It’s been a particularly difficult holiday season, being as it was the final days of our (dear, adorable, elderly) kittycat. We miss him, as we miss his companions who went before him, and we are sad.
Everything is weird. There’s no yowling for attention when we walk in the door, no paws in the neck or snaggletooth poked in the face when we wake up in the morning. It’s a good thing we have this week off from work, because we have been holed up at home, not really dealing with much of anything at all.
In the middle of all this, one night we looked in our fridge and couldn’t stand the idea of anything in it, so we decided to go out. But we couldn’t quite muster the energy to drive to the city, or really to drive at all, so we walked to Asian Grill on Moody Street — that same Asian Grill that in the past had been so abominably wretched that it pained me just to walk past the place. But it’s had a big sign on the front the past few weeks, proclaiming a new Korean and Japanese menu, so we figured we’d give it a chance to redeem itself, and if it was too horrible, we’d pay, leave full plates behind, and walk a little further to Sushi Yasu.
We ordered soon dooboo chigae and tofu kimchi bokum, and both were, dare I say it, excellent. The kimchi bokum was super spicy and vinegary, but I liked it very much, giving it second place in the roster behind the best one, now and always, from Wu Chon. The chigae was well balanced and chock-full of tiny minced octopus and squid and so forth along with the silky tofu. The pan chan were all more than decent as well, and hot barley tea came in heavy diner mugs as we sat down.
So we’ll go back, on the strength of the new Korean kitchen, and maybe next time we’ll be braver and try a dish or two off the rest of the menu as well. It’s nice to know some things can change for the better.
