2479 18th St. NW; 1800 Rockville Pike H-1, Rockville, Md.; 10101 Twin Rivers Rd., Suite C2-100, Columbia, Md.; 3731 Boston St., Baltimore; 8133-A, Honeygo Blvd., Nottingham, Md.; 1 E. Joppa Rd., Suite 165A, Towson, Md.; 10200 Mill Run Cir., Suite 104, Owings Mills, Md.; 3290 Bennett Creek Ave., Ijamsville, Md.; 1417 S. Main Chapel Way, Suite 108, Gambrills, Md. akiraramenizakaya.com.
Like Daikaya, Akira is both a ramen restaurant and an izakaya. Unlike Daikaya, it has eight locations in Maryland and one in Adams Morgan. Wakuda frequents the D.C. spot, where he enjoys its simplest ramen, fittingly named Akira ramen, which consists of pork, bean sprouts, egg, chopped scallion, bamboo shoots, seaweed and wood ear mushrooms in a salty pork broth, and goes for about $15 per bowl. Akira also serves other Japanese noodle soups, including soba and udon, and some fusion foods like Hawaiian-inspired poke and Italian-inspired salmon carpaccio.
D.C. location hours: Noon to 4 p.m., 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday; noon to 4 p.m., 5 to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; closed Tuesday.
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