Mingles

General Notes

Mingles is considered one of Korea's best restaurants (maybe #2 IIRC), and has earned two Michelin stars. When it came down to it though, it just didn't hit for me. There's clearly a lot of thought that's put into the presentation, preparation, and depth of flavor in each dish, but the flavors just didn't resonate with me. That isn't to say that I didn't enjoy the experience -- I thoroughly enjoyed the experience; excellent food, great service, awesome ambiance. The sheer number of servers that we interacted with today was kind of astounding. The food definitely leans on traditional Korean ingredients and flavors, which is cool. It will be a very different experience than say Cote Korean Steakhouse, for example. It's not a place that I would go back and wasn't worth the money given my preferences.

Positives

> We ordered this soju that was incredibly delicious. It had notes of apple. Definitely the best soju that I've had, would definitely buy it for myself if I drank more often. (Get the exact brand from Wally)
> Beautiful interior, we were put in a private room with seating for 8 people (a bit strange, considering that they only allow parties of 4).
> All the servers are very fluent in English, you definitely won't have any problems with a language barrier.

Negatives

> You can't make reservations for parties >4. Probably for service reasons, but they don't provide a reason and don't make that clear. We had a group of 10 and had to split up into 4, 4, 2.
> The timing of the dishes felt a little bit inconsistent, although that seemed specific to our group (maybe because we were in the private room)? Anyways, our meal ended up taking ~30-45m longer than the others, which was odd.

Dishes Tasted

• ★★☆☆ Bellflower Root Jeongwa -- (Beautiful Korean Sweets, 5) bellflower root, suagr. Jelly-like texture made by slow-cooking bitter bellflower root in syrup for a long time, then drying under the shade for 3-5 days.
• ★★★☆ Peanut Sable -- (Beautiful Korean Sweets, 4) crispy sable cookie with a strong savory taste from house-made peanut paste
• ★★☆☆ Gochujang Chocolate Macaron -- (Beautiful Korean Sweets, 3) gochujang, dark chocolate. A rich gochujang ganache sanding made with cream, dark chcoolate, and gochujang filled macaron
• ★★☆☆ Kamtae Puffed Rice -- (Beautiful Korean Sweets, 2) crispy puffed rice is made by boiling, drying, and deep-frying local non-glutinous rice, mixed with Kamtae powder
• ★★★★ Yam Joo-ak -- (Beautiful Korean Sweets, 1) yam, rice, vanilla. Deep fried doughnut-shaped dough made with yam and sticky rice powder are dipped into the vanilla syrup.
• ★★★☆ Jang Trio -- Doenjang Creme-brulee, Ganjang Pecan, Gochujang PUff
• ★★☆☆ Sweet Pumpkin Rice Meringue & Cream -- pumpkin sikhye sorbet, herb. Decent but not particularly noteworthy
• ★★☆☆ Bibimbab -- rice ice cream & pudding, soy sauce, sesame oil. The rice ice cream was good. Kind of funny that they named this dish "bibimbab" but I guess it makes sense. The soy sauce felt a little strange but actually worked pretty well.
• ★★☆☆ Handon Soondae, Hanwoo -- handon soondae, hanwoo (++Korean beef), yam, fruit kimchi. The beef was very good (hard to go wrong with high-quality beef). I enjoyed the marinaded one a bit more. The kimchi and soondae were decent.
• ★★☆☆ Ginseng Chicken Roulade -- deodeok, sesame bechamel. I enjoyed the chicken roulade, the ginseng was pretty good on its own, the deodeok and sesame bechamel were a bit strange.
• ★★★★ Sticky Rice Risotto -- Another one of my favorite dishes of the night. The crab and caviar were an excellent addition.
• ★★☆☆ Jeju Fish -- Jeju fish, crispy black rice, dried fish porridge, pressed caviar. This was a decent dish, just not particularly noteworthy
• ★★☆☆ Mingling Pot -- seafood morel & hanwoo cabbage mandu, sea cucumber, abalone, spinach, taro, acorn jelly, cold brewed anchovy broth. This is genuinely a good dish, you can definitely taste the depth of flavor + the consistency is excellent. These just ... aren't my favorite ingredients.
• ★☆☆☆ Korean Radish Cake -- Korean radish namul & rice cake tart, shrimp, perilla, turnip. This was okay. I'm not a big fan of radish / turnip flavors and this dish accentuated those flavors. The shrimp and turnip are a bit strange and feel out of place.
• ★☆☆☆ Hanwoo Beef Tartare with Smoked Eel -- It tasted decent, but I honestly cold barely tell that this was beef tartare and smoked eel. Not particularly noteworthy
• ★★★☆ Fried Hairtail Fish & Gamtae Roll -- The gamtae roll was deep fried and smelled so good. The hairtail fish was decent.
• ★★☆☆ Korean Seasonal Raw Fish -- I forget the exact fish. It was pretty good but not that noteworthy, overall.
• ★★★★ Chestnut Soup, Chestnut Chip, Truffle -- One of my favorite dishes, excellent thick consistency, love the depth of chestnut flavor, and the truffle adds a nice touch.
• ★★★☆ Sweet Potato Rice Cake -- Fantastic texture, delightfully chewy
• ★★☆☆ Strawberry, Sancho Pepper, Caviar -- An extremely good strawberry. The sancho pepper and caviar didn't really add much and felt a bit out of place, though