Totto - Jordaan

I'm not going to lie.. ramen is a hard noodle dish to tackle. To make and to eat! For some, the broth is too rich and too different from the general light, clear broth that makes Pho so popular. And to make it, I know hours of work goes into cooking down fatty bones so it's almost jelly and creamy in texture as it's going down! Given de Pijp is not short on Japanese food, I was super curious how a ramen place would fair with the locals and if it would be any good compared to what was currently in the Amsterdam market.. so after walking past a few times, a few of us headed in and ordered up a storm (all in the name of more food knowledge of course). We tried four different starters (edamame, chicken gyoza, tempura prawns and seaweed salad) two different types of ramen (tonkastu and chilli) and enjoyed the slightly awkward but endlessly endearing attention from the owner as we were the only customers in the restaurant. I have to say, the starters were all surprisingly good. The prawns didn't look all that great but the first bite proved me wrong, they were light, crisp and piping hot! And the gyoza whilst delicious, however were served up with sweet chilli sauce which is a no no in my book! But we were able to snag some soy from another table to quickly fix the situation. Next came the ramen itself, the tonkatsu had good flavour and came with one egg (rather than just half like some places offer) and it was pretty great. It doesn't come close in terms of richness with some other broths I've had but it was still pretty delicious on a cold rainy night. The chilli ramen was spiced with their own homemade recipe and packed a nice little kick, but again the broth was quite thin. Ingredients in the soup however, were plentiful and the noodles were chewy and cooked just right. Anyhow, I'm really hoping they continue to work on the stock because this new shop will be the place to go come winter time. Plus I didn't try any of their sushi but.. that just means I'll need to go back!