Domo

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1365 Osage Street

Denver, Colorado 80204

303-595-3666

We continued Crystal’s birthday celebration with dinner at Domo restaurant in Denver.  Sarah, Carlo and Shan joined us for dinner as well.  The restaurant is kind of small and they don’t take reservations.  You just have to hope for the best.  Domo’s food and decorations are traditional Japanese.  There is even a working dojo attached to it where they teach Aikido.  I love the décor of the restaurant.  I feel like I have travelled in time and location to old country Japan.  The tables are big slabs of stone and the seats are padded tree logs.  The light fixtures are covered with brown paper and sticks.  This may not sound very amazing but it looks very dark and romantic.  See the picture to the right for an idea.  Out back of the restaurant, there is a small garden with stone paths and peaceful ponds.  It was a little chilly so we didn't get to sit out there, but we got to walk around.

We all sat and tried to decide what we wanted for dinner.  The menu is not as extensive as it used to be when I’d gone as a kid, but it’s still hard to choose just one of the options.  I started off with some tea.  I ordered the Matcha tea.  It’s a green tea that they serve sweetened with cream or plain.  I decided to try it with the cream and sugar.  It was actually a little too sweet for my taste.  It arrived in a tea cup that was more like a soup bowl.  It was huge!  The line of the night was when, in reference to the size of the cup, I said, “I want to bathe a kitten in it.”  By the time I finished that cup, I was buzzing from the caffeine in the green tea and the sugar.

I ordered hot sake with the dinner.  Yummy yum yum.  All of our dinners came with seven family style dishes that were the chef’s choice.  My favorite one was vermicelli noodles with cilantro and jalapeño pepper slices.  It was light and tasty.  The fish cake and mushroom dish was also good.  We were also served okra with seaweed and orange bell pepper slices.  I tried it but I kind of hate the texture of okra.  There was a plate of inari (fried tofu) and vegetables as well as a plate of potato and vegetable curry.  There were a few dishes that seemed odd to have at a Japanese restaurant.  They were the beef meatballs and the pork stew with potatoes and carrots.  Those seemed more American or Irish.  They were freaking tasty though.

For my main dish, I ordered the Domo ramen noodle set.  You choose your ramen broth style and meat as well as a smaller side dish (see above picture).  I ordered the Sukiyaki Beef Shoyu Ramen: shoyu ramen (soy sauce broth) topped with sliced sukiyaki beef.  For my choice of one mini donburi dish, I got the mini salmon teriyaki with brown rice.  The soy ramen broth was amazingly rich and flavorful.  I preferred it to the miso broth.  The ramen also included the delicious egg noodles, peppers, cabbage, and other vegetables.  The beef was tender from being soaked in the broth and it was seasoned with black pepper.  Every bite of this ramen was bursting with flavor.  The salmon teriyaki was also very good with the brown rice.  I liked the sweet teriyaki sauce on the salmon.

I hope to return to Domo soon to try some of their other dishes.  Crystal says she wants to try the nabe.  It's served in a small cast iron pot.