I haven't been to this shitty ass strip mall in decades... I don't think anyone has, either. But I think everyone's main question is- How the fuck is Yen Jing still in business? Who the fuck eats there? ...Wait, nevermind, the Yelptards are going full re re all up in that piece... And they are loving the same 4 dishes over and over again as recently as this year. Yeah, two-mother-thousand-fucking-sixteen. I don't know, maybe the pouch might have to make a revisit since a decade and half ago... It sucked back then, will it suck hard now? Who the fuck knows until then but let's get back to the real task at hand... There's a new Taiwanese-esque tea joint that opened next door and it looks fancy schmancy. Does Atlanta need another goddamn tea joint within this 1/4 mile stretch? Maybe if they got tasty vittles...
The space is modern and clean, didn't noticed the bathroom cleaner smell that so many people were bitching about... But what I did noticed was their retarded ultra inefficient ordering process. You stand in line (sometimes out the door) and order with the one cashier up front who was as slow as a three toed sloth. Stop that shit, this ain't a fucking Krystal fast food joint. Is it that hard to take orders at the tables? The decor/interior is nicer than Sweet Hut and Kung Fu Tea. It's basically a fucking sit down "resto" and they got a bunch of fobs working there just standing around most of the time pulling their puds. The menu has a ton of tea options and there are a decent selection of nibbles but not extensive, it shouldn't be I guess. Let's sample a few bites...
Tea Egg. Looks decent for $1.50... Which is ridiculous, but I'm a sucka for gimmicks. Looked like it sat in the tea/soy/spice juice for a decent length of time. But who knows, they coulda used a brown egg.
Tea Egg shelled... This is not very attractive on a woman's leg but on an egg, I want to eat every spider veins I see... All up in every nook and cranny. The dark spider veins looked good but overall it was rather light in color and flavor. Plus, the yolk had that layer of sulfur around it which didn't help make it taste better. Overall, I got tea bagged in my mouth big time... This was a subpar flavorless version, spend the $1.50 on something else.
Lu Rou Fan. Looks kinda fraudy... Save that $1.50 for something else, just work down the list. For $4, this was not as savory as it should be... It was weak, there should be a nice dark thickened savory and sweet soy sauce with the braised pork to mix into the rice. But the egg in this bowl looked and tasted a lot better than the tea egg. And what's with the Corean pickled daikon radish... I rather if they just threw in some Chinese greens and sliced cucumbers for the crunch factor. Save the $5.50 for something else down the line...
Pork Chop Bento Box. I see bento box and I'm like a chump... So, easily deceived by a box of prettily arranged food. Fucked again... Look at this box. It looks like a used hospital bed pan by the entire floor. And why the fuck is a bento box at a Taiwanese joint? Or has the bento box become so generic and commonplace nowadays like sooshee in gwailo supermarkets. Look at the fucking broccoli and the nub of fishcake in the corner like Baby. Fucking broccoli.
Expanded view of the cheesy miso soup and a nub of sachima that looks like rice crispies. Miso soup sucked, the sachima is always stale and chewy and the pork chop was like a mud flap you find on a kid's motorized Power Wheels... Flat, hard and chewy. It was totally flavorless as well... Except it did have a hint of sterilizing fluid on the finish. So, that's where they put the cleaning liquids...
Taro Fries. They looked nice, but without some type of dipping sauce... There were chalky and flavorless. You just kinda go through the motions and muscle memory of eating fries like a zombie and mindlessly keep shoveling chalk stick after chalk stick in you facehole. I shoulda got the damn cheekan nuggets but I saw them at another table and they looked like fried pigeon shit... Pass. I just can't fucking win here, can I?
Rice Burgers, fried chicken and pork belly. Finally, something that looks pretty enough to eat... But what a total fucking gimmick this shit show was. I told y'all that I was a chump didn't I? Such a fob... Of course, I had to get this.. Y'all should be glad that I didn't get the goddam Hello Kitty bento box. Yeah, they have that here... And I will throat punch any man in here eating that slop. But back to the rice burgers... Oh, look, they are sooo cute! Wait until they get a load of me... Wait, I am the load. God, why am I so fucking voluminous...
Crispy chicken rice burger... Thin chicken patty but it was crispy, though. Not a lot of seasoning to it, so it kinda blended in with the rest of the bland rice puck. The rice buns were nice and golden brown but bits of the hard fried rice will get stuck in your teeth and you're spending more time tonguing your chompers than actually eating it. It was ok, nothing really special, it's the kinda thing you do once just to say you did it... But I wished I didn't.
Pork belly rice burger... A lovely thick dark soy sauce braised piece of belly. But it was 57% pure fat. I had to do some dissecting because pure fat is one thing I don't need more of. The belly meat itself was ok but a bit chewy. Eating this together was worse than doing jail time in some hick town with Rambo... But I bet you that fat sheriff would gobble this all down in two bites. This gimmick looks pretty and fun but that's about all it's good for, as a window display. Maybe I shoulda went with the Hello Kitty bento box...
So, I'm sitting there staring at the barely half eaten food on the table and I'm staring out the window like a fucking pound puppy dreaming of freedom and adopted by a loving family to take me away from this hellhole. Ok, it wasn't that bad but it wasn't good, either... Well, the milk tea was pretty good and this place was definitely packed with ex-pats. Stick with the teas, skip the food... Just sneak in some snacks like at the theater, don't worry about those fucking lazy fobs working there, they won't notice or even care for that matter. I would bring in a bottle of whiskey, but that's just me.
Where's that Yen Jing menu, again...
5302 Buford Highway, Suite A3
Atlanta, GA 30340
2 comments:
Think my dimsum in st uggustine was tastier and that was extremely blown out.
And coming from an ex-pat, im tired of these taiwanese tea snack joints popping up all over the A. They all pretty much suck swampass and sweet hut's bbq pork bun has been looking like a non-slant's been making them. Ciao yo.
Its kinda old, but you do realize that bento boxes aren't just original to japan.
Taiwanese have had bentos since who knows when. Every take out meal in taiwan is literally bento.
Post a Comment