Tuan T.'s Profile

If I could do half stars, this would have received a solid 3.5 stars, but seeing as how I'm in a particularly generous mood, I decided to bump them up to 4.  Yes, I'm a giver.  In any case, I came here for happy hour a few days ago and was pleasantly surprised.  You'll be immediately greeted by an attractive woman and an even more attractive lounge/bar area with comfy little booths and couches, all swathed in soothing, soft gray microsuede.  I guess they were going for the industrial factory look, as it looked, like, well, a factory with exposed pipes and stuff up top.  It was an interesting mix of people too.  Off to our right were a few tables of black dudes and dudettes.  To our left was a large group of somewhat flamboyant men (Gasp! We also spotted one of the attendings there, but I'll keep his identity a secret, for now).  Off in the corner were two homely looking hippies getting their drink on.  And there we were, busily stuffing our faces.  Which takes me to the food.

The happy hour menu was surprisingly extensive, with a good list of 4 dollar appetizers, ranging from chicken lettuce cups (the chicken was rock hard and overly dry.  Boo.) to crunchy shrimp mousse tacos (decent, too shrimpy for my taste) to pulled pork sliders (I could have eaten 20 of these.  They were mighty tasty).  While this seemed nice and light, we also unfortunately ordered some garlic chicken wings and some ginger ribs.  Holy moses, these things were an interventional cardiologist's dream--just looking at them, I thought I was going to have a massive coronary.  Never one to disappoint, I of course plowed on in.  While yes, fatty, they were also pretty good.  The wings were crispy, tasty, and perfectly seasoned, if a tad oily.  The ribs, on the other hand, were fall off the bone tender.  The only problem is that not only were they dredged in a super fatty sauce, but they were battered and deep fried!  Where's the Crestor when you need it?  In any case, the next time I go, I'll probably order them again, only because they were really tasty and super high yield--4 bucks for a plate of wings or ribs (of which you can only really eat one or two anyways)?  Sign me up.

The other good thing about this place was the ice cold Hite beer.  They came in little steins that while I wish they were bigger, were super ice cold.  Now that's the way to serve some beer.  Other options on the drink list were a little bottle of soju (6 bucks), as well as 2 dollars off of the normal drink list (which is ridiculous when the drinks are normally 13 bucks.  No wonder everybody was drinking beer or soju).  Anyways, none of this was really particularly Korean, but who's to complain when you have deep fried goods costing 4 dollars and 3 dollar ice cold beers?  Not I.  Anyways, chalk it up for another solid happy hour joint in Culver City.

Yeah, I did it.  Two stars.  It takes alot to get two measly pathetic stars in my book.  As many know, I have low standards (to not get disappointed) and as such, this place was, like crack, wack.  No, they didn't pee in my coffee nor did they give me infectious diarrhea.  When I go to a coffee shop, I expect to sit comfortably at probably 70 degrees and basically not shiver or sweat.  Well, this place failed to achieve even the most basic of my needs--I was literally shivering.  I'll be completely honest and admit that I was drinking an iced coffee but hell, shouldn't that be accounted for?  Good grief, I know we're in LA and all, where it's hot as hell all the time, but on the days that it's not, do you think you can turn down the dang AC?  It was probably 60 degrees in that place, and on a rainy weekend, no less!  The only hot thing were the drinks.  There weren't even any hot, cute, or even passable chicas to look at.  Nope, just what looked like homely, misshapen spinsters.  All in all, cold, and filled with strange looking neighborhood folk that could have been mistaken for the homeless.  Ack.