Hakata Tonton
“The first time I dined at Hakata Tonton my friend and I built a meal of grilled tonsoku, foie gras inari sushi, and hot pot.”
“We had a hot pot, garlic fried rice, gyoza, and pork belly – the best being the hot pot and fried rice (all were delicious however).”
“BTW, there is milk in their collagen soup gyoza and their desserts aren't very lactose friendly.”
Hakata Tonton
Takes Reservations: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Small place and it's best if you make a reservation online ahead of time.
PROS:
– Grilled Pork Tonsoku w/ mentaiko and bonito soup – delicious! The pigs feet meat fell right off the bone when I picked it up to put on my plate. 5 STARS
THE OKAY:
– Garlic fried rice – it was very flavorful and tasted quite good but I had one problem with this dish. There were small tiny hard pieces in the fried rice. It was either super hard garlic or hard pieces of tiny bones in the rice. It just wasn't a comfortable feeling while I was eating the soft rice and having to chew into the hard pieces.
CONS:
– Muscat Cider – I loved the japanese Kasugai Muscat Gummy Candy in the Asian supermarket and was expecting it to taste similar. As I am a curious person by nature, I decided to try it. The Muscat cider definitely SMELLED similar but the taste was not. I do not recommend it.
– Sukiyaki Croquette – I didn't like how fried the croquettes were at this place. The filling inside was good but the fried part of the croquette tasted weird like it was fried a couple of times in bad oil or something.
– Deep fried Soft Shell Crab – I do not recommend this dish. The yuzu sauce on the bottom soaked up the soft shell crab. The crab was no longer crispy but soggy and the yuzu sauce definitely didn't pair well with the the fried soft shell crab. The orange peel taste in the sauce just didn't work for me. I thought soft shell crab was a dish you couldn't go wrong with but I was wrong…
NOTE: Will come back to get more pigs feet (tonsoku) and hot pot next time. I wouldn't get their fried stuff if I were you.
I'm a fan. I love that there's a Japanese restaurant here that doesn't specialize in sushi, ramen, udon/soba, or yakitori. Hakata Tonton's claim to fame is how they embed tonsoku (pigs feet) into their dishes. Don't be grossed out, because tonsoku is actually quite delicious. Aside from straight up tonsoku dishes, the tonsoku-stuffed gyoza and the tonsoku-based broth of their hot pots are quite extraordinary as well.
There are only a few seats in this location and service can be hit or miss. But tonsoku is the bomb.
I like this restaurant very much because of great dishes there. But pretty busy so sometime their service was not enough for us.
After many several attempts to come here but ultimately failed due to the long line / lack of reservation, I FINALLY made it in after committing to getting here right at 5:30. Even then, my friends and I weren't seated until 6:15. If you plan on coming here, make a reservation via opentable at least 2 weeks in advance or just be prepared to come early!
Between the 6 of us, we had the tuna carpaccio, pork cheeks, 4 orders of the famous hakata tonton hot pot ($17/person) with added eggs (extra $2 each), extra udon noodles and rice (extra $5 each), and 2 orders of green tea tofu ($9 each). Since a few members of our group were still stuffed from brunch, this was the perfect amount of food. The waiters will definitely try to pressure you to order more, so make sure you don't come with a half-full stomach!
Everything was DELICIOUS! I loved the well flavored appetizers and the super savory/non-oily pork feet-based hot pot. It was so much fun watching the ingredients melt before our eyes. We loved the flavor so much that we ordered extra udon noodles just so we can get more of the broth. You can opt for rice as well but that option doesn't give you as much extra broth. There are also so many tasty sounding cold/hot appetizers and hot pot options on the menu that I can't imagine running out of choices here. Bring a large group and order as much as you can!
Up until I had the green tea almond tofu, I thought everything was really delicious, but after eating the tofu, I was literally MIND BLOWN. Never have I had dessert tofu so silky, cooling, light, and flavorful before. I will brave the line again just for the tofu.
Hakata Tonton serves up their house special – pig's feet or trotters – in a myriad of ways. I've been here twice and both meals were delicious, especially if you're into pork and gelatin. The menu is surprisingly large considering their singular obsession with pork, although non pork items are equally as tasty. The space has seen a nice upgrade since my first visit, and boasts a second bright and cozy dining room. Service is good to okay, prices are affordable (and you get a discount for paying cash).
Items I've ordered:
Tonton famous gyoza – tasty, but not worth writing home about
Grilled Miso Black Cod – a tasty 4-6 oz piece of fish, a bit pricey but worth it if you're not a pork fan
Garlic fried rice – surprisingly amazing
Hakata Tonton Hot Pot – A specialty of Hakata, Japan. Collagen broth, tofu, dumplings, vegetables, berkshire pork belly and tonsoku. Min. 2 orders – and worth every last bite.
