If you want to set the bar high, give your restaurant a name that suggests a meal is an experience fit for a king.
Sura roughly translates to "royal table" in Korean. The interior is uncomplicated, with large windows, pastel walls and functional seating, and it was mercifully cool when I dropped in for dinner with my friend Don recently.
That was the good news. The bad news was that despite only a handful of other customers, we were rebuffed when we asked if we could be seated in one of the empty booths. "Sorry, reserved" came the reply, with a gesture toward a small table. I inquired if they were all reserved and the manager stepped over to confirm this. As it was not quite 5:30, I asked what time they were reserved for and received the ridiculous response of 8 p.m. He seemed to realize it was absurd and relented.
The menu features a good range of Korean specialties, with barbecued meats, noodle dishes, soups and hot pot making up the bulk of the offerings.
Unfortunately, the menu is loaded with phrases like "authentic Korean BBQ sauce," "spicy sauce" and "house special sauce." Korean food is typically prepared with ingredients including hot red pepper, bean paste, sugar, soy, garlic, ginger, sesame oil and vinegar. While I have a pretty good indication of what most dishes found on a North American menu will taste like, the uninitiated wouldn't find much information here. This can be overcome if the floor staff know what is in the dishes, but a few questions revealed a serious lack of knowledge in this regard.
Barbecue meals offer a range of items, and they were on special that night, so we decided on Combo A. This is a fun way to eat, as you grill the food at your table, but be warned -- you smell like your dinner afterward. Two bowls of mild broth appeared first, each bearing a generous dumpling, stuffed with pork and a good dose of ginger. Fried dumplings were much better than the bland dipping sauce they came with. "Salad" was a pointless handful of organic "leaves-in-a-bag," garnished with a couple of shreds of carrot and a drizzle of dressing.
Unlike the more complex presentations typical of some Asian cuisines, Korean dishes are relatively simple. Meat or fish is combined with a few vegetables, and flavours are often fairly pedestrian. You adjust the spice or heat levels of your meal with condiments and the many side dishes or banchan that typically grace the table. The most famous of these is a cabbage kimchi (brined vegetable) dish called baechu. While fermented cabbage with chili might not appeal to everyone, I love it and indeed, Koreans don't consider a meal complete without it.
We also received chilled blanched bean sprouts dressed with sesame oil, cold candied potatoes -- both good -- but a pathetic offering of several spinach leaves with literally a drop of indistinguishable dressing was a disappointment.
We received a good selection of meats (in spicy sauce) -- marinated beef, boneless chicken thighs, both predominantly flavoured with soy, sugar and garlic, shredded pork with a healthy amount of chili and unseasoned short ribs, all of which were good.
Less impressive were the accompanying vegetables: a small bunch of enoki mushrooms, three halved button mushrooms and a thin slice of yam, also cut in half. We never received the lettuce leaves that are supposed to come with this meal. No peppers, no cucumber, no onion, no carrot. We added a dish of crispy lemon chicken which was drowned in bottled hot sauce and not worth the $15.95 price tag.
We requested more rice, kimchi and water. We got the banchan, but when the rice hadn't arrived 10 minutes later, we asked again. It turned out we didn't get it because our server didn't know what rice meant. It arrived courtesy of the manager and was added to our bill.
Given what they saved on produce, it should have been a freebie.
I have eaten lunch here a few times over the past year. While some of the dishes here are pretty good, nothing blows my mind, though nothing tastes truly bad, either. There is no logical correlation between portions and price point in some cases, and service, though pleasant, is uneven.
My sincere advice to the owner is to talk with the kitchen about their vegetable phobia and work on the product knowledge on the floor. These things, combined with silly seating policies (only one other booth was occupied in the time we were there), are costing you business.
