Toy is nothing to play around with. It’s a new Japanese – or should I say japonisant (inspired by Japan) – ramen bar in Paris.
The small, minimalist space with distressed concrete walls is set up like the real thing, with a counter and a few tables. As in Japan, the counter is the best place to sit since it allows you to watch the staff at work preparing your meal. Here you have the special treat of being able to chat with the utterly charming British chef/owner George Black while he puts together orders for his customers. He is happy to tell you why he opened the restaurant (living in Paris, he missed the Japanese dishes he had loved in Japan) and how the dishes are prepared.
We started off with two appetizers. The first was Singapore fried chicken: major crunch on the outside (generously coated with algae) and super juicy and tender inside.
It was excellent but did not reach the heights of the salad of Castelfranco (a mild type of radicchio) with pieces of Satsuma clementines and a sesame sauce. The salad was delicious, but what made it special was the addition of duck hearts cooked to a turn on the binchotan grill. With their rosy interiors and charcoal-flavored exteriors, they went straight to my heart.
It was time to taste the ramen. The three styles served here are shoyu (soy sauce added to chicken-based stock), shio (salt-based chicken-based stock) and vegetarian miso (miso added to a plant-based stock).
We chose the shoyu and the shio. The broth in the former was perfectly balanced, but not as hearty and heartwarming as the rich tonkotsu broth (made with pork bones) that I savored in Japan. The fine noodles were a pleasure to eat, with just the right texture: not mushy, not too al dente.
Both of the ramens we ordered had the same toppings: a perfect marinated and soft-boiled egg, a delicious pork-and-shrimp wonton, nori, and melt-in-the-mouth Chashu pork (marinated and braised) with a taste of charcoal from the binchotan grill. They were both flavorful and highly refined – more refined than many I had in Japan – versions of ramen, that most satisfying of dishes when done well. Our only complaint was that the shio ramen broth was too salty.
The sole dessert on the menu was rice pudding with cherries, Savagnin wine and tarragon oil. It sounds fancy, but it was not the best rice pudding I have ever had, almost bland in spite of the add-ons, with too-soft, overcooked rice.
Overall, Toy provided a not exactly authentic but delicious and highly enjoyable meal. If you go, don’t play around too much: just stick to the starters and ramen, and skip the dessert. And don’t forget to slurp up your noodles (as seen in the cult ramen film Tampopo).
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