Saturday, September 12, 2015

Head Over Heels?

On Friday I was in the Little Italy neighbourhood. So for lunch, I decided to try new Korean resto Masheel Bistro. Despite the odd name (it means fellowship), first appearance was welcoming. Gone was the frumpy décor of unloved Pho Hung and replaced with trendier dark stones and tables. Looking over the menu, it looks like this bistro is offering a mix of traditional and fusion dishes. I opted for some fried beef dumplings ($5) as appetizers and a spicy pork burger ($12) as my main.

The dumplings came out looking like Japanese gyozas. The skin was full of "blisters" which was a good sign that these were fried in really hot oil. Sure enough, each dumpling was crispy and stuffed with ground beef. A nice start to lunch. The main looked even better although the salad was your typical boring kale. The burger was much nicer: slices of marinated pork belly stir-fried with korean chili paste (Gochujang) meant that the "patty" was spicy and flavourful. The stand-out were the fries, a dish that restaurants usually fail at when compared to fast-food joints. Well, thanks to that hot oil, these potatoes were golden and extra crispy. So much better than the other gourmet burger places. All in all, I really enjoyed my meal here. Hopefully, it won't suffer the lack of traffic that sank its predecessor.

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