Courtesy of Elizabeth Chai
Courtesy of Elizabeth Chai
Guy Wong’s Ponce City Market restaurant Ton Ton is slated to open August 16. The “little wooden jewel box” on the corner of the Ponce City Market Food Hall will have a ramen bar, yakitori bar, beverage bar, and a separate sushi kiosk, explains creative director Nicholas Bown-Crawford.
“It’s based on spots we visited in Japan—a modern, mid-century Japanese feel with a lot of natural wood to warm it up,” he says.
The ramen bar will serve multiple varieties of the noodle soup, including vegetarian (made with root vegetables), chicken-based, chilled, shoyu, and tonkotsu. The yakitori will be enclosed in glass “so nobody smells like a yakitori for the rest of the day,” Bown-Crawford says. Look for chicken, prawns, crispy chicken skins, hearts, liver, pork belly, grilled quail egg, and beef.
There will also be a dive menu with dumplings, spicy miso balls, grilled corn, garlic corn, and Miso Izakaya’s popular shoyu tamago. Guy Wong is developing the menu, and Hong Vu, a partner at Miso Izakaya, will serve as chef de cuisine.
Ton Ton will sell individual-sized sake containers, as well as Japanese beer, to capitalize on Ponce City Market’s open container policy. There will also be an extensive batched and barreled cocktail program led by Miso Izakaya and Le Fat beverage director T. Fable Jeon. Made with rye, Meyer lemon, honey, pressed ginger and Lapsang Souchang tea salt, the Unsung Hiro will be the signature drink. Soju and sake will be incorporated into the majority of the beverages.
At the other end of the Food Hall, the Ton Ton Sushi Kiosk will feature a sashimi raw bar and standard sushi menu, along with other sushi items “you can’t find anywhere in the city,” Bown-Crawford says. It will focus primarily on takeout.
For those who don’t want to wait until August, 4th & Swift is hosting a Ton Ton preview dinner April 21. Tickets are available for purchase.
In addition to Ton Ton, Guy Wong and team are still working on plans for Big Boss Chinese restaurant in Decatur. Bown-Crawford says the lease is signed, and plans for the space include private karaoke rooms. Wong is also building a Mongolian Grill in the old Chow Baby space on Howell Mill Road. It will have an extensive bubble tea program.
“We’re really excited about all the projects going on,” Bown-Crawford says. “This will be a pretty big year of growth for us.”
