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| - I have to be honest. Anju, you were not my first choice. Post work, feeling the call of some good Korean fried chicken, we headed over to Olive's, our mouths watering and thoughts of the crunchy, juicy drumsticks we were about to devour but lo and behold, Olive's is closed on Mondays. FYI everyone, lest you suffer the same immediate downward spiral of chicken disappointment.
But then I took a scroll through yelp for some other Korean food options and came across my friend Angelo's review of Anju. Five stars, and rave words. Good enough for me. After finding this non-descript house style restaurant, I am so glad I can now be part of the positive rant.
Because we came at happy hour time, early for dinner, we got a great seat by the window, though we were tempted to eat sideways on the leather couches around another table. Our server was friendly and recommended the gochuang ( I definitely fibbed that spelling, it's fermented chili paste, for the translation) chicken wings if we wanted something spicy, and the stone bowl for something different. We ended up with the asian sesame salad, a pound of half gochuang, half salt & szechwan wings, and the stone bowl with egg and tofu. I had never had gochuang anything before, but the wings were crispy, flavourful, juicy, with just enough kick so that the spice didn't attack you or make you cry. So good. Crack wings. I could have eaten another pound.
The salad was a nice way to start and the stone bowl was also great, kept everything crackling warm, and cooked the egg well. We tried the special for dessert, banana and nutella goyzas with vanilla bean ice cream. The server was apologetic when it took a little too long to get to the table (they make the nutella themselves, it's all fresh) but yes, the wait was worth it. Even the ice cream had a little kick to it.
Thank you Anju for spicing the hell out of everything you made so well, and for fulfilling my deepest chicken desires. Oh yes, I will be back.
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