Ittyo

          When I first moved to Boston I heard about the Japanese food court in the Porter Exchange building at Lesley College, and randomly tried a ramen noodle place. In a previous post, I mentioned trying to go back and stumbling upon Blue Fin when everything else was closed. I tried again recently, and learned that the ramen place closes even earlier than the rest of the food court. I ended up being glad because it gave me a chance to try Ittyo, which was equally good. Ittyo’s menu consisted of a mix of traditional Japanese noodle soups and rice dishes. I tried a couple appetizers, and the house super noodle soup that included a little of everything.

          I started with kimuchi and sesame tofu. The kimuchi (spicy pickled vegetables) was authentic, but not really my thing. I really enjoyed the tofu, which was served cold in a sesame sauce.

          The noodle soup came in a bowl possibly larger than my head, and the biggest soup spoon I’ve ever seen (the picture doesn’t quite do it justice). It was full of shrimp and vegetable tempura, thinly sliced beef, a fish cake, fried tofu, steamed vegetables, and what seemed like a never-ending pile of udon noodles. It was delicious and very filling; I was only able to finish about half of the giant bowl.

          Overall, this was a great meal: tasty, authentic, and relatively cheap. On my way out, I checked out the menus for some of the other places, and decided I would go back and try all of them (and eventually make it back to the ramen place)!