A big, big Yes to Nomama

Nothing beats eating good food — in my case, eating good Japanese food.

After my recent trip to Japan, my cravings brought me to Nomama, a classy but not intimidating casual modern Japanese noodle house that serves highly enjoyable fusion fare on Scout Tuason corner Scout Castor streets in Quezon City.

Ask Chef Him Uy de Baron, Nomama’s owner and its main man in the kitchen, for a bowl of spicy ox tongue dry noodle and he’ll whip something that tastes like heaven for you. This noodle dish, flavorful and served piping hot, comes with a zing and a kick courtesy of the additional Korean chili paste. The black mushrooms embedded in the noodles are an oishi seal because modern Japanese cooking is also partial to mushrooms. 

Nomama’s Thai green chicken ramen is another must-have from Chef Him’s kitchen. The meat is tender and, as it rolls down your palate, the dish gives out that fresh feeling, perhaps because the meat used for the dish is free-range chicken.

Another proof that the chicken in the restaurant is good is the chili-glazed free-range roast chicken. It’s so good and tender that it leaves that milky, savory and lingering taste in the mouth.

“We get our free-range chicken and organic duck from Laguna; pork from Cavite; and our kitayama (local Wagyu beef) from Bukidnon. We work with a lot of small farmers around the country. It is from them that we source our ingredients,” says chef Him, who finished a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management at De La Salle-St. Benilde and further honed his culinary genius at Le Cordon Bleu in Australia. He worked as a chef in Sydney in 2002. Several years after, he put all the lessons and experiences he had into a restaurant called Nomama that opened late last year. The 150-sq.-m. diner can seat 45 in the main dining and 18 more in the bar.

Inside Nomama, a modern casual Japanese restaurant. Photos by BOY SANTOS

Chef Him says he loves using local ingredients with a Japanese touch. His twice-cooked pork belly, according to my good friend Al D., is a glorious treat to certified carnivores like him. Watch how the main man of Nomama prepares this dish and be mesmerized how he “inflates” the dish with apple smoking chips. The pork belly is placed on a bed of apple teriyaki sauce. And if you believe my friend Al D., it’s effortless to chew on this dish. Its taste: divine!

The roasted snapper with clam, wild arugula, squash blossom salad and yuzu (Japanese lemon) and dashi (Japanese broth) is highly recommended. For me, it tastes like the dish I enjoyed immensely at a restaurant across the main entrance of Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo.

Other crowd pleasers at Nomama include squash blossom tempura with prawn and pork mousse and served with plum sauce, the tuna spring roll, and soft shell crab.

And yes, for that sweet ending — have a bite or two of apple gyoza. It bursts with rum-soaked raisins and served with yogurt foam and miso caramel. It reminds me of the yummy Japanese apple pie I tasted in a famous stall along Osaka’s longest shopping district called Tenjinbashisuji Shotengai.

Caution: the servings here are big, definitely good for sharing. Nomama delivers more than good food at a casual setting and friendly cost.

(Nomama is located at G/F FSS Building, Scout Tuason cor. Scout Castor streets, Quezon City. It is open for lunch and dinner. It also does Open Kitchen Night every third Monday of the month where it serves five-course collaborative menu. Proceeds of the Open Kitchen Night are donated to an orphanage. For reservations at the restaurant, please call 542-2558

or 0917-522-8272.)

(E-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.comor follow me on Twitter @bum_tenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)