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| - In a part of Central North York's Yonge Street (that I like to call North Koreatown), populated with a variety of Asian diners with more or less the same kind of all-familiar barebones comfort experience (and a couple downtown culinary colonialists like Kinton Ramen establishing an eating post this far north), MeNami begs to stand out in the area with its blazing bright sign, giant corner doors, and a hip trendy décor more reminiscent of a Queen West bar than, say, your average run-of-the-mill Korean or Viet restaurant. I guess it is working, as this place has become an instant popular hit--so proud of their cover feature on a NOW Magazine on new Japanese places to eat, they plastered several copies of it all over their windows.
The menu is all udon, all the time, done in many ways, all made in-house. The multitude of savoury to-share appetizers like beef tataki and pork belly helps to get growling stomachs started. The bar is equipped with under-counter electrical outlets, which I guess is useful to charge up mobile devices while drowning in whatever combination of draft sake, beer and soju.
As for the udon dishes, they are served in many ways: cold, in soup, or in some odd gwai-lo kind of way. The 'original' Tsuke Udon ($7.95) has a clean presentation and a nice chewy and salty taste, and you dip it in a soy-based dipping sauce tsukemen ramen style. A bit more on the traditional side, the mentai ankake udon ($10) was interesting too, with its thick-ass slimy broth with a miso soup flavour. What was really fun was their Oven Baked dish ($14), essentially udon that is more like mac-and-cheese than udon, and it is awesome.
Other than a odd mixup with bill-splitting among our party that resulted in a mysterious and awkward check produced for a non-existent person, service here was fairly decent.
{TTC: Finch subway station}
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