My high school BFF and I decided to have our reunion here because in S Florida most Korean restaurants only serve traditional dishes, so Modern Korean sounds like a fun thing to explore.
I arrived first, but was told that if I take my seat now, the clock will start clicking, as there's time limit for each table, like 75 min. Though I don't think they enforced it, as the restaurant was rather empty throughout the weekday lunch hour.
We first had some rice rolls. They are colored, with black for the squid ink, etc. You eat it with some beef, wrapped in a lettuce leaf. We couldn't quite decide if the different colored ones taste different, or it was just our perception.
The rice cake in cheese sauce is basically made like an Italian pasta, using the Korean rice cake instead. It adds a chewiness to it, but the dense rice cake is also much more filling, and do not absorb the sauces as good, as the thinner pasta.
The Mama Garden Salad came with some broken pieces of dry instant ramen on top of greens. I wondered aloud that it must a be a very busy (or lazy) mom who would just sprinkle dry instant noodles onto a salad. My friend, who is a crunchy instant ramen connoisseur since childhood (and still enjoys it with her kids), explained that Mama is the brand name of the instant noodle, and then went on about how her favorite brand of ramen had switched formula and not as good as before...
With all the rice balls and rice cakes, we were so stuffed. Somehow I feel I like traditional Korean better. read more