Minari Oriental Restaurant

We stopped by this place in the last closing minute for a quick snack.  This is a regular Korean dining place, but not a late-night drinking lounge, so there was basically nobody and the owners were almost ready to go home.

We ordered one ddukbokki (spicy rice cake).  for 9 dollars it was adequately cooked, but the dish lacked some ingredient, most prominently fish cake.  Also, the rice cake wasn't perfectly cooked, but some of them were a little hard.  On top of that we were able to feel that the owner is so eager to go home.  Nobody would know if we would have been given more time for a comfortable dining if we ordered more food.

Anyway, I think it's not fair to bash on a restaurant after visiting it at their closing time and ordering only one dish for two people.  So I will write a more fair review to the restaurant after my next visit, but I have no idea when that will happen.

I couldn't trust So Gong Dong Tofu House to prepare a carryout dinner for my husband after being served under cooked food there, so I went next door to Mee-na-ri to order some take out.  The lady owner was super welcoming and cheerful, which is a totally different attitude from the SGDTH's owner's attitude.  I was a little nervous about ordering from here without reading the reviews first, but for some reason I thought it was okay to take a shot in the dark that night.  I ordered marinated beef spare ribs and grilled mackerel.  My husband enjoyed both of these dishes.  The fish was especially fresh and juicy.  Although the variety of banchan sides were not abundant, the sides were very tasty and in generous portions.  The rice here was not your regular Korean white rice.  It was sticky sweet rice with different types of legumes such as red/black beans and garbanzo beans, which was quite tasty and had a unique texture.  I look forward to returning here and trying more dishes!

I will give this place a lot of slack because it appeared the ahjumma (literally aunty, but in this case referring to owner), seemed to be the only one working the place (both in the kitchen and in the front) the night that we went. We wanted to order this chicken stew dish but was told that they don't make it anymore, not that they ran out of it and stopped for the night but it seemed that they just stopped making it (if you no longer serve a dish please please please remove it from the menu so as to not tease customers like that). We ordered other dishes and I have to say that they were okay, not the best but certainly not the worst and the banchan (side dishes) was not that impressive. She did take a long time to fill water glasses and such and I think it was because she was the only one there working which is why I'm giving this place 3 and not 2 stars...