A Japanese restaurant that only serve pig feet?? in New York? yup, there is one, and it’s Hakata Tonton. Given the fact that I had such a great experience with other concept restaurants – chicken (Yakitori Totto and Torys), beef (Gyu-kaku) – I was so very excited and have high hope on this one. I dragged Scott to try and I love him to be so brave and all game to try out something so weird with me. Anyway, what’s the verdict? It exceeds my expectation.

Our seats was at the bar, which is fine given that I have a lot more decoration to play with right in front of me. The logo of the restaurant with that cute abstract pig nose is already adorable to me, let alone all the little pig decorations all over the store. You know that welcoming cat in every Japanese place as a good luck charm? well, here they have it as welcoming pig!

Even though the restaurant is Japanese, the food is actually fusion – which mean you will find some very unlikely dishes in a Japanese restaurant. Open up the menu, the first thing we notice and did not expected was Ratatouille!!! Yes, the dish made famous by the Pixar movie this year! It was my plan to find a French restaurant eventually to taste this fame dish, who knew I would encounter it so unexpectedly in a Japanese restaurant that serve pig feet?? Anyway, I got a spoon full from Scott’s dish and it’s rather tasty – but the tonsoku (pig feet) is quite difficult to detect in such a strong flavor dish.

Unlike Scott’s very fusion choices (his dishes are French, then classic Italian! I’ll explain that later), mine were much more traditional Japanese style. I had the tonsoku served with miso paste dressing as my appetizer. A very tasty choice where you can really taste the tonsoku. And who doesn’t like miso paste right? if I want it on my chicken meatball in Yakitori Totto, I would want it on my tonsoku as well! My only complaint is that it’s rather small and the bottom of the bowl was filled with too much onions. Give me more tonsoku please! My main dish was a Sake infused “Saikyo Miso” grilled tonsoku. Another tasty choice but this time I am actually facing the pig feet as a whole! There’s more bones to pick so for a lazy person like me who want his food all ready to eat without bones, that did deduct some points, however, the sake and miso on it was so good that I’ll let it go.

Scott’s main dish was Tonsoku Millefeuille in tomato ragu sauce and served gratinee. In another word – it’s lasagna!!!! It’s really really weird to see such a thing served in a Japanese place, but then again who doesn’t like cheese? I wouldn’t complain if it’s me. Anyway, this weird mixture did not disappoint. We also ordered a rice – Zwai Crab and Tonsoku kamameishi. I am not sure if you are familiar with that awesome rice in Yakitori Totto where if you order you have to wait for 35 mins for it to cook right in front of you? A very similar
deal here with the same mouth-watering tasty rice you will ever have, except this time is not chicken like Yakitori Totto but tonsoku! It’s the best dish of all for the night in my opinion. The time waiting for it was definitely worth it.

For dessert, we had the Rare Cheesecake which is rare cheesecake (not cake-form) – served in the most adorable mug. There’s a tiny little piggy climbing on the side of the mug!!! In sum, a fantastic evening (getting wonderful X’mas gift didn’t hurt either~ )and a place that I will go back over and over again!

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