Dohatsuten Ramen and Tapas

So... ramen is hip now.

For those of us who happened to have settled on one of the coasts, ramen is not only a hip thing but has reached near religious, shrieking, fevered pitch...

Take "Maru Ichi", considered the Bay Peninsula's ultimate ramen house.

If you can get a seat there during lunch time on a given work day, you are lucky. While Maru Ichi has not reached the fever-pitched, everyone for themselves pace of State Bird Provisions or Tartine Bakery, you will nevertheless have a hard time getting in unless you are early and lucky.

While you wait, you can watch noodles actually being made in a glass-enclosed cubby, showing the goods to the voyeuristic dot-communists that have made Castro Street in Mountain View a lunch mecca.

And it is good, make no mistake.

Of course, the clever lunch denizen will seek to find the path less taken to get their noodle fix - waiting in line is for chumps!

I was riding shotgun with former cow-orker Invalid Media on a lunch run when we divined one such off-the-beaten-path establishment out of sheer bad luck (we were on a Dittmer's run, only to find that it had been closed due to fire) that ended up being good luck for us (we continued down San Antonio Avenue until we came across Dohatsuten).

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Dohatsuten Ramen and Tapas:

"I like ramen, I like tapas, let's try it!" said Invalid in between a stream of word-salad that can never be printed (we know you have the tapes, FBI, and I hope you enjoy our car-banter whenever we go on these lunch excursions).

The menu features a few templates for ramen (pork belly, vegetarian, combo, etcetera) and a choice of broths and well as some very interesting small plates. We look forward to trying to beef tongue on the next visit. I might try the chicken "knees" again, even if they were not a big hit with the crowd I was with when I first tried them - fried chicken tendons and cartilage dipped in a thick mayonnaise.

Several typically Korean condiments are available, including of course an excellent kimchee.

We arrived early on a recent Wednesday - Dohatsuten opens at 11:30. We were early, and we were lucky - because by 12:30 the joint was hyphy.

I guess the rest of the Peninsula lunch world has discovered our secret ramen and tapas hide-out on San Antonio too.

Hella hyphy ramen.

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Dohatsuten Ramen and Tapas
799 San Antonio Rd,
Palo Alto, CA