In case anyone's interested - they're running a Winter Special. With an order of at least $20, you get a free order of dumplings.

My wife and I had a great dinner there this evening. As usual, we ordered too much. The obligatory doggie bag came home with us. Fat chance that I'm giving any of it to my dog.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it (again), Dave.

Btw, Mike Sula posted a very nice missive about Ttowa at the Reader's food blog last Wednesday:

Mike Sula at the Food Chain wrote:Ttowa is hardly the only Korean restaurant around town that exhibits a high degree of specialization, and these dumplings, or mandu, can be highly specific themselves--a few of them differ only in preparation, whether steamed, panfried, or deep-fried. My favorites here are the simple steamed mandu that come with a delicate wrapper so translucent you can see the filling inside. The combination gul mandu, (pictured) comes with three pork filled varieties: kimchi, gogi (stuffed with vegetables and japchae) and yetnal (with tofu and vegetables). They're a terrific value at $6.99, as are the wang mandu, fat pork, vegetable, and japchae meatballs encased in a steamed bunlike exterior ($5.99). Less successful are the deep-fried maewun mandu, not unlike fried ravioli, with a sweet-spicy sauce; these are either understuffed or the filling has somehow contracted in the roiling hell of the deep fryer.

=R=

TTOWA seems like an excellent possibility for the Evanston Dumpling (uh, Lunch) Group.

ronnie_suburban wrote:Glad to hear you enjoyed it (again), Dave.

Btw, Mike Sula posted a very nice missive about Ttowa at the Reader's food blog last Wednesday:

Mike Sula at the Food Chain wrote:Ttowa is hardly the only Korean restaurant around town that exhibits a high degree of specialization, and these dumplings, or mandu, can be highly specific themselves--a few of them differ only in preparation, whether steamed, panfried, or deep-fried. My favorites here are the simple steamed mandu that come with a delicate wrapper so translucent you can see the filling inside. The combination gul mandu, (pictured) comes with three pork filled varieties: kimchi, gogi (stuffed with vegetables and japchae) and yetnal (with tofu and vegetables). They're a terrific value at $6.99, as are the wang mandu, fat pork, vegetable, and japchae meatballs encased in a steamed bunlike exterior ($5.99). Less successful are the deep-fried maewun mandu, not unlike fried ravioli, with a sweet-spicy sauce; these are either understuffed or the filling has somehow contracted in the roiling hell of the deep fryer.

=R=

Thanks Ron. I overlooked Sula's article.

Dave148 wrote:In case anyone's interested - they're running a Winter Special. With an order of at least $20, you get a free order of dumplings.

Two orders of dumplings and kimchee fried rice just topped $20 and the very friendly waitress happily informed us of Free Dumplings. A lot of food, but we soldiered on.

TTOWA is quickly taking a place in my go-to rotation, lunch today with a friend, dinner last week with my bride. Speaking of my bride and dumplings, TTOWA comes the closest to the long lamented Lincoln Noodle House's dumpling sauce, TTOWA's Yetnal mandu are similar to the small steamed dumplings she so loved at LNH as well.

Kalgooksu Spicy Sauce / Dadeky



Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:

Dave148 wrote:In case anyone's interested - they're running a Winter Special. With an order of at least $20, you get a free order of dumplings.

Two orders of dumplings and kimchee fried rice just topped $20 and the very friendly waitress happily informed us of Free Dumplings. A lot of food, but we soldiered on.

TTOWA is quickly taking a place in my go-to rotation, lunch today with a friend, dinner last week with my bride. Speaking of my bride and dumplings, TTOWA comes the closest to the long lamented Lincoln Noodle House's dumpling sauce, TTOWA's Yetnal mandu are similar to the small steamed dumplings she so loved at LNH as well.

Kalgooksu Spicy Sauce / Dadeky



Enjoy,
Gary

It's a tough job. But someone's gotta do it for the team...

Thanks Dave148 on the heads up on the Winter Special!

The husband and I went for lunch yesterday and ordered our usual Wang Mandu (my favorite) and then the Maewun mandu, the deep fried dumpling with sweet/sour/spicy sauce...oh my, were they good! We also had the Haemul Kalgooksu, seafood stew with noodle and vegetable....very good on a cold day. For our "Winter Special" freebie, I asked our very friendly server's advice and she immediately pointed out the gogi mandu, steamed pork and vegetable dumpling in small size. We had way too much food for the two of us so we took the freebie dumplings home.

Friendly server told me to pan-fry the leftover steamed gogi mandu, which I did today for our lunch. Awesome....I heated some peanut oil over high heat in a non-stick pan and gently laid the dumplings down. They sizzled and spit for about 5-10 minutes and they were perfect....little bit crispy, little bit steamed.

I love that this place is almost right across the street from us!

