Bad pun aside, this was the first soft opening I've been to this year and I have high expectations for the food here.
We went on Friday evening and the place was crowded, but there was no wait for a spot for two at one of the tiny tables.
First impression? Tall people need not apply to the square tables with square seats. Boy's legs hit the table and he sort of crumpled into an overly tired folding bit of human origami in order to fit in.
The seats were ok, but their square shape and the way mine was turned had a corner poking me in the right under-cheek throughout the meal. TMI, I know.
We got seated and I guess they hadn't set the place after the last people left because there were no menus, no chopsticks, just bare table.. which I was ok with.
The hostess came with the food menu right away, the waiter with our water in those little cups that look like the cheap red plastic solo cups but are really solid.
Boy orders the Porkslap beer which I took a horrible picture of (It's very dark within and my arm was moving a bit).
I got the Milky Skywalker.
I learned later, from Pat, that they'd just run out of the thick bubble straws.
Learned a little bit later than that, from the owner Eddie Huang, the reason why it was watery was due to the overworked understaffed waitstaff and it sitting at the bar for a bit. I'mma just chalk it up to soft open jitters and await a perfect pour later. He was nice enough to offer me another drink, but we had to get going. That files him under awesome in my book.
It had jack in it. I'm not really a fan of whiskey, but the promise of fresh soy milk drew me.
I couldn't suck the bubbles up the regular sized straw so they mostly prevented me from drinking it at all.
The wait left it less sweet than I would like. I'd down it in an instant with a bit of condensed milk no matter what the main alcohol was.
Speaking of condensed milk... they should totally do a boozy Taiwanese shaved ice. Red bean, white rum slushie, condensed milk, lychee? I'd go every weekend.
Onto the food.
My lovely assistant is graciously holding up the menu in all its fuzzy worded glory (my fault, the menu was actually perfectly clear. I call it 2 drink fuzzyvision).
I started out with the cucumbers... then managed to eat everything I ordered
with the cucumbers to cut the sheer amount of fried food I got with the bite of vinegar.
Honestly, I was expecting more from these cukes. They were great, don't get me wrong, but kind of tasted a little too close to a good fresh dill cucumber for comfort. I wanted something more in the brine than sugar salt and vinegar. Sesame oil is too trite, but something, iono. I ate them all anyway so my tummy must have said "what does she know? I'm happy."
Boy wanted the trade your daughter chicken. I warned him that we weren't allowed to promise any future progeny until we tasted it.
And there it is. It was very crispy, and quite moist on the inside for white meat. I felt it was perfectly salted and the seasoning only enhanced damn good chicken. Boy thought it had a little too much breading.
The brick sit on wall tofu was awesome. The tofu was solid yet still silky inside and I loved the crunch of the breading. I dunked these in the cucumber vinegar, of course.
He didn't like them very much, but he doesn't do tofu. More for me, om nom and nom.
Next up is the poontang potstickers which I did an awful job of getting into focus. You can clearly see part of the nearest potsticker and not much else. *shrug*
These were great, he loved them, I liked them. The meat was fresh, moist and perfect in texture, but I wanted a stronger flavor base.
Lastly, we had the extreme taste salt cured pork.
This was very crunchy, so much so that I actually enjoyed the few bits I took home as leftovers more than at the initial taste because the crunchy outside had softened. I'mma chalk it up to my teeth being sensitive due to whitening.
I love pork belly so this was a good choice for me. Jack Spratt doesn't care for fatty cuts so much so, again, more for me, bwahaha.
I would alternate bites of cucumber and pork belly and it was good.
These women seated next to us shared the everything but the dog meat platter and it looked really tasty. I probably would have exploded a la Mr Creosote if I'd ordered that as well. It was anything but wafer thin.
I saw a hand from another couple place a huge bone on the table next to them so I can only assume they were eating the same thing or they were channeling Fred Flintstone.
