Founded by the same couple that started Maum, the one star Michelin restaurant located in Palo Alto. Micheal and Mei Chih Kim, created an atmosphere of family and couple nights out into one confined space.
It’s a fusion restaurant between Korean and Taiwanese cuisines. The effort is there, ideas are decent and their good dishes are, good. It’s not going to blow you away, hopefully it doesn’t. But it’s a quality restaurant with potential. They definitely have some factors to work on. These factors include the customer service, blend of cuisines and some inconsistencies with flavor between their dishes.
Their customer service is caring and attentive, but they hit the definition of the lingering waiter to a T. We usually don’t have an issue with customer service or pronunciation of dishes, but at some points in the meal, I couldn’t hear what was being served and didn’t understand what was being said. For example, all I know about the wagyu steak dish based off the waiters presentation was that it had sesame seeds, as I couldn’t hear the rest of what he said. And the Rou Song was pronounced Russo, to a degree I had to remember what dish we were talking about.
The best thing from the meal came at the beginning, where the appetizers were extremely impressive. We opted for their beef tartare tartlet with smoked soy and their Santa Barbara sea urchin, potato and prosciutto. Their tartare tartlet was exceptional, with the sweetness of the tartlet, mixed with the diced apples and their smoked soy made the perfect bite. The sea urchin dish was less flavorful, but still mixed perfectly with the fried potato and prosciutto.
Their famous scallion croissant with rou song butter, is decent. But our feelings are mixed, due this dishes potential to be Michelin level, but is clearly lacking in extra details and effort that would take it to that level. Personally, I think that that making the rou song butter means actually infusing the flavor of the pork floss into the makeup of the butter, and not just topping the butter with the pork floss. The croissant was perfectly flossy and pull apart soft. Inside each 1/4th section of the croissant, each with an abundant amount of green onions inside.
The Yeobo, Darling chicken wings were very impressive and had a Korean styled fried outer layer. The dish mixed very well with its shishito pepper that topped the dish.
Not on the same level as the Darling chicken or the scallion croissant, the Lu Rou Lasagna is a messy unorganized dish that again, potential but is not executed in the right manner. The concept is a good idea, but it lacks enough structure to be considered lasagna, and the dish ends up being pasta slathered in too sweet(or at least sweater than usual) Lu Rou.
The Yeobo, Darling wagyu kalbi and banchan is an above average serving of diced wagyu served with kimchi and pickled cucumber slices.
Their trademarked dessert in which the chef/owner had worked on vigorously over the period of Maums closure and Yeobo, darlings opening, was his Karat cake. His idea and effort he put into this dessert resulted in the details of incorporating grated carrots into the batter making it moist on the inside, while balancing out the flavors with thesweetness of the cream cheese mousse. Overall the Karat cake is above average, and definitely has moisture. But is slightly too thick and we feel it could be elevated by making more airy and less chewy. Twas kinda too chewy, but not bad😁.
Their other dessert is their creamy, dark chocolate mouse with banana cream and toasted soybean powder, topped with roasted walnuts. Personally was a little bit too sweet while it also lacked texture, but still isn’t a bad option if craving for a dessert after dinner.
Overall, we tried to be optimistic about this Michelin hopeful, especially because the owners have experience at Benu and Per Se. I do think they have the potential, and since Michelin has drastically lowered their standards and basically is a popularity or fancy rating, they might get it.
We give Yeobo, darling a:
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