In a rare three-star review (excellent) published yesterday, Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema deemed that Dupont Korean restaurant Anju has only gotten better following an impressive opening in August that landed it at No. 9 in the critic’s top 10 rankings for his fall dining guide.
Read MoreThe cast of characters behind the successor includes chefs Danny Lee and Scott Drewno, partners with Drew Kim in the Fried Rice Collective; Yesoon Lee, Danny’s mother and co-creator of the Mandu brand; and chef de cuisine Angel Barreto, late of Chiko and previously of the Source restaurant under Drewno. Each of the principals brings something important to the table, and if I had to guess, Barreto, 30, whose lifelong passion for Korean food was nurtured by his Army parents, is most excited by the project.
Read MoreFollowing an Eater tradition, we asked a group of restaurant critics, journalists, bloggers, and friends of the site to weigh in on the year in food. Their answers to the annual “Year in Eater” survey will be revealed in several posts. Next up, the dining experts share their top newcomers from 2019.
Read MoreAlabama-style white barbecue sauce—tangy and mayo-based—has been cropping up more and more up north. Even at this Korean kitchen. Here, the sauce is made with Japanese Kewpie mayo and serves as a drizzle for the superlative double-fried chicken. The bird is glazed in fire-red, tongue-tingling gochujang. Even so, you’ll want more of the white stuff for dunking.
Read MoreDC Cocktail Week kicks off Monday, November 18 and runs until Sunday, November 24 with plenty of opportunities to toast the city’s thriving cocktail scene. You can head to one of these daily happy hours for complimentary tastings or check our picks for food and drink pairings all week long.
Read MoreIf you’ve been to the mega-successful Chiko, where Korean and Chinese flavors coexist but rarely mingle, you know that the Drewno/Lee/Barreto triumvirate doesn’t punch lightly when it comes to flavor. Spiky, acidic, fiery, unctuous—they’re all there, often in the same bowl. At Anju, the group—with help from Lee’s mother, Yesoon—focuses solely on Korea.
Read MoreMy new favorite late-night restaurant is Anju, a modern Korean restaurant near Dupont Circle. It’s from the Fried Rice Collective, a restaurant group run by Danny Lee, Scott Drewno, and Drew Kim. Everything they do is absolutely delicious. One of the famous things at Anju is a dish consisting of fried potatoes with salad and citrus aioli. But myfavorite is the kimchi slaw dog—a late-night hot dog works for everyone—with gochujang, hot mustard, and slaw made with incredible house-made kimchi, which uses a family recipe and is fermented for 100 days. The fried chicken is great, too: it’s crispy, and it comes with creamy white BBQ sauce and spicy Korean BBQ sauce, both made in-house.
Read MoreThe Danny Lee/Scott Drewno/Angel Barreto Korean place is doing a killer version, available half or whole (obvi you want the whole, for leftovers sake). Drewno and Lee were inspired to create the recipe when they spend a frigid night at a South Korean market which featured a famous fried-chicken stand. They noticed the cooks were using a wet batter, not the dry potato starch that is typical of Korean double-fried legs and wings. They got to experimenting when they returned home, and Barreto freestyled by adding some roast-soybean powder to add some earthiness to the batter. Anyway, the result is—and I don’t use this word lightly—amazing. It’s so insanely crunchy, and stays that way for awhile. What sets it apart just as much as the technique are its final touches: a gochujang glaze that is striped with Alabama-style, kewpie-mayo-based white barbecue sauce, and a shower of furikake. Man, I’m hungry.
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