Friday 28 August 2015

Republic

University has scattered my group of high school friends far and wide, so it's quite rare to have the majority of us simultaneously back in little old Adelaide! Clearly this required a little reunion, which we organised for a lunch at Republic.


Wedges $8

 Republic Southern fried chicken $22


Spiced Semolina Crusted Squid $21

 Battered Barramundi $24

 Top, Lamb Wrap $18

All the food was quite standard, although the serving sizes were great, considering we also had a 25% discount having dined in on a week day (all prices listed are the prices on the menu). Special mention to that Southern fried chicken which had some beautiful spices in the batter. Service was rather unfriendly and cold, even though there was only one other table there at the time. Smiling doesn't hurt!

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Mr Bulgogi

My friends and I have developed a slight obsession with Korea lately and when we heard of a new Korean restaurant located less than 10 minutes away from one of our homes, we just had to book ourselves for dinner! We were most looking forward to the fried chicken which we had seen photos of all over social media.

Soy chicken bibimbap $15.50

We initially wanted to order the bulgogi bibimbap but were informed that they had run out. I didn't find anything special about this bibimbap and probably won't order this particular one again. The soy chicken was quite bland and we regretted not ordering the spicy pork bibimbap!

Korean fried chicken half & half $32
Original style deep fried chicken
Soy sauce seasoned fried chicken

The batter was thin, light and crisy. The original style was lightly seasoned while a thin glaze-like soy sauce was drizzled over the top of the second flavour. The original style could have been improved with a bit more flavour as we found it a little bland. The soy sauce seasoned chicken would have been improved by a slightly thicker sauce - the thin sauce either soaked right through and made the batter soggy or just dripped off the chicken. Also not all pieces of chicken were identifiable - some bits were wings and drumsticks but we weren't too sure what the rest were! Some pieces ended up being boneless while others were literally all bone. The pickled radish and [rather bland] coleslaw added a bit of freshness to cut through the chicken.

 Chicken Gangjeong Half & Half $32
Original style with crispy rice cakes
Sweet and Spicy Style with potato

Eating boneless fried chicken is just so satisfying. The sweet and spicy chicken was my absolute favourite that night! I loved the thick sauce, which was not too spicy. It made the deep fried tteok even better. Would definitely recommend it.

My only other critique for the evening would be service. It was ridiculously difficult to get the attention of any of the staff who weren't really keeping an eye on the floor while they were standing behind the counter. The food didn't take too long to come out, although we would have preferred for all 3 things to come out simultaneously. For the 5 of us that night, we ended up spending about $16 and were stuffed to the brim with chicken. We're not in a hurry to return but that sweet and spicy fried chicken is definitely worth trying!

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