Namu wows with eclectic Korean fusion
Kitchen crew at quaint Dundas restaurant is cooking up a storm
Within the first few months of writing reviews for The Spec, I wrote one on Liberté Tapas, which has since closed. Such is the restaurant industry, unfortunately.
But Namu has sprung up in its place, like a tree (which is what Namu means in Korean) and is cooking up a storm.
Though the quaint brick facade remains, the sandwich board out front gave us a glimpse of our new hosts’ style: “sushi taco,” “chicken Donburi” and “blueberry tart.” A little from here, a little from there.
We had a table reserved for three — not a bad idea on a weekend since the dining room sits 25-ish and was almost full throughout our meal.
Off-white walls with dark wood trim, shiny wooden tables and elegant domed lights hanging from above give the place a slightly more formal vibe. But the cookbooks set atop the ledge over the windows, the soft jazz playing and a “welcome” sign over a doorway dial down the vibe to nice casual.
The cookbooks spell out the multicultural approach — “Ad Hoc,” by Thomas Keller sits on the same shelf as David Chang’s “Momofuku.”
One of my first cooking experiences was working with chef Anita Lo, back in the ‘90s, and seeing Asian fusion on the menu here got me psyched for the meal to come.
First, we got drinks. There was wine and beer but when eating Asian, the question for me is sake or soju. I asked our server, the wife of the chef, which she prefers. She said she prefers junmai, so that’s what we went with. It was friendly, a pleasant amount of rice flavour with a hint of sweetness.
During the short wait for the appetizers, we listened to our table neighbours raving about their food.
Our first dish, crispy Brussels sprouts, arrived in a simple but elegant wooden bowl. Nutty with sesame and crispy rice, and sweetened a little (with Mirin, I thought), they were sublime.
I wanted to finish the bowl but then the other apps arrived: soup stuffed lobster shrimp dumplings (a smooth delivery of the briny sea), and sweetly spiced pulled pork bao with fresh cucumber
and a perfectly soft bun, all made in house. Both came in wooden bowls again, but the dumplings were in a flat-bottomed bowl.
When I worked in Japan, careful attention was given to the dishware, reflecting the seasons, the size of the dish, or simply the pattern or colour that would highlight what was served in it. Clearly, the team at Namu shares those values. Our squat little sake cups were lovely, decorated with delicate flowers, and every entree had its own beautifully distinct crockery.
Ramen was the first of these, and what a ramen. Our server told us that the chef had travelled through Japan, tasting ramen after ramen to develop his palate. She recounted that he had practised making it so much, at one point she had to ask him to take a break so they wouldn’t have the rich pork-chicken broth continually stewing on the stove, heating the place up.
It was worth it, though. I haven’t tasted such ramen since my travels in Japan and this one, like those, carried its own signature. Unctuous and rich broth, with a concentrated pork essence from pulled pork and smoked bacon pork that I loved. A sousvide egg in the broth, runnier than usual, made it even richer. Wow. Superlative.
I can’t wait to return, if only just for this ramen.
The veggie lover’s bibimbap was tame compared to the ramen, but still good. Served in an individual-sized iron skillet, its rice approached the level of crispiness you get in a traditional dolsot (stone pot) bibimbap. Seasonal veggies (carrots, red cabbage and kale) were accompanied by sautéed enoki mushrooms and tonkatsu style tofu (like a tofu cutlet).
We also tried the marinated steak ssam. A lettuce wrap with Cumbrae’s hanger steak? Oh yeah. Charred scallions, and chimichurri sauce that had a hint of soy, went perfectly with the gochujang sauce (spicy Korean red pepper paste).
How could we top this? A blueberry tart. Our neighbours had another dessert but it sold out, so we just got a tart to share. Would that we had gotten two; our son was gobbling it up and we came to playful shoves trying to outmanoeuvre my wife for bites.
The graham cracker crust was nice and crisp since they fill them to order with those sweet blueberries. Gone in a jiffy, it’s now just a memory, one of many that I have from visiting Namu.