Review: Bone Daddies
With its hipster name, no-reservation policy and cool Soho location, one might be forgiven for walking past Bone Daddies thinking it’s just another of the cool crowd’s flavours of the month – here today, gone tomorrow. But it’s worth making this buzzing Japanese ramen joint your dinner destination, despite the snaking queue along the slightly seedy Peter Street.
The menu at Bone Daddies is short and to the point: there is a choice of rich broths with thin noodles, pak choi, a perfectly oozy marinated egg and pork or chicken. They cook their pork bone broth (tonkotsu) for a whopping 20 hours, making it deep, gooey and not for the faint-hearted. If you don’t fancy the richness of the soup, there is also a ramen salad on the menu that offers a similar line up of ingredients, minus the broth.
Bone Daddies has a creative approach to its starters – we tried the melt-in-your-mouth yellowtail sashimi that comes on handy little sticks (nofuss with chopsticks) and covered in a tart ponzu sauce and the Korean fried guinea fowl in rich, sticky sweet and sour sauce. We could actually – gasp! – pick out the pluminess of the sauce and the gamey meat lurking underneath. I spied a neighbour (elbow space is at a premium here) tucking into a soft shell crabstarter that also looked promising.
The homemade pickles really stood out: the kimchi is on the right side of tangy, while the thin slices of pickled pear, apples and cucumber worked a treat.
We washed our dinner down with a glass of Junmai Ginjo, a Japanese rice wine that nicely cut through the richness of the food. You might want to try flavoured sake – on my last visit it was infused with mango – and comes in a quirky little carafe and there is more than enough for two.
Within easy reach of each diner there is a jar of garlic and a crusher, chopsticks (there’s nothing more annoying than dropping one and having to wait for AGES for a replacement) and even a little jar of hairbands for those whose tresses are in danger of getting in the way.
There’s no desert on the menu yet, but Bone Daddies promises a self-service ice cream counter featuring Japanese black sesame ice cream, which should be a delight.
Bone Daddies is here today, and I, for one, hope it won’t be gone tomorrow.
www.bonedaddiesramen.com
The menu at Bone Daddies is short and to the point: there is a choice of rich broths with thin noodles, pak choi, a perfectly oozy marinated egg and pork or chicken. They cook their pork bone broth (tonkotsu) for a whopping 20 hours, making it deep, gooey and not for the faint-hearted. If you don’t fancy the richness of the soup, there is also a ramen salad on the menu that offers a similar line up of ingredients, minus the broth.
Bone Daddies has a creative approach to its starters – we tried the melt-in-your-mouth yellowtail sashimi that comes on handy little sticks (nofuss with chopsticks) and covered in a tart ponzu sauce and the Korean fried guinea fowl in rich, sticky sweet and sour sauce. We could actually – gasp! – pick out the pluminess of the sauce and the gamey meat lurking underneath. I spied a neighbour (elbow space is at a premium here) tucking into a soft shell crabstarter that also looked promising.
The homemade pickles really stood out: the kimchi is on the right side of tangy, while the thin slices of pickled pear, apples and cucumber worked a treat.
We washed our dinner down with a glass of Junmai Ginjo, a Japanese rice wine that nicely cut through the richness of the food. You might want to try flavoured sake – on my last visit it was infused with mango – and comes in a quirky little carafe and there is more than enough for two.
Within easy reach of each diner there is a jar of garlic and a crusher, chopsticks (there’s nothing more annoying than dropping one and having to wait for AGES for a replacement) and even a little jar of hairbands for those whose tresses are in danger of getting in the way.
There’s no desert on the menu yet, but Bone Daddies promises a self-service ice cream counter featuring Japanese black sesame ice cream, which should be a delight.
Bone Daddies is here today, and I, for one, hope it won’t be gone tomorrow.
www.bonedaddiesramen.com