confined cooking space to satisfy the demand. Even now, the kitchen closes at10 p.m. on weeknights and midnight on weekends.

With the steamy stew finding its stride, the chef has been experimenting with other parts of the menu. Lately, his add-ons have seemed more adventurous than the usual fatty pork, cabbage, and corn you find at traditional Japanese ramen shops, such as the area’s standard-bearer of the genre, Ren’s Ramen in Wheaton. And they come without all the obligatory slurps, burps, and prolonged ahhhhhs from the next table that inevitably accompany your ramen at Ren’s. (Where is Tom Sietsema’s trusty decibel meter when you need it?) At Toki, the various mouth sounds are drowned out by the chef’s personal mix of loud indie rock.

From the outset, Bruner-Yang has sought to distinguish his lonely urban ramen shop from its few existing contemporaries in the ’burbs. “I love Temari in Rockville, and I’ve been to Ren’s Ramen,” he told me back in April. “But they’re very different from us. They’re more traditional to Japanese style.” Bruner-Yang, a Northern Virginia native with family roots in Taiwan, veers toward the stylings of ramen shops in Taipei. “Toki Underground ramen is my ramen,” he said.

That difference seems most apparent in the various meats he offers as optional accompaniments to the soup.

One night, Bruner-Yang ran a special on duck breast bacon: three thick slabs of skewered fowl that initially hit the tongue with an elegant richness, then exploded in saltiness—perhaps too salty when eaten alone, but tempered nicely when paired with the soupy noodles. On another visit, it was butter-poached chicken livers and crispy chicken skin, poultry’s deep-fried answer to pork rinds.

The noodles, too, are getting some deserved attention. In recent weeks, the chef has offered various specials on dan dan mien, a less soupy style of ramen that he unveiled in an attempt to conserve more of his precious broth. It has turned out to be among the more popular items, when available.

The broth-less variety is otherwise identical to Toki’s classic hakata: Same curly noodles. Same soft-boiled egg. Same special ramen sauce—the contents of which the chef is keeping to himself. Presumably not including peaches.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

Toki Underground, 1234 H Street NE, (202) 388-3086

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Sushiko

Photo by avlxyz/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Even the Fractured Prune Didn't Think of That

No Buttering Him Up: Critic Tom Sietsema detests the piano man's singing but finds a few things to like in the low-calorie fare at Seasons 52 in Bethesda. [WaPo]

Masa 14 Ain't Exactly Studio 54: "I love to people-watch during dinner, but I wasn’t fond of the spin-class-gone-Euro ambience." [Washingtonian]

Photo by Sean O'Grady