So, I love Spice Alley in Chippendale. It offers a pretty amazing selection of food at all price ranges and I think it’s a great example of urban design and planning, of how to attract and keep people to an area. We’d just seen ‘Knives Out’ (a lot of fun) and were aiming for a light meal. I was thinking of Monkey’s Corner but wow, it was looking expensive, so we ducked around the corner, and I liked the feel of Koa Kitchen, Korean food, where they’re in a little house instead of the food stalls in the main part of Spice Alley.
But oops. A poor choice. We ordered a spicy Korean chicken and a Korean fried rice to share. Initially, I was liking the flavours, a bit sweet, a bit pungent and spicy, and certainly at around $10 to $15 per plate, the food is inexpensive here. But by the end, I found the sauces and flavours a bit too much. I had gotten excited about the prospect of Korean Fried Chicken, but it really was more like the deep-fried pieces of chicken that you might get at a cheap Chinese take-out, say, a sweet and sour chicken but with a Korean sauce instead.
Rather than the not-your-regular Asian food court meal that I expect in Spice Alley, it was a bit mediocre, sadly.