| rev:text
| - Day 1: 3/5. Day 2: 3.5/5
Day 1: OK... now I've been here once before and enjoyed it, but this round was pretty disappointing. They have a new lunch menu and, for the first two weeks of it, had a special 50% of the lunch menu on weekdays. Tomorrow is the last day and I will give it one more go since I did enjoy it last time.... but I will be ordering different items.
The atmosphere at anju is nice and the service was good. I liked that they explain how things come out family style so we didn't expect to get all our food at the same time. I wouldn't expect this at most korean places but since it's a modern fusion restaurant, you just never know. My friend and I shared some dishes while the others ordered their own plates.
We got the crispy tofu with kimchi and pork belly. 5/5 for tender pork belly, tasty kimchi and indeed crispy tofu! The flavours went well and the kimchi was great!
The black bean noodles get a 3/5. The redeeming factor here is that they did not skimp on the ingredients. There were plenty of veggies and tonnes of shrimp! Unfortunately, this dish was bland and really needed more spices. Also, it was sticky and dry compared to the saucy black bean noodles I know. Gochujang saved the dish... but as a coworker said, if that's what it takes, it's not very good.
Lastly, the Poke.... not sure if they're just trying to hop on the poke bandwagon but this dish was pretty bad as far as I'm concerned. I give this a 2.5/5 and even that only because the fish seemed decently fresh and the avocado nicely ripe. They ran out of bowls which made it difficult to eat the way it should be eaten. The fish was barely marinated. The other ingredients were just plain and shredded. The marinade itself lacked flavour... maybe it was soy sauce and sesame oil... no green onions, ginger, garlic, or sweetness that I could taste or see. I've made poke at home and it tasted a million times better than this!
I'm convinced we just ordered the wrong things since the stone bowl bibimbap with beef and the steak sandwich looked, and apparently tasted, great! If things go better tomorrow, I will leave another review!
Now to be fair... my bill came to $14 and I left $20 since the service was good and I like to tip on the full price. It was very very cheap for anju. But honestly I wouldn't even pay that much for the noodle and poke dishes again.
Day 2: As promised, my next review. An improvement on yesterday and fine for the discounted price we paid... but not fabulous.
Curry chicken pitas get a 4/5 with a lovely creamy curry flavour that isn't too overwhelming, the ripe tomato and micro greens add some needed freshness, and there was plenty of chicken! There were a few too many onions in it for me, but I'm biased as I'm not a huge fan of raw onions in general... a few hours later though the onion is still lingering in my mouth.
3.5/5 beef bibimbap had nice medium cooked steak bites in it were good quality and tender and the veggies were nicely cooked, but the veggies needed a touch of seasoning and the rice itself was cooked with too much water leading to the dreaded rice mush. It was so mushy it wouldn't even sear on the stone bowl even though we left it for a solid 7 minutes. The gochujang sauce was good but could have used a bit more flavour vs spice.
3.5/5 BC halibut had a nice salty crust but it was a bit overcooked. It was served with one half of a nice bittersweetly charred bok choy..... however, if these plates are meant to be shared, shouldn't there be at least 2 halves?? Rice was nicely seasoned but there was too much of it without anything to cut through the sesame oil...
Ramen caesar gets a 3/5. The seasoning they use tastes like the instant ramyun spice packets.... and I confirmed that that is indeed what they use lol! Interesting but I much prefer a regular caesar myself.
My final opinion: Fine for what we paid (50% off food) but I wouldn't pay full price for these dishes except for the curry chicken pitas and crispy tofu with pork belly. Service was great, atmosphere is good. Location is central but parking kinda sucks.
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