WARNING!!!....SUPER LONG REVIEW!!!
Everything in that restaurant décor, concept, servers, and attitude is everything that a small suburban area especially PoCo needs, (trust me, I know, I live here. We moved here from DT after we found out we were expecting) It's a great little gem. I love the whole concept. But, there's a few things that I would tweak, (not twerk...lol), not change but tweak. Starting with the Pineapple Wok Squid, great item but they have to tweak the batter. Think light, airy batter, somewhat like Japanese tempera, add club soda to the batter if you need to. Squid has a delicate texture, if the batter is heavy, it just makes an appy that much more heavy tasting. Just like the other reviewer said, "grilled pineapple, instead of tossed in" would have been awesome. I'd even go as far as to adding more roasted garlic/chilli on top of the squid just like how Sandbar (Granville Island) did it. Then garnish with a wedge of lime.
Hot dogs, oh the hot dogs...lol. Okay, that's one thing on the menu where I was like "WTF????" Not that there was hot dogs on the menu but the lack of creativity that went into the hot dog. Does anybody know why Japa Dogs in Dt are soooo successful, with line ups down the block? It's because you have never tastes those type of flavors in a hot dog. They use unconventional flavors that we are not used to. Once you add regular ketchup and mustard to hot dog, it becomes a simple hot dog, even with their chow chow topping, which was really spicy for my kids. Wish the server would've told us that before we ordered it, but we'll get into that later.
Now we have the Albacore Tuna Salad. First of all, the tuna itself was AHHHHMAZING!!! It was crusted with white and black sesame seeds and cooked to PERFECTION, props to the cook that night!! It would have been even more spectacular if the white sesame seeds were toasted. The salad came with avocados and mangos. Here's the tricky part, when you order something with mango it's always a hit or miss because mangos are a seasonal fruit, meaning, the sweetness varies in season. The mango that I had was sweet, but not as sweet as I was hoping for. I wish they can toss the mango in some sort of syrup or something to have consistency in their mangos through out the year. Come summertime and those mangos will be sweet as hell. Dressing def needs a pick me up, got to have a bit more kick to it, it tasted like plain oil. And top it off with some crunchiness, nuts or crispy chow mien. Asian salads ALWAYS have a crunch to it.
Our server, cute as a button, very soft spoken, girl next door type. I have not one bad thing to say about her personality. The only constructive criticism that I can give her is something she'll learn thru time as a server working in the industry. It's hard for me to judge a server because I was once a server (Cactus Club, Earls, and Sammy J Peppers) and know how much of an asshole customers can be. When I was working at Cactus Club (with Chalmers at the time...lol) one of the motto was, full hands out of the kitchen and full hands into the kitchen regardless if it's your table or not. Customers come back because of the experience they had as a WHOLE and not just as YOU as the server. Our server walked by a couple time without clearing our plates, and going into the kitchen empty handed and luckily another server in the same section cleared our plates....so good on the other girl!!!! I don't want to get into the server too much cause I think it's unfair and it was kind of obvious that she was young and just needed a bit more time. Like I said, absolutely nothing to do with her personality, she was very, very pleasant.
Another thing that I was bummed out a bit on is that I think it's unfair for a restaurant to charge you for something that was already on your food. If mayo was in my burger and I ask for extra mayo on the side, don't charge me. That goes for everything, if a customer ask for a sauce that was already given to them, don't charge them an extra .50 cents, it was already on their existing plate!!. Those are the little things that a restaurant can sacrifice to make a customer feel that they are not being drained out of everything that can be drained.
Okay, more onto the positive side. Their Yam fries were amazing, not greasy at all, perfectly salted and their dry ribs were amazing, super, super good. Def are gonna order those again!!
The décor was spectacular!! I was so amazing on their color scheme and layout. Very different and very unique. I also notice that they had a small patio with a fireplace and I'm looking forward to spending my time there in the summer. I also notice they had a DJ booth, which probably is there on the weekends. I would have LOVED to hear some awesome house music while I was eating. Absolutely, nothing bad to say about the space itself. Beautiful!!!!
Def great place to hang out just needs some tweaking but I would def go back 100%!!!! PS. We received smiles from everyone! A+ read more