3.116

30 (Mon) April 2012

Ika Karaage

2.0

at Doki Doki

-Songpa, Seoul, Republic of Korea-

with KHJ + PHY

I’d written about this same dish at this same restaurant last year (see 2.363 Ika Karaage), except that it really wasn’t the same.  For starters, the squid was cut into rings this time, whereas previously it’d been in chunks.  As far as I’m aware, the standard for karaage doesn’t favor any particular shape.  Maybe some people prefer rings.  I don’t.  The point is, something had changed.  Second, despite being deep-fried, the coating was curiously dry, which brought to mind the “air frying” cookers advertised on late night cable TV these days; by contrast, the exquisitely executed coating last time prompted me to declare that “the restaurant’s frymaster knows his craft.”  Finally, if the squid had been marinated, then not sufficiently so – it just tasted like tempura, a bland one.  Last time, in giving it a 4.0 rating, I described it as “probably the best deep-fried squid of any kind that I’ve ever had. Perfection.”  This time, I am reluctant to give it 2.0.

My guess is that the establishment has outgrown itself.  Even on a Monday night, it was packed to capacity.  The menu, which had been a hand-written, double-sided piece of laminated paper, had swelled into a laser-printed, ten-page velobound catalogue.  Too many customers, too many dishes.  No quality control.

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