arisu

arisu
1734 wisconsin avenue NW, washington, DC 20007
tel: 202) 333-8822
hours: monday-thursday 11:30am-10:30pm, friday-saturday 11:30am-11pm, sunday 11:30am-10pm

what was consumed: haemul (seafood) soondooboo jjigae ... others had dduk mandoo gook and stirfried noodles

korean food in the city! there is definitely a dearth of (good) korean food in DC. and i, sans car (for now), have a hard time getting out to annandale and other koreatown-y places to get my fill of k-food prepared by others. and as much as i don't want to admit it (sometimes), having access to korean food, marketc, etc. is really important to me (shoot, i even considered living in annandale!) anyway, when i heard about arisu, i was super excited to try.

so, my coworkers and i drove up to the georgetown area once we decided we were going to try out arisu (one of my coworkers is always asking me about korean food in the city. it was nice to be able to tell him that we have another option to add!). by car, this place seems pretty accessible. it seems it's off the main georgetown drag, so i imagine that'll be helpful with parking during other times of the day. parking in georgetown is always a pain ... or so they say.
anyway, it looks like arisu is a row house turned restaurant, as many of these restaurants in dc proper are. we entered to see a little bar-y area on the first floor and a sign instructing us to go upstairs - that's where the main dining area is. and by main dining area, i mean seating for about 25?30? not a whole lot (which was fine because there were only 4 other people there at the time).

their menu seemed a bit small (maybe it was condensed because it was lunch? maybe it's because i've grown accustomed to teh immense menus that other korean restaurants seem to have?), but i did see the yookgehjang that i usually use as my marker for good/bad korean food. but i didn't order it this time because i wanted the seafood in the soondooboo jjigae. i was also concerned that my meal would be hurt by the absence of banchan (i had heard you normally have to pay extra for it), but when my jjigae come out, so did 3 banchans. works for me! anyway, the food came out in good time and while it wasn't the best korean food, it was most definitely not the worst. i will say that the mandoo in the dduk mandoo gook was handmade - not too shabby!

so, heres a quick overview ...
pros: it's korean food in the city! and pretty ok korean food at that. what else is there to say about that?
cons: 01) though in the city, it's still hard to get to! argh ... 02) no website! 03) (potentially) having to pay for banchan. umm ... there were some others, but i can't seem to remember right now (i seem to be overcome by incredible fatigue, thus making my brain not work. or maybe that's just a normal condition of mine ... ?). when i remember, i will update and add ...

so, while it looks like the cons seemingly outweigh the pros, i wouldn't totally rule out arisu for k-food.

online: none. fail!