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Review Mon Nov 24 2008
Bellying Up to Avondale
After reading the heaps of praise bestowed on Avondale's Urban Belly (3053 North California), I made it over there this past weekend. While I'm a lukewarm fan of Asian cuisine, I was not disappointed by my meal. I started off with the Chinese eggplant in Thai basil, which on its own was a little tangy for my taste (the addition of rice from another dish helped dilute the Eggplant's bite). The dumplings with Asian squash and bacon were just so-so (and bordering on "meh"), but the pork and cilantro version was an absolute knockout -- a a dense little bundle of meaty goodness). The short rib and scallion rice dish also blew my hair back -- a small pile of spicy, sweet short ribs drizzled with crunchy fried onions and scallions atop a heap of rice.
Service was fast for a Sunday morning, the sparse, wooden interior is beautiful (I thought I was in an upscale place straight out of San Francisco when I walked in), and the prices were acceptable for the most part, although the $11-13 range for the noodle dishes seemed a little high. While Avondale seems like the last place you'd expect to get competent cuisine of this persuasion, if you get to Urban Belly and are dismayed by the wait, head over to -- and I'm not kidding -- Stadium West Lounge at 3188 North Elston; the bar has been renamed the Dragon Lady Lounge (although the signage outside hasn't been updated), and serves Korean delicacies such as bi-bim-bop and dumplings. Who knew?
