We’re back here at Four Kings after having just dined here for the first time a fortnight ago. We showed up right at 6pm when they opened. There was a line of less than 10 people waiting in the walk-in line and we were the only ones in the reservations line with several tables already seated. This time I had a table reservation to see how that experience was and we were seated all the way in the back, which was quieter than being more up front.
For beverage, we went with the shochu. If you are a local and don’t finish your bottle, they will take your picture, stick it on the bottle, and leave it up above the counter for your next visit. Funny, but of course, we weren’t expecting to have any leftover shochu. We rarely drink shochu (primarily wine and sake for us) so this was a just a bit rougher than we’re used to, esp. on first sip, but funny thing about shochu is that the more you drink it, the better it seems to taste, haha.
We had set our minds to trying to eat entirely different dishes than last time. That being said, we couldn’t resist re-ordering (this would be the only re-order item) the Mouthwatering Tomato that was still on the Specials. The fresh tomato and the chili sauce made for such a tasty combo.
We also ordered the Popcorn Chicken, the Squab Skewers from the Specials, and the Salt and Pepper Squid Skewers which all came out in short order (the benefit of an early reservation). The “popcorn” chicken came with large pieces of complete chicken thighs and not the bite size pieces I was picturing. But it was still incredibly tasty thanks to the well seasoned breading and it being perfectly fried, skin included. The dip seemed to be a light kind of mayo or aioli (perhaps miso?).
For the squab skewers, you had to pick one of either skin, hearts, liver, or gizzard. I don’t really like gizzards all that much. I love skin but expected we would get skin anyway with the squab we would later order. I do like hearts and I do enjoy chicken/duck/goose liver, so I decided to go with liver. It was a nicely prepared. Very tender, but not surprisingly a bit gamier than chicken liver. I think I’ll stick to chicken/duck/goose liver though. I did enjoy the Szechuan salted pepper and tingling/numbing effect it had on my tongue.
After that came the salt and pepper squid skewers. These were only ok and we wouldn’t order them again.
So at this point, we had finished our first round of food and they probably didn’t expect we would order more, but of course we were. For this next round, we ordered the A-Choy salad, the Fried Squab, and the Garlic Pea Shoots. Interestingly, they had warned us that there might be a bit of a wait for the pea shoots. It was odd given how quick it is to stir fry some pea shoots, but we did notice that they did consolidate orders for dishes so that they always brought out multiples of the same dish at the same time for multiple tables. Certainly makes sense from an efficiency perspective. We had a bit of a wait for these next dishes, which was actually fine given how much we had already eaten.
The A-Choy came out first. I don’t think we’ve ever had A-choy before, but it was a nice (relatively) lighter dish than most of what we had eaten before. The salad had some little peppers that were just a bit sweet that we couldn’t quite identify. This really is something we should have ordered right at the start.
Then came the fried squab. This is one of their signature dishes and we missed out ordering this last time so I was determined to get it this time. They have a limited number of them available each night and they have a rack above the counter in the kitchen where you can see them hanging before they fry them. When we ordered, they asked us if medium-rare temperature was good for the squab (that temp is their recommendation) so we went with that. From the picture, you can see brown skinned, much like a peking duck. You can just see in the picture also that the meat is still quite red. This was also served with a small dish of Szechuan salt and pepper. I’m not the biggest squab fan (even at 2-Michelin Star William Frachot in Dijon last year), but this was easily my favorite squab dish I’ve ever eaten. I called it a “poor man’s Peking duck” except for the fact that it really isn’t that much cheaper than Peking duck (and esp. not if you factor in the quantity of meat). The skin and the rich unctuous of it was as delicious and satisfying as Peking duck. I liked having the Szechuan salted pepper as a seasoning. The meat was tender and flavorful, but again, just a touch gamey, which for us was the main drawback. So I’m very glad we had it, again the best squab I’ve ever had (and I ended up finishing it all), but that’s a bit of a backhanded compliment because at the end of the day, it’s still squab (YMMV depending on how you feel about squab).
Our garlic peashoots also came out. They were good, but they were using a bit less young peashoots compared to R&G Lounge half a block away (we always order the peashoots there).
We like to end the meal with dessert if we aren’t completely stuffed. This time, we went with the Pluot Hot Silken Tofu. The tofu was hot and silken and covered with a lightly sweet syrup/sauce (presumably pluot) with some pieces of cooked pluot that were almost like a jam. It was diffent, not spectacular, not bad though, just not really our thing.
In any case, it was another very interesting and enjoyable meal. Given that we’ve eaten here twice in 2 weeks, we probably won’t be back very soon only because there are always so many new places to try!
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