DAO Fu on Adams Avenue in San Diego's Normal Heights is a Vietnamese-Japanese noodle house run by chef Eric, a French-trained cook from Vietnam, and his partner Maggie, whose Chinese culinary heritage shapes the wok program. The kitchen makes fresh non-GMO tofu and soy milk from scratch every morning, using whole soybeans processed on-site rather than sourced from a distributor. Every dinner begins with a complimentary house salad dressed in ginger vinaigrette and topped with sliced tofu, and every dinner ends with a scoop of ice cream and seasonal fruit — both included in the price of the entrée. Runners and dog walkers returning from Old Trolley Barn Park on Adams Avenue near Florida Street stop in for a quick curry or ramen bowl, taking advantage of the restaurant's fast lunch-counter speed during the early-evening window. The menu splits evenly between a vegetarian front half and a protein-driven back half, covering ramen, udon, stir-fries, and specialty clay-pot dishes including the Hainanese Cast Iron Pot, a family recipe layered with rice, protein, and a garlic sauce that crisps the bottom into a socarrat-like crust. Katsu ramen, wonton soup, tantanmen, and the drunken noodles each ship with free-range organic chicken egg noodles made to order, a step up from the dried-noodle packs most ramen kitchens default to. The 92116 dining room is small and lined with years of patron doodles and handwritten notes on every wall surface, a running mural that records the restaurant's tenure on this stretch of Adams Avenue. Eric's lemongrass chicken and the eggplant-tofu-jalapeño stir-fry rank as the two most reordered plates on the menu, both tuned to a 10-point spice scale that runs from zero heat to a pure tien tsin pepper finish. The no-MSG commitment extends to every sauce and broth in the kitchen, including the 18-hour tonkotsu base that undergirds the ramen program. Dessert after DAO Fu extends into the Adams Avenue corridor itself, where Stella Jean's Ice Cream Kensington churns small-batch scoops a short walk east toward Kensington. The Hainanese Cast Iron Pot arrives table-side still sizzling, with a crust of caramelized rice fused to the clay surface that requires a flat spoon to scrape loose.