Labor Day weekend was pretty gluttonous, like more so than other weekends. Case in point, more than 1 waitress at Hakata Ton Ton commented on the amount of food J-me and I ordered, and then proceeded to consume. In its entirety. We win, again. Don't try this at home people.
The best gift the Japanese bestowed to us, besides sushi, is Japanese mayo. Slightly tangy and sweet, that stuff goes with everything. It also makes Japanese potato salad a million times tastier than your every day potato salad. Hakata Ton Ton multiplied that tastiness by another million times by plopping a pound of mentaiko (spicy cod roe) on top.
We followed up the ton of mayo and potato with the most obvious choice, foie gras inari sushi. I think foie gras sushi works well because the slightly acidity of the sushi rice cuts the sweet and creamy foie. I love inari (fried tofu), but didn't think it was necessary. Also, I thought that there could have been less rice or more foie. But I guess that was why it was wrapped in inari - to balance the rice and accompaniment ratio.
So then we moved on to ingest additional cholesterol molecules, this time in the form of chicken, fried that is. Fried chicken, if you didn't know already, is one of my favorite food. As in EVER. I've never met a Japanese fried chicken I didn't like. I think it's because there's minimal breading, just lots of crispy skin and juicy meat.
We also got a seaweed salad. Yay for health and green stuff!
Then we canceled that out by ordering the okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is a squishy Japanese pancake, stuffed with cabbage and seafood, topped with okonomiyaki sauce and bonito flakes. Finally, blanketed with more of that tasty Japanese mayo. The ultimate street food.
We should have stopped there, the waitresses certainly thought so. At the start of the night, one waitress volunteered that the restaurant can pack up whatever we don't finish after we turned down the other waitress's suggestion that we rethink the volume of our order. If we did cut down on our dishes, how would we have had the pleasure of acquainting ourselves with the Hakata Ton Ton hot pot?
Hakata Ton Ton is famous for their tonsoku, or pig feet. I grew up eating pig feet, prepared by my grandmothers. Stewed pig feet is delicious, there is lip-smacking collagen and tender fall-off-the-bone meat. The hot pot had collagen broth, tofu, dumplings, veggies, and pork belly. This is my comfort food. My warm and fuzzies. I love this stuff. Next time, I will make sure to save belly room so that we can add ramen to the broth.
I can't wait to go back to Hakata Ton Ton and try all the other stuff on their menu!
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