I was there on Saturday and enjoyed the hot pot for two with the large dumplings. I think that the large dumplings are best served in a broth which can help counterbalance any shortcomings from doughiness or dense filling. The broth was, as was described above, herbacious and there were the green hand-cut noodles (really more like floating squares of dough) accessorizing this dish. The menu describes it as spicy, but it really just has some jalapeno slices floating in it - pretty mild unless you eat one directly.

We enjoyed a stir-fried pork dish (somewhere on the 3rd page, I've forgotten the name) at the suggestion of our waitress. I've had this before and enjoyed it. I also very much liked the spicy octopus dish (not too chewy) on a previous visit. In the dough department, we also had the large steamed buns which were OK, but I would opt for smaller dumplings next time.

Judy wrote:Friendly server told me to pan-fry the leftover steamed gogi mandu, which I did today for our lunch.

Aside from good, affordable food, this is one of the real strengths of this place - friendly and helpful servers. Our waitress was willing to explain, suggest and help us navigate the menu. She even recommended we order less food because what we had would be enough (didn't work, we over-ordered and took the pork dish home). We also left a fair amount of the hot pot and when they packed it up, they put the broth in one container and the veggies, dumplings and noodles in another so they wouldn't get soggy. This is the kind of care and service that seems basic, until you realize that you can't find it many places.

So I made my second visit to Ttowa in as many months (I'd been there once before and ordered badly). The first was with MrsF while both Thing1 and Thing2 were out of town, now turnabout: MrsF is with her sisters and mother in Switzerland (today was a visit to a cheese factory in Gruyere), and I took the boys to Ttowa.

Wang Mandu are the size of a Bao, with a steamed-bun texture, but with a thinner skin and a ground pork and veggie filling. Tasty, but they arrive so hot, it's hard to eat.

Maewun mandu are fried, with a sour, spicy sauce. The filling has nice, bright-colored veggies in it, these are definitely a hit.

Beef fried rice appeared to be made with shreds of bulgogi -- absolutely great stuff. Don't miss this.

Yangnyum chicken (sounds like the noises we were making while eating: "Yangnyum, Yangnyum") is great crispy chicken doused in a spicy sauce, surrounding cubes of pickled daikon.

And on that note, this place deserves praise for their panchan:
* Oshinko-style sweet pickled radish
* Cubed radish
* Big bean sprouts (mung? soy? I dunno, but they're crisp with big beans still attached)
* Kimchee (actually my least favorite of the bunch)
* Some sort of shredded starchy root vegetable (potato? burdock?) and krab salad with mayo and dill -- nice foil for the heat and really tasty
* And my favorite, dandelion greens with scallions, and a sweet dressing along with lots of red pepper.

We had great service, a lot of attention paid (She was concerned about the amount of water we drink while we eat. No it's not too spicy, we just like putting the fire out over and over). The place had a fair number of people at 7PM on a wednesday, and we weren't the only non-Asians.

Everything above was just under $40 before tip -- not cheap, but very good food, and we brought a bit of the fried rice home (Thing2's claiming it for breakfast, he's up at 5AM for work, so he'll probably get it).

Stuck on 94 today around the dinner hour, I opted to exit off of the Dempster ramp and found myself driving past TTOWA and remembered this post. So, turned onto the side street and found parking in the back lot. My son and I had a nice dinner of fried Wang Mandu, at the request of my son, and the sampler mandu at the suggetion of our waitress. The wang mandu, yes were the size of a baseball and fried...well..it was different and tasty, but I prefer steamed. My son thought they were fab. I really liked the sampler madnu and thought that they were perfect with a little shot of hot chili paste.

However upon reading Joel's post, I am wondering if we got shafted on the panchan. We got:

shredded lettuce with ginger/citrus dressing
cubbed radish
half-moon / thin sliced diakon

That is all. And I was really really happy with this...but where was the kimchee? The greens?

Do you need to order over a certain $$$ amount in order to get more items? Or do certain menu items = certain panchan items?

Had dinner at TTOWA in Morton Grove this PM. As usual, the Korean dumplings were wonderful. It was at the end of the meal that the waitress informed us that tonight was their last night in business, (she mentioned that they were trying to find another location, but nothing has been found yet).

Bummer!

I hate life.

The last day is today. Come have one last order of mandu and say good-bye to a pretty unique place.

We had dinner at TTOWA last Saturday evening and the restaurant was packed.

But I must be missing something. We tried three different dumplings and the fillings seemed identical.

I wish them well, but I would never return for a rerun of what we were served.

Evil Ronnie must have been one of the last to eat at Ttowa.
The name is now Bap & Grill.
No more dumplings.
They still have (not very) spicy wings, but the menu is more "Traditional Korean" -- something I can get at a dozen places between my house and Morton Grove.

Panchan was less inspired -- I miss the sweet and spicy dandelion greens more than the dumplings. We did get a good number of items, and they were more than willing to refill, but, really, I miss the dandelions.

