Ken's Way: Lure - IZAKAYA PUB (Chinatown)

So we decided to head to Chinatown and try Lure an "Izakaya Pub" since we had purchased a groupon for this restaurant. The decor felt very much like a night club and it was pretty dark while the music was very loud outside as you walk in so if you didn't know about Lure being a restaurant you would think it was a night club as you walk by.

We ordered some of their drinks and they were very good and refreshing. I would suggest getting their mixed cocktails here. For those who have not been to a style of Izakaya Pub it's pretty casual after work dinning in Japan and lots of small dishes which includes yakitori (skewers) and other fish dishes to share with your group. This restaurant is fairly new with the menus still on clip boards which I found comical. They told us they were in the process of getting the menus finished which was fine with us. The waitress we had serving us was very new. We could tell but she was very accommodating and trying hard to make things right for us so I give her kudos for that.

We ordered the summer salad, potato croquette, shims hokke, lamb chops, yellowtail, braised pork belly, lobster spaghetti and some chicken wings. Well started off with the salad and I thought the flavor was good but it's very hard to eat the salad with chopsticks especially if you are trying taste all the ingredients together into one bite. Maybe because it was cumbersome to eat so I didn't like the dish but my wife liked it and my friend felt the same way as I did. The potato croquette was our next dish that came out and when we went to bite into the croquette it was cold on the inside. Now usually when something gets deep fried, you would think it would be warm/hot on the inside but that was not the case. The waitress kindly took it back and went to get another one for us. Our guess on this dish was the chefs probably weren't use to the deep fryer and wasn't able to gauge the temperature on the different foods that are being cooked in the fryer. The croquettes were okay nothing to rave about but I would not order it if I come back.

They are supposedly known for their fish dishes so we had the Shims hokke and Yellow-tail coming. Both of the fishes were really good. The flavor was there and it the texture was great. They did a good job cooking both fishes and I really wished we ordered more of the fish dishes. The lamb chops were good but nothing spectacular about them. They were cooked well but it was off by a little on the flavor. The lobster spaghetti was good although I wished that dish had more lobster in it because we can barely taste the favor of the lobster or see much of it. Both the braised pork belly and chicken wings were really good. I would suggest ordering the braised pork belly. It's full of yummy flavor and melts in your mouth. We also ordered the Yuzo Black Cod and that was also a great dish. Only thing I didn't like about the dish was the proportions of the asparagus to the fish. They were so SKINNY! Anyways, my buddy who is a fries fan decided to order the tiger fries. That was one of my favorite dishes here! Truffle oil flavor fries. If you are a truffle oil fan try these fries.

The prices were very reasonable and food was good. I would say try more of the fish dishes here since they fly the different types of fishes you wouldn't normally see at a sushi restaurant. Drinks are cheap and good. I would come back again and maybe their menus have been completed and they have their music turned down a notch so it doesn't feel like a night club.