Alkaline’s new Ghent location has customers singing its praises

Source: The Virginian Pilot; March 4, 2018

Alkaline has been a local favorite for a while, ever since it began as an evening pop-up restaurant in Pendulum Meat’s butcher shop in Norfolk. I had been watching and waiting since late last year for the butcher paper to come off the windows of its new location .

We headed over there early on a Friday. There was already a wait, but we beat the crowd by grabbing a couple of seats at the counter dividing the room .

Alkaline has a somewhat whimsical pan-Asian feeling. I would not say it is minimalist, but it has clean lines, with a dark ceiling, blond woods and a concrete floor. A bar sits at one side, with the long counter and tables in the other two-thirds. An anime cartoon with subtitles was playing on the television screen, a bright mural of happy creatures who could be making it into your meal adorned one wall, and various fishbowls with bromeliads and pastel and gold Asiatic tchotchkes sat around on the counters and bars. It all worked, and the room was filled with a broad Ghent demographic of folks and families looking for a great time.

I’d call Alkaline a duo-Asian restaurant, most heavily influenced by Japan and the Philippines. It specializes in ramen, the hearty Japanese noodle that many of us grew to know and love in college, plus family-style Filipino dishes.

We started our evening with the spicy fried baby octopus and shrimp ($12), a draft Kirin, and a pint of local Benchtop Brewing’s Proven Theory – one of my go-to beers in this area. The breading was wonderful, with a somewhat nutty taste and a burst of heat from red pepper flakes. The octopus were lovely, with about as much tenderness as can be coaxed out of this strong-armed cephalopod. The shrimp were good, but a touch chewy. The squeeze of lemon and cilantro nicely offset the heat.

We moved on to two ramen dishes for our mains – a spicy red curry chicken dish ($12) and tonkotsu pork ($12).

The red curry dish was our favorite, with a broth kicked up with the hot curry paste. The chicken, which was done sous vide then slightly seared to finish it off, was melt-in-your-mouth delicious.

The tonkotsu pork was good. The unctuous, creamy broth was loaded with pork flavor, and when I mixed the sous vide egg with the shredded pork topping it went over the top. A splattering of dark sesame seeds and oil provided a dark nuance. Both ramen dishes had a topping of shredded pickled ginger – colored red – and pepper spice.

Finishing up, we moved to the miso butter cake ($8), the only dessert offering. It was fantastic. The cake was rich and buttery, with a slightly caramelized outside. We thought we detected a hint of chocolate in the bottom. It was topped with toasted pecans enrobed in a buttery caramel sauce.

Service was friendly. The wait staff were in street clothes, giving things a hip feeling. The place was crowded, with folks waiting at the door and along the bar, so our plates were cleared quickly, and the bill was presented without our asking. We did feel slightly rushed, but we were full and the walk through Ghent afterward was much better than having another beer.

I am glad that Alkaline is settling into its new home, and that the faithful seem to be back in the pews. Give it a try. You may become a convert.