Makan

I was pretty excited for this new concept to come to fruition, real Asian(Chinese) street food in this town could be a real game changer... But ended up disappointed like everything else that's marketed as something new and interesting that turned out to be the total opposite. This town still has a long way to go for global cuisine tolerance.

So, it was billed as Asian street food and now it's just Asian comfort food. I have been skeptical of this joint during their build out and menu planning process. Chinese owners but mostly Korean dishes... How is this Asian street food again? Where are the curry fish balls, pig intestines, meats and squid on a stick, stinky tofu, rice noodles with sesame seeds and hoisin sauce, egg waffle, pineapple bun, congee with 1000 year old egg, macaroni ham soup, SPAM... These are some of the classics you'll find on every street in Hong Kong and throughout Asia, except here.

It's cute they come around the table with a cart of ban chan for $2 a piece but after spying the 2 bite size little petri dishes of dull looking palate waker uppers, I had to pass on that entire cart and go straight to the menu which is printed on a local newspaper style rag. The menu is not that exciting or maybe it just reads boring because there's no cross word puzzle or comics in there. The Salt & Pepper dish is made with a "seafood" available that night... Which the server said "frog". I said wow, really, a whole frog dish not just the legs? She said yes but then didn't know a second later. Sent her off to ask and she comes back and says it's just the frog legs. No shit Sherlock, this server obviously have no clue about Asian cuisine or any cuisine for that matter, seems like everything she knows about Asian cuisine she read on The Onion. So, anyways, ordered a few samples from the menu for a first look..

Fried Chicken.  I see fried cheekan, I order it. Little fried nuggets with a thin coating and a good helping of 5 spice. Fried jalapeno was a cute gesture but did very little to improve the dish. It's a small kid size portion to nibble on. These weren't craveworthy like Quickly's highly addictive Taiwanese cheekan nuggets. A fried chicken dish that I will not be ordering again... Yes, I said that for reals.

Pork Belly Bun. Looked kinda skimpy. Bun was cold.

Open sesame! Chintzy filler inside and the pork belly was literally a small piece of FAT, maybe a couple of strands of pork meat hairs. This was flavorless and just plain awful rendition of a classic. No other way to say it. How can I take them seriously when there's no quality control here.

Ramyun. Roasted pork, Sun Noodles, poached garlic, kimchi, overnight pork broth. Ok, the Sun Noodles got me.. And they were good but sadly the rest of the bowl was a miss. The roasted pork once again was pure fat, I mean almost the entire protein in there was fat fat and more fat. Did they get the cheapest cut of pork belly? The soft boiled egg seemed poached and the whites were barely cooked through. I'll eat raw eggs but the broth was barely warm enough to continue to cook the whites. Mixing in the raw yolk into this broth made no sense, it would have ruined it, so I ate the almost raw egg in one mouthful. The broth was ok, nothing noteworthy or demands a return visit for this. If it wasn't for the Sun Noodles, I woulda got the ox tail beef noodle soup.

Hong Kong Noodle Soup. Roasted whole quail, shrimp and pork wonton, noodles, chicken broth. I had to get this dish, it was a must for my roots and my peoples. Their original version on their website had an egg in it, no egg in tonight's service. First major fail is the two tiny wontons... Absolutely dismal, it was all wonton skin and barely a 1/4 teaspoon of filling. I have seen meatier flaps on a skinny girl. Even after eating it, there was no evidence of shrimp or pork, just some type of spongy substance, perhaps tempeh. The quail while a weird combination with a HK style wonton noodle soup was a bit chewy and soggy. In HK they sell tiny roasted quails that are super juicy, tender and thin crackling skin. This was no where close to it. The "wonton noodles" were over cooked and lacked that all important crunch to it. The broth was totally flavorless, a great wonton noodle broth is made with shrimp roe, fish and pork like at the world famous Mak's in Hong Kong. I have no idea what this broth was made with, perhaps dirty dish water... Look at that cloudy color. For $16, this was more of an insult to people of Hong Kong than to my pouch. Get rid of that quail and make a decent bowl of wonton noodle soup instead. Ming's has a very decent Hong Kong style WNS for only a few dollars.

I may have expected too much from my brothers from another mother for real Asian street/comfort food. But at the end of the day, they must change the dishes to suit the taste of this culinary challenged town if they ever want to make any money. Maybe in a few years, a concept like this might work with the true tastes of Asia that they were aiming for initially. But until then I have no desire to go back any time soon no matter how many 5 star reviews they got on Yelp. Shit, 5 stars shoulda been a glaring warning sign. And another thing, that open kitchen and "chef's table" concept might have been a mistake now.

Next.

130 Clairemont Ave,
Suite 100
Decatur, GA 30030
404-996-6504
http://www.makanatl.com