Kimchee Pork with Tofu was pretty tasty: lots of kimchee, good-flavored (but not that spicy) pork and topped with slices of tofu.

The Bul Go Gi was outstanding: A portable burner was brought in with a doughnut-shaped grill. The circular well was filled with very, very tasty broth, which the server moved the cooked pieces of meat and onions into.

Three entrees were more than enough for the four of us, but it came to $66 with 20% tip -- not too steep, but a little more than I expected.

Yes it was good, but I don't see myself going there frequently.

TTowa has moved to 161 W. Wing St. In Arlington Heights.

MikeC wrote:TTowa has moved to 161 W. Wing St. In Arlington Heights.

Thank you. It was very kind of you to register and provide this information.

Regards,

Right down the street from the former TTOWA, Chun Ju does a killer steamed mandu dumpling, 8 or 9 of them for $6.95. Tender, fragrant, awesome, I think better than TTOWA's. Had lunch there yesterday with daughter & ordered them as an appetizer to their wonderful bibim bap. Goat stew is also great.

Golden Chopstick
Chun Ju Restaurant
5707 W. Dempster St.
Morton Grove, IL 60053
847-470-0066

jnm123 wrote:Right down the street from the former TTOWA, Chun Ju does a killer steamed mandu dumpling, 8 or 9 of them for $6.95. Tender, fragrant, awesome, I think better than TTOWA's. Had lunch there yesterday with daughter & ordered them as an appetizer to their wonderful bibim bap. Goat stew is also great.

Golden Chopstick
Chun Ju Restaurant
5707 W. Dempster St.
Morton Grove, IL 60053
847-470-0066

Agreed. Thread here: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6701

Separately, I'm very happy that Ttowa has reopened but the old location was like 5 minutes from where I moved my office 5 weeks ago. That old location would have been perfect for us.

=R=

on livingsocial today (amazon's version of groupon)

$15 for 30.

JoelF wrote:Evil Ronnie must have been one of the last to eat at Ttowa.
The name is now Bap & Grill.
No more dumplings.
They still have (not very) spicy wings, but the menu is more "Traditional Korean" -- something I can get at a dozen places between my house and Morton Grove.

Panchan was less inspired -- I miss the sweet and spicy dandelion greens more than the dumplings. We did get a good number of items, and they were more than willing to refill, but, really, I miss the dandelions.

Kimchee Pork with Tofu was pretty tasty: lots of kimchee, good-flavored (but not that spicy) pork and topped with slices of tofu.

The Bul Go Gi was outstanding: A portable burner was brought in with a doughnut-shaped grill. The circular well was filled with very, very tasty broth, which the server moved the cooked pieces of meat and onions into.

Three entrees were more than enough for the four of us, but it came to $66 with 20% tip -- not too steep, but a little more than I expected.

Yes it was good, but I don't see myself going there frequently.

Stopped at Bap & Grill yesterday with Sparky and his buddy Meep. It's pretty intensely Korean - had a small amount of difficulty communicating with the server (not sure if it was that he didn't speak English or if it was more that he'd never had to translate the panchan or other dishes before.) Boys shared a very tasty Dolsot Bibim Bap - no hoisin available, just gochujang, but oddly there is salt and pepper on the table (and we used the tiny anchovy panchan instead of soy or hoisin.)

We all ordered hot tea, which came in juice glasses and was either a barley or a roasted rice tea. Panchan were numerous and erred on the Korean side: green seaweed with a blap of gochujang, mildly spicy bean sprouts, traditional cabbage kimchi, teeny-tiny anchovies with I think a bit of stir-fried jalapeno, daikon mayo-based coleslaw, cucumber kimchi, something (bitter melon? but not bitter) lightly stewed in a garlic sauce but served cold, maybe a couple I've forgotten.

I asked for soup, had a little trouble figuring out which one - apparently it's one of those menus that lists what might be available, but not necessarily what is available. I wound up with Yukaejang, which reminded me more of a composite kind of egg-flower soup than a beef soup, nice deep red broth - I was offered spicy or not too spicy and was happy with not too spicy. It had lots of noodly-vegetably things in it along with the egg: apparently some kind of fiddlehead, glass noodles, and bean sprouts are traditional and they were all in there and then some. I've never had it before, so I can't speak to how it stacks up, but I was happy.

I swear I've seen the menu before elsewhere; it seems like this place just picked up and moved from somewhere else. I thought it was pretty good for homestyle, "diner" Korean - nothing fancy. I also appreciated that the food didn't seem to come in ridiculous proportions; I had the kids share, but I could easily have ordered one BiBeemBap for each of them.

MikeC wrote:TTowa has moved to 161 W. Wing St. In Arlington Heights.

Pictures from the Arlington Heights Ttowa are here.