Eat Great Cheap 2013Chef/owner Erik Bruner-Yang may be spending more time at Maketto, his ambitious Taiwanese/Cambodian restaurant up the street, but you wouldn’t know it save for his absence in the open kitchen—there’s still good reason to snag one of this ramen joint’s 27 stools. Number one: soups such as the Toki Classic, packed with noodles, mustard greens, pickled ginger, a sous-vide egg, and an unapologetic quantity of pork. Though bowls are beyond filling, don’t ignore starters like the fried-chicken bao buns. Sakes and good cocktails help cut the richness, as do vegetarian dishes such as the seasonal tsukemen—noodles with a garden’s bounty of veggies and herbs.
Don’t miss: Pan-fried pork dumplings; kimchee ramen; fried-chicken dan-dan noodles; chocolate-chip cookies with red-miso buttercream.
See what other restaurants made our 100 Very Best Restaurants list. This article appears in our February 2016 issue of Washingtonian.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
