Korean bar treats at Anju

NEW RESTAURANT

Anju 62 Tras Street Singapore 079001 Tel: 6612 1172 Open for dinner only Tues to Sat: 6pm to 10.30pm

SO, WE finally got a table at Anju. Considering it's easier to get through the quarantine hotline than a reservation at this hip Korean restaurant, it's only natural that we perform a celebratory ritual as others before us have done.

First up is to post the requisite IG story with salivating emoji. Then, re-watch Korean dramas to get ourselves into a Seoul-searching mood. Third, make all the appreciative noises at the table about how it feels like we've been teleported into a stylish Gangnam eatery with all the wonderful authentic flavours you can only find in Korea. Fourth: we suddenly sit up and go, wait a minute, since when did we ever eat this kind of Korean food in all the times we've been to Seoul?

Make no mistake. There's a lot to like about Anju. The soothing, muted hues and discreetly upscale ambience that tells you this is no budget production. A menu that hits all your happy buttons, with instant gratification in the form of easy-to-comprehend crunchy, sweet, tangy and umami sensations, and nothing novel or culturally complex. A meal here is like meeting someone for the first time and hitting it off, enjoying an entertaining conversation that, by the end of it, tells you very little about the person.

If you're not planning to have a deep relationship with your deep-fried shrimp, then by all means dig into the highly addictive Bori prawns (S$8) - crunchy baby crustaceans dusted in a red chilli salt that lends a touch of smokiness and a spicy kick that's just nice.

The menu is crafted by head chef Kim Gi Deok who was last the sous chef of Kimme, and whose ex-boss Louis Han now helms the more creatively ambitious Naeum.

At Anju, he takes the crowd-pleasing route with simplified but modified familiar Korean cooking that you won't find in a traditional eatery in Seoul, nor is it sophisticated enough to compete with the modern eateries there.

If anything, this is Korean food for non-Koreans. But what Anju has going for it is a mastery of the local palate. The food is tweaked such that nothing is too sharp nor salty; plays to our love for crunchy and raw things; and appeals to our curiosity about foreign alcohol, with plenty of exotic (to us) Korean libations beyond the clear soju that K-drama thespians knock back copiously whenever they love someone who doesn't love them back.

Domi carpaccio (S$24) shows its Japanese links with very fresh snapper sashimi lightly marinated in oil and citrus, seasoned with dots of miso-like barley makjang. Crunchy bits of seaweed make a satisfying cameo as a textural foil to the silky fish.

Traditional Yuk Hoe (S$28) gets a literal translation but a modern presentation as raw beef tartare marinated with sesame oil and pickled onions, topped with charred kale and a raw egg yolk - savoury and slippery on its own, but transformed with sweet and refreshing shavings of Korean pear.

The star of the meal is also the most comforting - Hogan Jeon (S$25) which is just begging to be spun off as a fast food franchise. The jeon is unlike any we've had - an unrelentingly crisp disc of shredded potato sandwiched with a layer of seafood pancake, and mozzarella glueing the two together like the holy matrimony of pizza and rosti blessed by a Korean ajumma.

Given the popularity of the place, one of its objectives is to try and pack in two seatings a night to accommodate the eager beavers who want a piece of their jeon. That means not-so-subtle hints that you're on the clock, so don't even think of lingering. At 7.07pm, with almost an hour to go before our assigned 8pm curfew, a server informs us that it's time for our last order.

Still, she does her best to be diplomatic about it, in the way one might implore a stray cat not to step into your house - with the full intent to kick it out should it not comply.

But we have no last orders to make and anyway, our main arrives - Bossam (S$50) or braised pork belly all wobbly and fatty with the distinct fermented saltiness of bean paste.

Three kinds of pickles accompany it - vinegared mushrooms, excellent dried radish kimchi and a sweet pickled radish.

Order a side of white kimchi (S$7) to go with the pork, because you need the sweet acidity of the different pickles to counter the fatty, salty meat. Wrap everything into lettuce leaf parcels for the complete experience.

The weakest link of the night is dessert (S$15), an amorphous blob of marshmallowy meringue draped like an awkward UFO over a scoop of sweet potato ice cream layered with a caramel custard. Bland over bland with no contrast, it's inoffensive but pretty forgettable.

With friendly pricing and good food, Anju knows how to please, and it scores high on that point. It may not compete in the complexity department but really, when life is complicated already, just having a good time is enough for us.

Rating: 7

WHAT OUR RATINGS MEAN

10: The ultimate dining experience 9-9.5: Sublime 8-8.5: Excellent 7-7.5: Good to very good 6-6.5: Promising 5-5.5: Average

Our review policy: The Business Times pays for all meals at restaurants reviewed on this page. Unless specified, the writer does not accept hosted meals prior to the review's publication.