Toki Underground — Restaurant in Baltimore

Update: Finally tried the ramen (toki classic), and that caused them to lose a star on food. The broth was bland, watery, lightly smoked, and made no deep impression upon me at all considering it was tonkotsu base---which I expect to congeal upon cooling. FWIW Toki Underground's does not, which hints at a watery base, and the lack of depth to the broth's flavor seems to confirm this. There was a green veggie that I've never seen in ramen before (probably kale), but it was stringy and hard to chew around with the noodles, and you choke on it as you swallow. Seriously, this is the kinda gentrified ramen that your vegan tinder date will love. For the rest of us who prefer real ramen, Kajiken, Ramen Utske, Akira Ramen Izakaya, Dashi Ramen, and Mi & Yu Noodle Bar ALL provide a better product for a better price point, and without sacrificing authenticity. The dumplings were much better this time though, sans floss, to be fair.

Original Review: Tried this spot out recently. Its got ambience, its got alcohol, but its missing the charm.

First: The ambience...they have weird trendy décor featuring a spinning skateboard fixture overhead that makes no functional sense for a Ramen spot but its pretty to look at..I guess. They have a random altar with Baltimore artifacts and knickknacks at the entry that fail to carry through thematically to the rest of the establishment. The drinks are all trendy but not one single IPA or just solid & well known cocktail. The music is actually pretty good, solid 10/10, there.

Second: The price...the menu for this location is not available online, and that's because every ramen (nonvegetarian) starts out at $19 per bowl. I literally spent $23 there b/c they charge automatic gratuity of 18%, on a drink and an app served right at the bar. They put pork floss on the dumplings which only seemed to cover up the fact that my pan fried dumplings where gooey and not crispy whatsoever, not to mention the floss didn't even add to the flavor profile. It was actually too salty. The $11 wine wasn't even served in a wine glass, which was just an insult at that point. How y'all have a pricey custom spinning skateboard fixture overhead, but no wineglasses?

Third: This placed seemed like yet another DC transplant tryna make it in an up & coming Bmore neighborhood. Trendy prices, trendy cocktails, and showy fusion-y food that seems like it'd be more at home in the business district than Waverly. I actually couldn't even bring myself to try the ramen here (I've gone to the DC location before tho), because the most soulful and amazing delicious ramen I've had is right around the corner and the prices for that bowl are on par with EVERY other ramen shop in this city, unlike Toki. Guys cmon. You can't come in at a solid $6 more per bowl and only offer fancy garnishes and skater punk themed ambience.

Fourth: I would say this is a great first date night ramen spot for when you want to show off. But for the good ole faithful 50th bowl of ramen with your boo where you want savory, stable, sustainable, and well priced ramen with longevity there are many other places in the city.

Fifth: The service is impeccable. No complaints there, and nothing I mentioned is these folks fault. They didn't pick the neighborhood, the décor, or the prices.

My advice: pare down all the pomp. Give the people what they need. Streamlined, delicious ramen, and less of the extras. Bmore is a different vibe to DC. People will loyally travel to a hole in the wall for YEARS for the best (insert food product) here in the city, but they aren't traveling like that and dropping money on vibes and alcohol, which are the only things this ramen spot has that other ramen...

In hindsight, the service here started off a bit cold. My group did not make a reservation, and when we attempted to walk in to be seated we were met with confusion and had to wait several minutes to be seated after the server got approval from another employee (who I presume to be the manager). Upon entry, it was basically empty, and over the hour we were there only a small handful of patrons entered. Point being, it seemed we were initially met with friction when trying to dine here. I ignored it at the time because I figured there might’ve been reservations coming in soon (and this they would’ve had to be mindful of seating availability), but that wasn’t the case.

In any case, we were seated, ordered, and received our food with only a few hitches. Overall, the food was decent. One of my friends didn’t receive part of his order, but they removed the cost of the missing component, so all was well. They also charged us for an extra karaage, but I spoke with the server and got it removed. After fixing the mistakes on the check, we paid and left. After we’d made it a block away, the server (who I think is also the manager?) appeared before us slightly out of breath and began questioning whether or not we enjoyed the service. He acknowledged that he hadn’t checked on our table as much, but it was clear he was alluding to the tip. The confusing part is that we did tip 18%. Our party was 6 people, and presumably they have automatic gratuity for parties of a certain size because the tip was included in our bill.

The server had chased us a block from the restaurant to press us for information about our tip, when the restaurant’s OWN SYSTEM had automatically charged us for the tip. Surely an employee would know about the automatic gratuity for parties over a certain size, right? But even if not, the check had “18% Gratuity” listed on it. They’d made mistakes on the check and changed it multiple times, but even throughout the process of actively editing the check, they somehow missed that they charged us auto-gratuity.

After we told the server that chased us a block away we had in fact tipped, he lingered around us for slightly too long, offered a lukewarm “sorry”, and walked back to the restaurant. I can only chalk this instance up to two possible things, incompetence or profiling. Neither excuses chasing patrons a block to grill them about a tip you did in fact receive (as clearly visible on the bill), but hopefully it is the former and not a case of demographic profiling. The hesitation to let us dine in initially makes me wonder though. No food is worth being harassed and made to feel like a bad person, but especially not the food we received from Toki. It is a shame, because the ambiance inside...

a lot of high expectations for this place but unfortunately disappointing. to be fair it is a new establishment and i am sure they will improve--i don't want to sound mean spirited. i just did not have a great experience with the food, as someone who loves food. i typically like the styles of the noodles in the vegan ramen and believe it's a good sign if a ramen place can have good vegan ramen. also ordered the curry chicken ramen since i typically enjoy that as well. i would not order either again.

drinks: the beer selection is good but it's not great to charge $6 for an ol' oriole park pounder can with the brewery being right up the street. typically it costs $5 (if you buy a six pack it's $9). it's one of my favorites so i got a little annoyed by that. server did not know it by its name, kept saying a local lager with various can descriptions until i asked him if he meant old oriole park... servers should have a better sense of what being served. the sakes available go well with certain appetizer dishes like the cloud shrimp, likely also with spicy dishes, but did not go well with the two ramen dishes i ordered.

all ramen have sizeable portions, which I think is appropriate. taipei curry chicken ramen is not good. it tastes like it is lacking certain spices in their curry blend and tastes like a thickened cumin and broth slurry. frankly a better bet would have been adding some golden curry cubes. the fried chicken in the curry ramen is very salty and dry; it tastes as though the chicken was not brined prior to frying and the batter is heavily salted, thus the water is drawn out of the chicken and after frying it tough and lacks juices. did not finish the chicken in our bowl. the noodles are also not as good as the vegan ramen noodles.

also had vegan ramen. broth tastes bland and a little sweet which i am personally not a fan of (perhaps too much carrot has gone into it? i couldn't place it--it is dark in color). after having half of the broth in my bowl i didn't want to finish it. some additional acidity to the broth like doubanjiang and other freshness such as ginger would improve it significantly. the tofu and beech mushroom topping, as well as the kombo were good. i did not receive any daikon. the broth may contain miso chili crisp or it was supposed to be a topping but i saw no trace of it in my dish.

the pulled pork i added to the vegan ramen was shredded into very small pieces and pasty; not a great shredded meat texture, covered in a thick sauce that increased the unappetizing...