As much as I love Korean food, Korean fine dining is just not my thing. I guess I'm more of a Korean street food person - give me a simple pajeon, jajangmyeon or dobukki, I'm a happy girl.
Celebrated my 22nd birthday with a Korean fine dining dinner at Onsemiro. Located in The Intermark, Onsemiro is an epitome of stillness and silence. The restaurant itself was quiet with just a few patrons. Not the usual noisy Korean BBQ houses you go to where from far you could smell the heavy scent of smoke from the BBQ platter or the noisy chatter of the patron.
Onsemiro has a limited menu of dishes - they serve the typical Korean stew, Beef BBQ, noodles and pancakes. Nope, dobukki (rice cake in spicy sauce) and black sauce noodles didn't make the cut for this fancy fine dining restaurant.
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| Complimentary Tofu Stew |
It was a complimentary dish from the chef. Do not expect any regular tofu in it, rather it was mashed tofu or rather mashed bean curd stew. It was a little weird as it felt like we were having some rather sandy soup with cabbage thrown in. It was good nonetheless, but the taste only really settle down after a few spoonful of soup. The waitress explained that it is rather rough in texture as it was made purely out of bean curd.
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| Side Dishes |
Their side dishes were decent. I wasn't very satisfied with it though. I personally thought Dao Rae had a better set of side dishes. Their kimchi was mediocre as I prefered it to be more well seasoned and preserved.
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| Bean sprout |
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| Have no idea what this was |
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| Preserved radish slice |
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| Kim Chi |
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| Complimentary Dish |
It's either they were really generous or they felt bad for my family. We went there the week before but a short circuit occured before our food arrived and we were left to wait for a while till we decided to leave since we were hungry. They took down my name in the event I decided to return the next time.
This was a fried dish platter - fried oyster, fried seaweed with filling and fried brinjal.
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| Prime Saengdeungsim - Grilled Prime Beef Sirloin @ RM 98 |
This don't come cheap. Just two mini ribs grilled to perfection, well partial perfection. It was slightly rare for me, I prefer mine to be close to well done. However, it was tender and juicy and sizzling hot. You have order above certain pieces in order to BBQ it by yourself, or else the waiter will prepare it for you in the kitchen.
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| Japchae - Potato Noodles Stir Fried with Vegetables @ RM 35 |
The potato noodles tasted averag in my opinion. The chewy texture of the noodles was far from my liking and it was a tad too oily too. Despite the savory potato taste of the noodles, I personally think street noodles tasted way better!
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| Nakji Somyeon - Noodles with Stir Fried Baby Octopus @ RM 45 |
As red as it look, it is no joke in terms of spiciness. For my level, I felt it was fine but it could be quite spicy for most people. The noodles were overdosed with baby octopus. A little of baby octopus is fine, but this plate was literally drowned with it.
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| Kimchi jjigae - Kimchi Stew @ RM 25 |
Rich in cabbage, kimchi and sardine fish, this kimchi stew was good, but not great. It would have been better if the kimchi stew was richer in taste. The sardine fish was disappointing, it tasted much out of the can sardine fish. I had some rice with the stew but the rice itself was hard and disappointing.
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| Samgyetang - Chicken Ginseng Soup @ RM 45 |
Too little ginseng. I couldn't taste the ginseng at all, they deemed to use expensive Korean ginseng for the soup but it's just missing in terms of taste. I've tasted better samgyetang in the Korean restaurant in Ampang.
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| Hae-mul Pajeon - Seafood and Green Onion Pancake @ RM 32 |
This was my favorite dish throughout the night. I guess you can rarely go wrong with pajeon. The pajeon was thick, rice and generous in terms of filling. It taste just darn good.
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| Complimentary Dessert |
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| Persimmon Sorbet |
I read in blogs that their persimmon sorbet was one of the best but now that I've tasted it, I frowned upon it. It wasn't sorbet, it was pretty much frozen persimmon. It was so hard and cold that poking a fork through it was literally impossible. Stuffing the whole persimmon in the mouth wasn't really a good option either.
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| Yakgwa - Traditional Fried Honey Filling Rice Cake |
This was good apart from the excessive sweetness. Fried to a perfect crispiness which tasted much like a chinese biscuit and dosed with honey, this was the epitome of sinfully sweet.
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| Cooling Melon Drink |
I had this in almost every korean restaurant. A typical double boiled melon drink to cool down the body after a heart meal.
Onsemiro was a decent dining place but I doubt I will be back any sooner. Perhaps I wasn't used to these type of Korean food, I didn't really fancy the dishes either, neither did my family.
Address : Second floor, Intermark Mall, The Intermark, Jalan Tun Razak, KL
Tel: 03 2161 2461
Opening times: Open daily, 11.30am–2.30pm; 5.30pm-10.30pm
-thevanillapudding-
