New Year meal: Obento-ya, Minneapolis

I took my wife out to Lunar New Year / Valentine's lunch yesterday at our local Japanese izkaya Obento-ya. The food was wonderful and the service super-prompt and attentive.  (They were having a rough patch this past summer but the operation seems to be back on top.) Business has picked up for them, too - if going to dinner you'll definitely want to make reservations.

Prices are quite reasonable - we got all this and a pot of tea for just $30:

This is the "house ramen" - as you can see this is a pho-sized bowl with lots of kelp and noodles, and a generous amount of pork! The tea egg is extra & was done perfectly; beautiful golden yolk that blends perfectly with the broth.

This is the Makunochi bento - their "combo" platter showing off all the wonderful things they can do to protein. The yakitori beef could be put on a bun & put Arby's out of business... the salmon was crispy on the outside and wonderfully chewy inside... shrimp the perfect combination of savory and sweet.  In the upper left corner - Japanese potato salad, creamy like mashed potatoes with Qupie mayonnaise and bits of apple (!) in it.  They could sell this by the tub.

The bento combo comes with a cup of their miso soup, too; just the thing on a cold wintry day. So simple but it gives me such joy to smell and taste this!

Tonkatsu Ramen, a new family favorite!

My wife tried something new at the always-awesome United Noodles here in Minneapolis this weekend: tonkatsu ramen.  It's now one of her "happy foods"- and likely one she'll ask for when cold & flu season rolls around!

Look at that wonderful milky broth (it's not cream, but part of it's pork fat) - the bright red pickled ginger, the beautiful chunk of pork...  This bowl is HUGE - the same size you'd get a serving of pho in!

There's a tea egg in there too - nice rich flavor.  When you stir the ginger into the steaming broth, the whole bowl becomes sweetly aromatic. Plenty of bean sprouts and bok choy are mixed in with the chewy ramen noodles - this was easily a two-person serving.

Photos: Soups at Obento-ya, Minneapolis

Obento-ya is our favorite Japanese restaurant here in the Twin Cities - an intimate, inexpensive bistro serving homestyle izkaya cooking and sushi. I took our daughter there last night after school...

 You can never go wrong with a nice big bowl of udon. The shrimp and vegetables are lightly battered and fried - seaweed and green onion on the side to mix in.

She loves the miso with tofu cubes - and so do we. If you have a cold or are feeling run-down, a nice bowl of this will bring your health and spirits right back up.