temari

temari japanese cafe
1043 rockville pike, rockville, MD 20852
tel: 301) 340-7720
hours: monday 11:30am-3pm, 5pm-9pm; wednesday-thursday 11:30am-3pm, 5pm-9pm; friday 11:30am-3pm, 5pm-9:30pm; saturday-sunday 11:30am-9pm; CLOSED on tuesday

what was consumed: uni (for kristina), shishamo - grilled (for us both ... and my new favorite dish to look for at japanese restaurants!), tonkatsu ramen - ramen in the white pork broth (for the both of us ... and the reason why we made the crazy trek!)

yay for recent visits to great japanese restaurants!

so kristina and i decided to do a ramen and 'west wing' columbus day afternoon (regardless of the contraversy surrounding christopher columbus, i'm happy to have a day off! hee hee) - a nice way to end an otherwise event filled week and half between the dc apa film festival and visiting friends (thanks for visiting, friends!) on top of the regular hustle and bustle that is life. sushi taro used to do a great ramen lunch in the winter months that i would regularly frequent with co-workers. but since their renovation, i believe they have gotten rid of that as well. too bad! so, in our attempt to find good ramen in the dc/metro area, we made the long long LONG trek out to rockville (the super far distance is totally a deterrant ...).

we started off our meal with a few little bites - uni (sea urchin) for kristina and shishamo for me. uni - while each sushi piece is sort of on the pricier side, i can see why! kristina's uni was piled high; we were able to take tastes of the uni before pairing it with the sushi rice (and seaweed) it came on top of. now that is how sushi should be served! shishamo - i have never had shishamo before, but knowing my love for fish roe, kristina suggested (after her surprise that i hadn't had it before) it to me. and i'm glad she did! i will constantly look for it from here on out. little fishies that are (usually) grilled and a chock full of roe! delicious. kristina tells me that the ones she's had were longer, but that's all right. maybe temari's just were in the off season (you know how fish have seasons too) and are normally longer. point is, they're delicious and i can't wait to have shishamo again.

and ahhh~ the ramen. delicious! i've heard mixed reviews, but i will take what temari has to offer! the cloudy pork broth that was just a bit on the salty side (for and to my liking), but accompanied by personal favorites - veggies, seaweed, etc. the noodles (home made or store bought? i've heard mixed reviews. at this point, it's not a big deal as long as they're cooked well - and they were!) were not too soft and just chewy enough. kristina and i were sure to consume every last noodle (and fixin') and slurp up as much of the broth as our bellies would take in. what a great way to fill my belly on an otherwise cloudy day! oh, so satisfied~

i hear that there are other ramen options (e.g., ren's ramen. we tried to go, but it was closed! sigh) available and there will be others soon. can't wait! next time, i want to try temari's other japanese options. YUM.

online: nothing! nothing online! people have written about temari on the interweb, but that's it. which is fine. i guess. but then i saw the more seasoned (i.e., older) japanese women who, i'm assuming, own/run the restaurant and then it sort of made sense. i'm sure that they're thinking that their word of mouth and probably more traditional ways of advertising has gotten them enough clientele for their liking, so why think of ways to expand? still, as a self-proclaimed member of the n-generation (i think i officially miss it by, like, a year or something), a website would be nice. oh well~