date: 5/23/06
location: st. paul
grade: b

though the place is formerly known as shilla, one of the few words written in english that you can see from the street is... shilla. odd, that. wonder why. anyway, the decor is sparse, your spoon is wrapped in paper (for freshness? anway, that must take ages...), and they specialize in korean bbq. odd that in the past month i've run into korean bbq twice, having never been anyplace it's been done before. it's following me.

anyway, since you do need two people at the table for the tabletop version of the bbq, we didn't get it. generally if i go to a restaurant, i'd rather someone else cook, and korean bbq is more of a DIY thing (the time i had it, someone else did the cooking). the tabletop version comes with lettuce, rice, and bean paste. you cook the meat and maybe a few veg, and make a lettuce wrap out of everything else.

the version for one seems to come with only rice. which is less tasty and less interesting of a presentation and such. the squid version chosen is not one that would be recommended, as the squid was way too chewy, and the dish itself was too darn hot. it would've worked a bit better with the whole lettuce thing, where you end up with only a bit of meat at a time.

since apparently i can't have too many ways to eat potatoes, i got a dish featuring potato noodles, tofu, and a lot of oniony/scalliony things in a stir fry. nice, but it had the opposite problem as the squidward bbq- too bland. makes sense, kind of, because the potato noodles are basically a vehicle for other flavors, and i got it with tofu instead of beef, so it would be missing that certain je ne sais quoi that would've helped it along. anyway, soy sauce helped a bit, and i dumped the leftover random sauce we had from the app, which was the best dish we had.

the app was a koren pancake with spring onions and seafood. it tasted like the best of the omelet and the best of a pancake all in one. it's possibly known as pajeon, or some spelling thereof. lovely, i'd like that again.

service was quite good, barring some language difficulties. food got to the table fast, water was refilled, etc. i'd be interesting in trying some of their lunch specials at some point. most entrees are in the $10-$20 range, and with an app and the courtesy dishes (there was some sort of omelet or tofu that was tasty, some pickled things, etc.) the entree would be enough for two people.

though a lot of the menu seemed quite authentic, it's a bit odd to go to a place where you can get sushi, teriyaki, korean bbq, and bimbibop (that's just fun to say...) and such. though beyond the teriyaki and sushi, there's not a lot that you see on menus all over the twin cities, a point in their favor on the authenticity tip. this is not a place that has the hamburger on the menu to placate the non-adventurous eater.