Korean cuisine is good at being casual and heftily portioned, great for sharing with big groups and best when it has that rustic charm going.
At Su Korean restaurant, that rusticity is obvious even though the restaurant is brand spanking new, complete with shiny kitchenware and tabletops. iPads are our menus and soups come atop a portable gas cooker. The charm is found in the ever-amiable servers, in the funky K-pop songs booming out and in the dining room, decked out like a garden terrace.
And it’s definitely present in the food. Our rice cake dumpling soup ($79) is chock-full of kimchi and vermicelli stuffing, and swimming in an egg and rice cake broth. And the portions for the savoury gal bee, Korean marinated short ribs ($128), and the kimchi pancake ($79) are generous. While flowing with pungent kimchi and garlic flavours, the only gripe we have is some dishes could stand to be in the kitchen longer. The pancake, while nice and chewy, misses a crispy crust. The boned short rib pieces are bloody and hard to gnaw. The boo dae jeon gol also could simmer for a bit longer as the spicy Korean dumpling broth hardly soaks up any of the wonderful flavours from the fresh beef, vegetables, tofu ingredients and spicy sauces.
But all in all, we do enjoy the comfortable vibe at Su and appreciate that the food is authentically Korean, replete with pungent ‘panchan’ side dishes. With a few tweaks, this is a place we can see ourselves returning to nightly. Janice Jann
Su Korean Restaurant Unit 4, U/G, Energy Plaza, 92 Granville Rd, Tsim Sha Tsui, 2739 4333; facebook.com/sukoreanrest. Meal for two: around $350.