Dining with Natalie: Konbu Streetfood

As a native of culinary melting pot Malaysia and the daughter of a restaurateur, UG student Natalie Voo knows her food. Every other week, she reviews Groningen’s student-friendly dining scene. This time: Konbu Streetfood.

I’ll admit I purposely avoided this place for years. Not because of any scandalous reason, just because I hold a very firm, possibly irrational belief: restaurants that serve everything usually do nothing well. I’m not talking about fusion —fusion is great, it’s like culinary jazz. I mean the kind of place where you’re ordering pad thai while your friend gets a biryani and the guy behind you is slurping spaghetti. That kind of chaos.

Anyway, one day I had a moment of weakness (or hope?) and thought, ‘Maybe this is the one.’ The unicorn of the pan-Asian scene. A place I could crawl to whenever I was craving something spicy, soupy, or deep-fried. So I gave it a shot.

Dry and overcooked

We started with the Korean fried chicken. And wow. I wish I could say I was speechless, but I wasn’t — I had a lot to say. It was, hands down, the worst Korean fried chicken I’ve ever had. And that’s an achievement. It was dry like it had been on a journey through a desert. Overcooked, with a batter that could double as a bulletproof vest. The flavour was doing its best to survive in there, but it didn’t stand a chance. Ironically, the same owners run a Korean fried chicken place, Konbu Jiro, which just adds another layer to the mystery. Maybe it was a bad day. Maybe they sent the B-team. Who knows.

Then came the pho, which was just okay. It had all the right notes, just none of the soul. The broth was beefy and light, but missing that deep, comforting complexity that makes a good pho slap. Also, the broth wasn’t hot enough to properly cook the raw beef, which is kind of the one job it has.

Now, the tom yum. The real MVP. Sour, spicy, umami, creamy — this bowl did a full-on flavour tap dance on my tongue (it was also the perfect amount of spice for me, so that means for those of you that grew up here, I’m not sure if you would survive this bowl of soup). It was so unexpectedly good I almost forgot about the fried chicken tragedy. I would 100 percent come back just for this tom yum. 

Average

Service was fast and friendly, no complaints there. The place filled up fast, so if you’re planning to come, making a reservation is recommended. Ambience-wise, it was aggressively average. 

So was I proven wrong? About the whole ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ thing? Well, kind of. I came in ready to be underwhelmed and left with a belly full of decent pho, a broken heart from the chicken, and a newfound love for their tom yum. That’s more than I can say for most places. Not too bad for a restaurant with a culinary identity crisis.

Dutch