Square Meal Lifestyle

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THE LAST WORD Jinjuu's deliciously punchy take on Korean

cuisine suits Soho down to a T. We'll be back for seconds very soon

THE LAST WORD East Asian may be the cuisine of the

moment but the cooking at this latecomer needs more kick

Bó Drake

6 Greek Street, W1D 4DE

No telephone Price £40

Now, this is a time-capsule restaurant for

2015 if ever there was one: an on-trend

Korean-Mexican mash-up, with the emphasis

on slow cooking and smoky barbecue

avours, co-owned by a chef who studied at

Glasgow School of Art, performed in a band

called Shitdisco and is inspired by the streetfood

trucks of Los Angeles.

Naturally, Bó Drake is a no-reservations

eatery in Soho, with seating in the narrow

dining room divided between proper tables

for four and high stools at a communal

counter. And eating together is the way to

go here, not only because of the shareable

nature of dishes, which arrive virtually at the

same time, but because sparky company

might divert your attention from muted

cooking that doesn't live up to its rough-andready

promise. Our food needed much more

oomph to make Bó Drake a serious contender

in a crowded east Asian marketplace.

new openings

Not that we didn't enjoy what we ate.

Quesadillas were layered with kimchi for

added bite and served with a mild- avoured

dipping sauce made from poblano chillis.

There was a similar textural contrast in the

smoked beef brisket served in a soft bun

alongside cucumber and fried lotus root.

Elsewhere, smoked pork ribs were

lacquered in a sweet sauce, poussin came

with Thousand Island dressing spiked with

kimchi, and (best of all) lamb cutlets arrived

scattered with sesame seeds and sliced green

chillis embedded in a sticky sauce.

What does make Bó Drake stand out

from the crowd is its sta , who have all

Jinjuu

15 Kingly Street, W1B 5PS

020 3463 9589 Price £40

Korean food has been a trend-in-waiting for years,

but this westernised interpretation from KoreanAmerican

chef Judy Joo has what it takes to make

the cuisine mainstream. While some of the

ingredients may be obscure, Jinjuu promises a

familiar Asian mix of punchy avours, creamy

dipping sauces, artful presentation and funky

surrounds - and none the worse for that.

A street-level bar touts small dishes and

snacks; crunchy fried chicken thigh, smeared

with mayo and wedged between glossy buns;

prettily crafted, ginger-accented beef and pork

dumplings with a vinegar dipping sauce; pork

belly tacos with a bracing lling of fresh apple

and Asian slaw - we loved the lot.

A fuller menu downstairs o ers

delicious steak tartare with homemade

prawn crackers for scooping, and larger

plates of twice-cooked pork belly

and marinated prawns - both piled

into lettuce leaves and laced with the

deeply savoury avour of gochuchang

(a salty chilli paste). For bigger groups,

the house special of a whole fried

chicken entombed in crunchy batter

makes for a nger-lickin' centrepiece.

the character

that the pleasant

but forgettable

cooking lacks.

The restaurant's

opening was

delayed by six

months, and timing

is everything; while

more exciting venues have launched in the

meantime, Bó Drake feels late to the party.

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Korea's best-known dishes fare well, too: a side order of kimchi

is pungently diverting, while bibimbap (a sizzling granite pot

lled with rice, fried egg, veg and more gochuchang sauce) adds

homely ballast to all the protein. Puddings such as salted caramel

and peanut doughnut are enjoyable, though a very sweet tooth

is required. Service, meanwhile, ranges from

professional to amateurishly over-attentive.

Some have carped that the cooking isn't

a patch on the authentic Korean food served

in enclaves such as New Malden, but that

misses the point. Judged against other modern

Asian joints in prime central London locations,

we give Jinjuu a big thumbs-up.