Hey Kitchen
710 Somerset St. W., 613-
569-9725
,
hey-kitchen.business.site
Open:
11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily
Prices:
dishes up to $16.99
Access:
steps to front door
The Japanese have a word for it — yōshoku.
In Japanese cuisine, yōshoku refers to fusion dishes that are basically Japanized forms of European or otherwise foreign dishes. Japanese curries that are much more mellow than their Indian inspirations are a famous example.
Although the generically named Hey Kitchen, which opened in early December where Korean restaurant Owl of Minerva had been in Chinatown, does not come out and announce its indebtedness to yōshoku, that kind of food enjoys pride of place on its menu.
This bright and affordable spot, already popular with young Asian customers, numbers among the latest wave of cozy and specialized restaurants to have opened in Ottawa.
Most significant in terms of Hey Kitchen’s distinctiveness is a menu that is taut, yet still roams across Asia, and even bewilders a bit with its novelties, which are presented matter-of-fact and without the kind of context or back story I’m providing now with the help of Wikipedia.
Leaving aside Hey Kitchen’s appetizers, which can be as familiar as french fries or as outré as chicken feet with pickled peppers, the larger offerings here head in two similarly contrasting directions. There are the rice- or pasta-based yōshoku dishes, and there are noodle bowls and soups that are definitely Chinese. (In fact, the restaurant is run by Chinese expats.)
A big chunk of Hey Kitchen’s menu can be traced back to the innovations of a Japanese fast-food franchise called Pepper Lunch. Its hallmark dish, which dates to the mid-1990s, places a mound of cooked rice surrounded by thinly sliced beef on an iron plate that’s been electromagnetically heated until it’s screaming hot.
Hey Kitchen serves eight similarly made “special teppan pepper rice” dishes. Of course, a beefy version is offered. But so, too, are versions with eel, tiger shrimp, smoked duck breast, smoked chicken, salmon, ox tongue or pork neck, some of which might be influenced by Chinese palates. All of these iron plates arrive at your table on wooden platters and are ringed by a red paper sash warning that the iron plate was heated to 200 C.
With these dishes come gravy boats filled with the brown sauce that puts the “pepper” in “pepper rice,” although as per Japanese tastes, it is not that peppery and is more savoury and sweet. The idea is that the gravy hits the hot plate and — voila! A cloud of aromatic steam wafts.
We tried the beef ($11.99) and salmon ($12.99) versions and both were hearty and enjoyable, with the one proviso that the meat, or fish in particular, will become overcooked if left too long on the plate.
Hey Kitchen also serves heaps of spaghetti or fettuccine on its blisteringly hot, warning-encircled iron plates. The same protein choices apply. Pepper sauce is available, but not exclusively so. Diners can also opt for tomato, cream or curry sauces, and even additional toppings such as mushrooms, bacon, fried or marinated egg, kimchi and corn are available for customized eating.
Call me a pasta purist, but I preferred the pepper rice dishes to the fettuccine-based dishes I tried. Above all, the tomato and cream sauces did little for me.
Another Japanese dish served here is omurice, a fusion dish dating back a century or so that involves thin omelettes stuffed with well-sauced rice. At Hey Kitchen, heavily sauced omurice dishes come with proteins on the side or on top.
Overall, I preferred the omurice to the pasta and rice dishes. I can vouch for steak omurice with black pepper sauce ($15.99), and especially fried chicken cutlet omurice with not-so-spicy Japanese curry sauce ($12.99).
The eatery’s nine noodle choices are basically Sichuan-style bowls made with your choice of noodles and protein in a soupy broth that’s as spicy and even numbing as you like, from not spicy or numbing to extra spicy or numbing.
I had Chong Qing noodles “with minced pork and peas” ($11.99), ordered “regular spicy” and “regular numbing,” which was more than intense enough on both counts thanks to ample quantities of chilies and Sichuan pepper, respectively.
Its minced pork turned out to be morsels of pork belly and its peas turned out to be chickpeas. Surprises aside, it was a big, satisfying lunch, with components and garnishes including peanuts, sesame paste, cilantro, green onions, half a marinated egg and pickled vegetables making themselves felt.
The menu’s four stewed soups are for, I think, enthusiasts of long-simmered Chinese broths that I think of as health tonics rather than meals.
My wife ordered the coconut and chicken soup ($8.99), thinking from its minimal description that she would receive something like Thai tom kha gai. But when she lifted the lid, she saw a brownish broth, chunks of coconut and bony chunks of chicken. I can guess that herbal black chicken soup and silk chicken with conch and ginseng soup would equally bewilder those unaccustomed to their authentic qualities.
Service here was fast and casual, with servers bringing carafes of acidulated hot and cold water and then whatever dishes are ready first, which could be your sizzling plate of pasta followed by your appetizer.
We’ve had takoyaki (Japanese deep-fried dough balls with bits of octopus in the middle, $7.99) which were suitably crisp and savoury, and popcorn chicken ($7.99), which was just so-so, lacking in the crunch I prefer in that guilty pleasure.
The restaurant is not licensed and serves no dessert. If you need something sweet, there are nearby bubble tea shops.
So, there’s a lot to try and even figure out at Hey Kitchen, which in my imagination anyway is like a diner on the other side of the world. None of it is fancy, but there are still some small thrills and larger, if basic, satisfactions.