When it comes to ramen, there are some strong opinions—you might even say fault lines—in my household. I’m a unabashed fan of Toki Underground’s inventive and rich Taiwanese-style ramen. My wife, on the other hand, can’t get enough of the purity and depth of Daikaya’s Sapporo-style noodles. But both of us have been anticipating the opening of Haikan—Atlantic Plumbing’s newest ground floor addition. And so has the rest of the city: 10 minutes before opening on Saturday, a line had already wrapped around the restaurant.
Our dinner lived up to the hype. Despite the fact that we sat during literally Haikan’s first real dinner shift, the quality of what the kitchen produced augurs something special.
Haikan is the third restaurant from the group behind the recently-opened Bantam King and Daikaya. If you’ve eaten at both the ramen bar and izakaya of Daikaya, you have some idea of what you’re in store for at Haikan. There’s an emphasis on salt and soy-leaning ramen as well as neatly composed dishes that modernize Asian themes and classics.
For the Daikaya fans, the shoyu ramen is a perfect replication of the sister restaurant’s soup. It’s dense and inviting and full of umami and vigor. If you’re a meat eater, splurge for the extra chashu topping on any of your ramen bowls. But if you’re not, we were particularly impressed with the look of the vegetarian bowl, topped with a heap of seasonal vegetables. There are also shio and miso versions of the restaurant’s Sapporo-style ramen.
As for the other dishes that we ordered, they ranged from solid work to hits. The crab rangoon is the upscale version of the Chinese restaurant staple that you never knew you needed, with chunks of real crab and delightfully creamy cheese inside. The mapo tofu poutine is something that by all accounts shouldn’t work, but absolutely does; small mozzarella curds blend seamlessly with Chinese mouthnumbing spice in Haikan’s version of poutine gravy. The caprese salad made with burrata cheese, strawberries, heirloom tomatoes, and yuzu vinaigrette is a good dish, if not a particularly inventive one.
The most sippable thing at Haikan might not be the ramen broth. That designation may go to a cocktail that combines shochu and housemade honey and grapefruit soda. If you need to beat the heat outside, or in your bowl, that’s the way to go. There are other Japanese-inspired cocktails, like Old Fashioneds made with Japanese whisky, and even a gin-based drink called Wasabi Peas that contains snowpeas, yuzu and, yes, wasabi.
Ramen patio (Photo courtesy of Haikan)
It might seem antithetical to eat ramen outside—especially in this particular heat—but rest assured that Haikan will be one of the cooler patios in D.C. in the very near future. There’s a long wooden communal table under one of the more handsome restaurant signs in the city. Inside is just as nice: a particularly bright and geometric and angular decor that replicates Daikaya’s ramen bar set-up, but with a bit more polish.
Dinner at Haikan probably was the most graceful restaurant opening we’ve seen in years. And if this is what dinner is like now, that snaking line that greeted us upon arrival might just be a permanent feature.
Haikan is located at 805 V Street NW, (202) 299-1000
