So I love Korean food. It’s probably in my top 3 cuisines. It wins for me on variety, flavour, value, and even nostalgia. While it’s not the cuisine of my household growing up, there’s a homeliness to Korean food that’s always comforting. Oh, and of course Korean fried chicken. That’s a reason all on its own.
Last year, one evening after a last minute shopping adventure in Burwood, Y and I were tossing up our options for dinner. We didn’t want to eat in the food court and didn’t want to walk too far up Burwood Road. Y understands my inherent laziness, she really does. Plus I didn’t see the point in wandering when there were so many options nearby anyhow.
Raonhaje sits opposite the Westfield’s main entrance on Burwood Road, right on the corner of the traffic lights. I recalled it as a relatively recent addition to the area, previously a forgettable quasi Japanese place – not terrible, but not great either. Conveniently located, and one of my favourite cuisines, and Y being adventurous, made for easy decisionmaking! As we approached the entrance, we saw that the name of the restaurant had the addition of “Happy Tomorrow” brightly printed beside it. We weren’t sure if this was part of the whole name, or just a slogan promising better days ahead, but it made for a cheerful entry all the same.
Inside, the restaurant was clean, well lit and featured the large wooden tables you’d be accustomed to seeing in a Korean restaurant, each set with the barbecue hotplate in the centre. Our first visit, we ordered a soup each (it was winter…) and when we saw fried chicken on the menu… well we had to get it!
Yes, like many, I’ve succumbed to the fresh fried chicken craze that has taken over Sydney in the last few years or so. They slowly started cropping up about 4 years ago, maybe more, but now you’d be hard pressed not to see a fried chicken place every few blocks in the CBD, or if you’re around Chinatown, on every block. There’s variations of course, from your Taiwanese fast food chain Hotstar offering flavourful spicy crunchy hot chicken the size of your face, to the OG Arisun Korean Restaurant down on Dixon St giving Sydneysiders the chimek (fried chicken, beer and good times) experience, to the newcomer sensations, Ume Burger and Belles Hot Chicken, offering twists on the Japanese karaage and American hot wings or buttermilk fried chicken. We have a love affair with fried chicken… it’s just perfectly comforting. And it’s all good, sure, but for me, there’s something impeccably delicious about Korean Fried Chicken… or Asian KFC as it’s sometimes referred to, and it has nothing to do with the eleven secret spices! So in going to a new Korean restaurant and choosing the fried chicken – well it’s a bit of a gamble. Not all restaurants are alike, and we hadn’t really heard anything about this one but we had a good feeling!
And we weren’t disappointed! Crispy, tender, well cooked. Fluffy bits of batter and moist meat that easily pull apart at the bite… Yep, that was exactly what we were looking for. We ordered the chicken on the bone (imho the best way, but you can get it boneless too) and it comes with three condiments – two types of sweet sauce and a salt and pepper mix plus some refreshing radish pickles to cut through the grease. I thoroughly enjoyed pulling apart my chicken and dipping it into the salt and pepper – not something you get often at Korean places, so a nice difference. The soups were very tasty too in their own right, spicy and heartwarming for a cold winters night.
We’ve since returned several times and enjoyed other dishes such the hotpots, the quintessential bibimbap Korean ricebowl, and of course more chicken. The servings are usually very generous, and consistent across all meals we’ve had. Service has also been generally very quick and polite.
There’s something really enjoyable about finding a place that you can regularly return to and know that it’s going to be tasty, consistent and without disappointment. It’s like a tradition or coming home. And I associate Korean meals with this in many ways, with my traditions of friendship. There’s a wonderful social element to the meals, from the giant hotpots that you share with your friends to the social interaction of cooking bbq right at your table or to catching up over beers and a huge plate of fried chicken. You can even have your own boiling hot soup to yourself so you don’t get your friends sick! 😛 It’s been pretty rare that I’ve been asked to leave early at a Korean place, they’re great places for a lingering conversation over a soju, and also in the CBD, they often stay open pretty late into the evening too.
And so considering the enjoyable meals I’ve had at Raonhaje, well a Happy Tomorrow indeed :).
x
A.
Raohaje (Happy Tomorrow)
35A Burwood Rd, Burwood
raonhaje.com.au