There is no real Asian food in Savannah... So, when a fusion joint that covers literally almost every Asian country cuisine, it's bound to get a massive round eye crowd. Let's list the cuisines and countries available here- Laos, Japan, Cantonese, Mainland China, Korea, China, Cambodia, Thai, Singapore... Shit, they're only missing Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, India and Taiwan. What kinda dump is this? I looked around and forks were flying everywhere. No one used chopsticks except me of course, the token fat Chino that was given chopsticks without even asking... They should call this place The Flying Fork.
Even though, I knew this place would be dumb down and round-eyederized, I had to do it for my one reader. I had to see what all the fuss was about with the lines and crowds at this spot. The entire look and feel of this place is just begging to be a franchise/chain hit... Panda Express must be their role model to their business model. But they do have some semi-interesting non-orange cheekan styles of dishes. Time to grab a quick sample...
They should just put a map on the menu and put the dish inside the country where it's from. Would be a lot easier for round eyes to see that they originated from different countries and not just combo #3.
Green Papaya Salad. There's more slivers of mango than papaya. The iceberg lettuce was a cheap substitute for green beans... Even though, a lot of places use a cabbage leaf as a cup for the salad. I think they used chopped iceberg so whities will know this is in fact a "salad". It's not spicy and a little fish sauce was detected. It's a wet boring salad and because it is fusion, I will give it borderline acceptable.
White Elephant, homemade chicken soup, handmade white noodles, chicken, scallions, caramelized shallots. Country: Laos. It sounded more interesting than it looked. It's like an Asian version of a cheekan noodle soup. The noodles were pretty good but the broth felt manufactured with a little doctoring up from the kitchen to make it taste homemade for hours. It's not a bad bowl of noodle soup, it's just kinda a snoozer. It will do the job with the big portion but it's boring as fuck. Doctor it up yourself with all the condiments they have... Spicier the better!
Master Shifu Noodles, slow braised short ribs, carrots, onions, yellow potatoes, wide rice noodles. Country: China. What is this, beef stew? I started scanning the kitchen racks for cans of Dinty Moore... Luckily, none was spotted. Can't mistake this tomato based stew. Let's mix this up a bit.
Master mess of noodles after mixing it up. This is a heavy heavy dish. But they definitely don't skimp on the goodies. There were chunks and chunks of tender short ribs, bunch of veggies and a heaping bowl of wide rice noodles on the bottom. You will not leave hungry after eating this and 2 other dishes in one sitting, I promise.
I can see why this place is a hit with the local inhabitants... It's cutesy and playful and it's ethnic to them, something they don't see much around here. Their demographics are what you would expect... Students, families and pseudo-hipsters. The menu descriptions were designed well to catch your attention to the authenticity of the grub from around Asia... And the people were eating this shit up. While it's not real Asian vittles (far from it), I had no problem trying it once and there was no harm done for the roundeyes trying to eat ramen with a fork... I had a great laugh. This place was entertaining to say the least but there will not be a revisit if I'm back in town.
5 W Broughton St.
Savannah, GA 31401
912-232-8888
http://www.flywiththemonk.com/
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