Good Choices: Yellowtail tar tare; mixed greens with seared tuna sashimi; pan-seared shrimp and scallops with three curries; lo mein noodles with clams; tuna tar tare bibim bab; spicy pork loin Korean barbecue; grilled salted croker; ginger, coconut ice cream in pastry cups; day and night mousse cake.
Reservations accepted. Smoking at the bars on each floor.
Credit cards:MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Diner's.
Access: Fully accessible.
JAE'S
212 Stuart St., Boston
(617) 451-7788
Restaurant reviewed 10/13/97 by Alison Arnett
There's so much going on at Jae's, the new enterprise of the tirelessly enterprising Jae Chung, that I've restarted this review three times. Does one begin with the three separate restaurants under one roof in the tall, narrow building near the Theater District? Does one discuss the multiple menus given each diner, the offerings so numerous as to be overwhelming? Does one linger on the Korean Grill atop the restaurant, the middle floor with everything ever offered at Jae's plus some fascinating dishes by chef Eddie Ceccherini, or on the sushi bar on the bottom?
This is Jae's to the max. Much of the food is delicious, with the light, spirited touch Chung and his restaurants are famous for. But the place is also more than a little chaotic.
Shortly before it opened this summer, Chung said this 190-seat restaurant in the former Suntory building was his dream of 10 years. He then articulated a vision of three distinct restaurants, the second-floor cuisine a mingling of Asian and Western influences under the hand of Ceccherini, who had been a chef at the Ritz-Carlton, and the third floor with native Korean chefs honoring Chung's homeland.
``Have you been to Jae's before?'' the server asks as we shuffle through the pile of menus left before us in the second-floor restaurant. Then she launches into an explanation: We can order sushi, or from the menu with its new creations, or Korean specialties, or many of the pan-Asian dishes served at other Jae's Cafes. We take a deep breath and plunge in.
We try yellowtail tartare, a salad with seared tuna sashimi, and Korean steak tartare. Each is a creation, beautifully presented, sparklingly fresh in taste. The yellowtail captures sushi at its best, an oversized martini glass filled with enoki mushrooms, slivered greens, shredded daikon radish, and curls of firm yellowtail. It's light and lovely, much better than the plate of sushi, rather pallid and uninteresting in taste and looks. Beef tartare has much the same presentation, yet flashes its own signals with a piquant red bean sauce, like an irresistible barbecue sauce with a hint of the exotic. The salad was lovely, too, with its bright pink tuna just barely seared on its edges against all the greens of early fall; only the lack of zing in the wasabi-ginger vinaigrette held it back.
The most ambitious dishes were under entrees. Ceccherini nestles sea scallops inside large shrimps and then pan-fries several of them. Giant maki rolls of rice enclosing vegetables accompany the seafood, and three different curries tasting of coconut and peanuts, pineapple, and a version with a touch of tomato pull the ingredients of the plate together with their spicy, sweet, and mild characters. It's a bewitching dish. In another, very rare circles of tuna are lightly tempuraed on the edges, a pleasing combination of crunch and sweet-fleshed fish.
Grilled pork medallions are more straightforward, served with a spicy Korean soybean sauce and a little stew of bitter greens, mushrooms, and red peppers. And beef teriyaki is a fairly thick-cut steak with a little sauce and a few slivered vegetables. It was tasty, but rather surprising when the only tableware offered was chopsticks (after prodding, the server brought a knife and fork). The honey-glazed lamb chops would have been fine, too, if they hadn't been overcooked.
All those familiar Jae dishes from his restaurants in the South End, Cambridge, and the Atrium Mall in Chestnut Hill are also offered. The lo mein noodles with tiny clams and Jae's Szechuan sauce are great, wonderfully spicy and aromatic with plenty of vegetables and that sense of virtue Jae's food can give you - lively but not heavy.
The Korean Grill signals serenity, with its horseshoe-shaped tables set with grills. It's a nifty idea and great for parties, evidenced by tables full of 20-somethings happily crowding around. But the grilling also needs explanation. On a first visit, the Korean staff member spoke little English and left us to our own devices; the second visit, the waiter spent much time grilling the food at one end of the table, then hurriedly came over to light our side, flicking the starter with such force that we all jumped back, fearing incineration. The bulgoki, sliced beef, was jumbled in a mound on top of the grill so that it steamed rather than grilled, too far away for us to easily reach it before the beef overcooked. Spicy pork loin with a little more heft fared better.
Other Korean dishes were excellent. Korean food relies on lots of chili heat and bite from kimchee, more pungent than other Asian food. A kimchee, mung bean, and scallion pancake filled the senses with its tangy taste of the fermented cabbage and bite of scallion. A stir-fry of spicy squid hit lots of bright notes; the crackly, salty exterior of grilled yellow croker protected moist flesh; kimchee stew almost overpowered one with its piercing heat.
However, a Korean companion thought the appetizer of jab chae, cellophane noodles with red peppers, black mushrooms, and onions, was too sweet. Once that was noted, other oddly sweet notes were discerned - the thin aioli-like sauce with the grilled salted fish, the marinade on the bulgoki.
Jae's desserts are European style. A too-sweet tart sported an Asian pear, but otherwise, the offerings remind one of the Ritz. Coconut and ginger ice cream in pastry cups was a nice way to end a spicy dinner. And the day and night mousse cake (named for its white and dark chocolate) was delicious.
Service varied wildly from floor to floor and time to time. Once, an excellent waitress who was as friendly as a cousin and yet very efficient led us through a meal; another time, the harried server mixed up two parties into one. He bungled the grilling and then never cleaned the surface, plopping heavy dessert menus onto bones and vegetable debris.
So many dishes tempt one at Jae's, so much is satisfying that it seems a shame to quibble about the incoherence of it all. This might be illustrated by the back stairway, which leads to the second-floor restaurant. Diners are directed to it and then find themselves jostling waiters carrying sushi from the first floor to the third, Korean dishes to the second, elaborate second-floor entrees to the third floor. And when one walks out into the restaurant, it's almost into the arms of the kitchen staff. Jae's needs menu editing and a better traffic pattern to realize the potential of its talented cooking staff.
Tips & hits
