Niwatei

Katherine and I went for dinner yesterday at Niwatei. We both decided to get the ramen set, which includes your choice of ramen, side, and dessert. So, I opted for the tonkotsu ramen, which includes Japanese BBQ pork (I got mine with extra slices, available for an extra $2.50), fish cake slices, and half a hard-boiled egg in a pork bone broth. The ramen noodles are on the firmer side here (as opposed to the really soft kind that kind of breaks once you pick them up with your chopsticks), but not overly chewy. The BBQ pork was just perfect: soft and tender, almost melt-in-your-mouth, but not quite. And the broth. The broth! It was just beautiful; milky and flavourful and actually worth slurping even after the noodles are all gone.

I ordered the gyoza as my side dish, and I'm really glad I did because these are not the frozen kind of gyoza that you get at all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurants. These are handmade, full of piping hot, flavorful, porky goodness in a thin dumpling wrapper. I find that most Japanese restaurants have the kind of gyoza that are lacking innards but have an abundance of dough, which is more similar to the Chinese dumplings. Don't get me wrong, I love most dumplings, and almost all Asian types, but authentic gyoza are supposed to have thin wrappers. So Niwatei's version is a win in my books.

Finally, the meal ends with your choice of dessert. I decided upon the tried-and-true red bean ice cream. Ironically, after such a great bowl of ramen and delightful dumplings, the ice cream was... kind of crappy. I realize that this is a very minor point; you go to Niwatei for the ramen, not the dessert. But, still, it was a disappointment, and it should be called red bean ice rather than red bean ice cream since it just wasn't creamy. I think I've had better red bean ice cream at Chinese buffet restaurants. That being said, however, I shouldn't really complain. Because at $15, I thought my dinner was really quite worth it.