The hotpot is totally where its at, being both rich in pork collagen and fresh vegetables. The fatty rich broth is soothing and delicious, coating simple vegetables to give them a huge umami boost. It vegetables are a mix of cabbage, garlic chives, and something else. They're quite refreshing to the broth and I loved this combination. If anything, I think its a little skimpy on the pork, but you can always order more. If I had a larger group I'd also get the grilled tonsuko, yum yum yum. I think I also got some yakitori styled grilled pork belly here and it was drooltastic.
Reservations are recommended as meals tend to take a while here and the place is on the cozy side. Even with opening the second dining room, they probably max out at serving 50 people at a time. I should also mention that hey have a good sake list if that's up your alley. Definitely fun for a food adventure, especially in the winter months.
I'm being generous by giving 4 stars. My friend had been wanting to try this place for months, but there's always a long wait when we want to go. They seem to always have reservations. I think they are reserved a month in advance when we tried to reserve a table. We finally came on a weekday night, and they had an open table for 2 without a wait.
We ordered the homemade gyoza, Hakata Tonton hot pot, and the green tea tofu. The gyoza was good–the outside was nice and crunchy, but the inside was just all meat while I usually prefer vegetable gyoza. I was underwhelmed by the hot pot. It seems like a lot of food until it cooks, and you realize the pot is very shallow. Additionally, for a place specializing in pig's feet, there wasn't much pig's feet in it. As other's have said, the pot is filled mostly with veggies. It comes with pig's feet, bacon (?), tofu, and dumplings, but it was pretty much just one piece for each for each serving, and the rest of the dish was just chives and cabbage. Although, the cabbage was really good and probably my favorite part of the pot, along with the tofu.
The green tea tofu is really good, and I think it lives up to the hype. The tofu has an almond taste to it, and it's really creamy and melt-in-your-mouth-y. The green tea flavor is nice and subtle. I forgot to mention we also ordered the muscat cider soda. We didn't taste the muscat, and it just tasted like bubblegum, so I don't recommend.
The staff is nice, and they give you nice, hot towels when you're first seated. They have a Japanese toilet that stays heated. I saw a picture from 2015 that said they do not take tips, following Japanese style, but they've changed that and they do accept tips now.
Overall, I don't think I'll be back anytime soon just because the wait and reservation times are so long. I don't think it's worth waiting an hour in line for or reserving up to a month in advance, but it makes a nice hot pot meal on a slow weekday.
I am so happy my sister got reservations here, at first I wasn't quite interested since I'm not a fan of pigs feet and this restaurant mainly specializes in it (tonsoku) but the food literally blew my mind and proved me wrong. We ordered the hakata tonton hotpot (17/person), the gyoza and the garlic fried rice. The gyoza came out first, pretty standard to me but still enjoyable. Second was the garlic fried rice which had my sis and I swooning at the first bite. It is so simple yet so flavorful; a must order if you visit… now on to the hotpot, it was filled to the rim with cabbage and chives after 5 minutes it starts to simmer down and boil into the pot melting all the flavors together. The server pours us each a bowl of the hotpot soup with a pigs feet in each. The tonsoku was so tender that the skin was falling off the bone and the broth was so rich in flavor I couldn't stop eating. I'm trying really hard to explain the exact moment I ate it in words, but you gotta try it out for yourself. Remember to make reservations since the restaurant is small and I think they will only seat if you reserved. By the time my sis and I finished there were a lot of people who were waiting and some that got denied seating. Service was 10/10, everything was absolutely fantastic!
This was happy.
I love places that use all the different parts of the animal – I'm all about the nasty bits.
Let's do an order rundown:
– Japanese Veal Liver Sashimi: I love raw liver. Yeah, shoot me, it's veal, and its mean, but yuuuuum. Almost as yurm as the raw liver at takashi (my spirit restaurant)
– Monkfish's Liver w/ Tonsoku and yuzu miso sauce: I like monkfish liver but I think its an aquired taste. This was a smaller plate than anticipated cause monkfish liver is pretty large usually and this was literally one bite unfortunately. But, it was delicious, the tangy sauce goes perfectly with the rich creamy liver.
– HAKATA MOTSU Hot Pot (red soup) – Special broth, Kobe beef Motsu (intestine), cabbage, Chinese chive, gyoza skin, garlic and chili pepper: I loved this dish the most. The intestines were so so so delicious. The texture of intestine is unlike anything else and it brought a wonderful thick velvety texture to the broth. Also the flavour is just full of rich delicousness.
– Something I can't remember but I know it was a pig's foot: I get why pigs foot is the specialty. It's just delicious. Make sure youre someone who's ok with that gelatinous feel in your mouth though.
– a carafe of some ginger shoju
I enjoyed every bite of that meal. And Im drooling thinking about it.