Sunday, July 15, 2012

Meals with Mark: Ooh, Ootoya.

One restaurant name that I've heard from Mark a couple of times is Ootoya. It's a Japanese restaurant near their campus, and he said that it's really good and authentic Japanese food at an affordable price. (I'm beginning to sound like a Home TV shopping salesman. But wait, that's not all!) We were actually planning to have lunch there, but it didn't push through. 

But a few days after, we had dinner at Ootoya to celebrate Patty's graduation and to welcome Grace and Rick to Tokyo. We were a big group since we joined Mark's schoolmates who wanted to have a Friday night dinner out. And since we were Pinoys, our table was also the noisiest.

Mark had the Tonkatsu set, it looked substantial and satiating. The breading on the pork was beautifully golden brown, the rice was fragrant, the miso soup was delicious, and the salad was light and fresh. 


My order was a bit on the raw side. I ordered cold soba noodles with raw fish and rice. I first tasted this type of cold soba on the plane on my way to Tokyo, so I was glad to taste the non-airline version. What you do is to make the sauce by mixing the broth, wasabi and green onions. Then, you dip the soba in the sauce until the flavor seeps in, and voila! A tasty soba treat.


After dinner, I can confidently say that Mark was right about Ootoya. It's really, really good. If there was a Japanese version of comfort food, this would definitely be it.

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