New Yorkers George Itoh (by way of Wisconsin) and Andy Tam moved to Dallas after falling in love with the Deep Ellum neighborhood, eventually opening their restaurant in late 2018 in the spot previously occupied by Tanoshii.

Start with the age mochi for an appetizer: a deep-fried mochi rice cake with dhoyutare sauce and ao nori. These light and extremely flavorful balls of goodness were brought about six to an order, but we could eat … 20?

Next came the pork buns, which can be vegetarian (eggplant and eringi oyster mushroom batter), chicken (fried thigh), or pork. We settled on pork, two to an order, with nicely steamed buns, lettuce, hirata spicy barbecue sauce, and mayo. Not bad. Not bad at all, and one each was just enough.

For ramen, try the spicy soboro shoyu ramen. All of the ramens have a chicken-based broth as opposed to the perhaps more traditional pork-based variety. The soboro shoyu ramen has chicken broth, sesame oil, scallion, and spicy ground pork. Since the pork was ground, they helpfully provided us with a giant spoon so we didn’t have to embarrass ourselves trying to catch all the stray bits of goodies with chopsticks. A special spicy miso ramen includes chicken paitan blend broth, corn, menma, scallion, fresh ginger, butter, a Japanese pepper spice blend, and probably the best pork belly we’ve ever had in a ramen dish: Two healthy pieces, each thick and meaty and obviously grilled prior to their introduction to the broth, with visually appealing grill marks and taste-appealing outdoor grilled flavor.