Today I had a job interview. Thoughts on the interview and the direction of my life will be shared in a different post. After the interview I decided I was entitled to eat lunch that didn't consist of the chicken soup I have been faithfully eating for the last week (it's good but after 7 days it gets a bit, well, tiresome). So I went to
Koon 9 for a change of pace. I'd never been before but had noticed it, across from the brown line Wellington stop, on the occasions that I was watching the
dogs (they live relatively nearby). Financial ruin be damned! The place is cute and at 11:40 pretty quiet. There were, in addition to me, two other tables with people at them. I ordered the Tom Yum soup, chicken satay, white tuna and pickled radish maki and, surprise, surprise, one wasabi tobbiko.
The soup tasted as it ought. It had big chunks of tomato, onions and pepper that I could do without but it also had lemongrass, straw mushrooms and a proper spicy kick that has been lacking in a few of my most recent tastes of Tom Yum. The satay wasn't stellar but there wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with it. The chicken was tender, it just didn't have much of a flavor going on. I think it would have been better if the meat had been a bit salted and maybe even grilled a bit more for that charred look that is so in these days. The peanut sauce that accompanied the chicken was equally okay. But the cucumber salad, again, gave me faith that I do know what to expect from Thai restaurants. Basically
this experience has been confirmed as being the worst meal ever.
I'm always skeptical of "Thai-Japanese" restaurants. It just seems like you should stick to one cuisine. And, if you're actually from one of the two countries (usually Thailand), you might as well stick to what you really know. There are plenty of examples of why this thinking is wrong (Hama Matsu is run by Koreans and includes a few Korean dishes) but, generally, I think there's no shame in that food game. To that end, my sample of sushi was not all that fantastic. I took a little of the fish out of one of my rolls and it didn't have that distinctive buttery feel and taste I've come to expect of white tuna. The wasabi tobbiko was properly wasabi-ized but very shallow, yielding a very large rice to roe ratio. Rati-roe? Hee hee.
All in all, I'd go back and try a Thai noodle dish. My meal, with tax and tip, cost $20. Which, though I have no money to spend on such things, isn't so bad for the quantity and overall quality of the food. You could easily eat lunch here for $10 if you just settled on a main entree or soup and appetizer kind of deal.
The soup tasted as it ought. It had big chunks of tomato, onions and pepper that I could do without but it also had lemongrass, straw mushrooms and a proper spicy kick that has been lacking in a few of my most recent tastes of Tom Yum. The satay wasn't stellar but there wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with it. The chicken was tender, it just didn't have much of a flavor going on. I think it would have been better if the meat had been a bit salted and maybe even grilled a bit more for that charred look that is so in these days. The peanut sauce that accompanied the chicken was equally okay. But the cucumber salad, again, gave me faith that I do know what to expect from Thai restaurants. Basically this experience has been confirmed as being the worst meal ever.
I'm always skeptical of "Thai-Japanese" restaurants. It just seems like you should stick to one cuisine. And, if you're actually from one of the two countries (usually Thailand), you might as well stick to what you really know. There are plenty of examples of why this thinking is wrong (Hama Matsu is run by Koreans and includes a few Korean dishes) but, generally, I think there's no shame in that food game. To that end, my sample of sushi was not all that fantastic. I took a little of the fish out of one of my rolls and it didn't have that distinctive buttery feel and taste I've come to expect of white tuna. The wasabi tobbiko was properly wasabi-ized but very shallow, yielding a very large rice to roe ratio. Rati-roe? Hee hee.
All in all, I'd go back and try a Thai noodle dish. My meal, with tax and tip, cost $20. Which, though I have no money to spend on such things, isn't so bad for the quantity and overall quality of the food. You could easily eat lunch here for $10 if you just settled on a main entree or soup and appetizer kind of deal.
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