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| - I had high hopes for this place, but I have literally had better food in a South American prison.
I ordered the pork kat-su and vegetable tempura.
This is the place once designated for Chuy's Tacos. It seems to change hands every six months or so. It's a tiny little joint with maybe four booths for sitting.
Anyway, the cooler for prepared foods in the kitchen was, according to a sign, "out of order." So that meant that for some reason, the prepared food cooler was parked in the tiny dining room by the refrigerator holding the sparse selection of drinks. The young woman who took my order came out of the kitchen several times to grab, with her hand, tofu and other food stuffs from the cooler.
The miso soup that came with the order was room-temperature. As far as I could tell, they added tap water and tofu cubes to the miso paste.
The salad that came with the pork kat-su had no dressing. When I asked for dressing, I was handed a squirt bottle of thousand island dressing, the kind with the little pickles in it? The little pickles had, or course, been squished into and blocking the opening of the squirt bottle, so that didn't work. I had to take the bottle apart to access the dressing, a messy and stupid procedure. The salad was acceptable mixed greens and one lonely cut strawberry.
The rice obviously had been sitting around all day. It was dried up to the point where some of it was very chewy and some of it was actually crunchy. I asked for but never received some extra kat-su sauce to put on the rice.
The pork cutlet was overcooked but the best thing on the plate.
I do not know what they used to bread the "tempura" vegetables, but it was more like breading than tempura. The vegetables appeared to be from a frozen or pre-cut bag. No onions or appealing elements such as mushroom or asparagus, but such stand-byes as broccoli florets that appeared to be squished into a bread ball. Also, the tempura tasted burned.
I hope this place gets better. It is next to a great neighborhood in the Huntridge area and I think a well-thought-out effort could be successful, but so far, this is not it.
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