u/GreyFishHound

I buy supermarket sushi time to time. They satisfy the more than frequent sushi itch without breaking the bank. Amongst them all, I find Meidi-Ya and Donki ones taste better.

However, it really irks me that the quality at Donki is crazy inconsistent. Sometimes, the neta looks good; but recently most of them appear as if they were carelessly sliced. I have seen ootoro that are dark and suspicious; and others full of tendons. At the same time, the chutoro sometimes are insane value for the quality. Does everyone feel the same?

Revisited GU:UM for mother's day, after bringing GF there in April and loving the food.

Meal was still fire (as the younger ones say), both literally and figuratively but it made a dent in my wallet.

Reason I chose this place was because mum and dad never really cared for nor had much fancy restaurant experiences, so I wanted to bring them somewhere different. Being very traditional Chinese and brought up rather frugally, their idea of an indulgent meal is tze char and a typical Dian Xiao Er/Din Tai Fung meal be considered expensive.

We started off with the crowd pleaser option of Korean Fried Cauliflower doused in a spicy and sweet sauce. This is a very easily likable dish, even for myself who much prefers broccoli. This was followed by their rendition of Soondae, done with squid stuffed with a prawn filling. The accompany sauce is a peanut butter samjang which I appreciated but threw my parents a bit off.

Moving on to proteins, we had prawns, abalone, 2 different cuts of pork and their signature shortrib. Prawns are as good as I remember, and mum particularly loved it. The abalone was intended for dad, as he enjoys it and recent experiences in Busan and Hokkaido have been slightly disappointing. He said it's tasty. The pork collar is decent and done slightly pink (as it should be) while the Iberico Pluma shines with its richer and more well marbled meat. Both are tender cuts without the annoying globs of unrendered fat you sometimes get with pork.

The shortrib, the highlight of my first visit; was marginally less memorable this time although it remains super competent. The part we had was slightly fattier and less "melt-in-your-mouth" this time, but everything was still polished clean.

For some carbs, we added on a fried rice. It was tasty but probably something that can be passed over.

Brother wanted to try their hotteok so I ordered that together with a mandarin orange bingsu. The former was served with a really delicious burnt honey ice cream while the latter acts as a lovely palate cleanser after the heavy meats.

Bill came up to $660ish without drinks. Pictures not the greatest because I didn't bother much. Still a restaurant that I recommend. Thanks for reading.