I love ramen with a capital L. I've heard rumors of Daikaya, a real Japanese-style ramen shop, opening up in DC for years. Ren's Ramen is authentic Japanese ramen, but it relocated to Wheaton and I rarely head there.
With an unexpectedly relaxed Friday schedule, I headed out to Chinatown to check out Daikaya. Luckily my lunch partner needed to meet on the early side, and we arrived shortly after the doors opened at 11:30 am. We were seated at once and checked out the menu. The menu offered mugi-miso, shoyu, shio or vegan shio ramen options. There were also gyoza and some drinks, plus way too much extraneous randomness on the laminated menu.
Shoyu Ramen with ground pork, one slice of chashu, hanjuku tamago, nori, moyashi and negi.
The broth is a combination of pork, beef and chicken and had a unctuous depth of flavor. I tasted shiitake mushrooms, although it's possible it was a trick on the taste buds.
Vegan Shio Ramen
This included flower-shaped carrots, bean sprouts, mushrooms, negi and brussel sprouts in a light salt broth.
***
The seating is interesting, essentially communal tables with low stools. Food comes out when they're ready, with my bowl arriving a few minutes before my companion's. It's a ramen joint, not really one meant for kicking back and camping out for a while, yet I imagine the turnover is not as fast as the restaurant, or the impatient prospective patrons standing in the front, would like it to be. For me, the broth had a great flavor, but was very salty. Shoyu is not my favor style, I actually like Hakata ramen from Kyushu the best, or Hokkaido miso ramen with corn, but this was a good bowl. I'll have to go with the husband to see what he thinks. We had tried to stop in earlier, but the throng standing in the front window deterred us.
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