Title: Casserole House
Author: jean komatsu
Last saved by: ENU

Casserole House in Oakland, CA – update, lunch
Review date: October 2013
(previous reviews appended below)

Carlos and I stopped in at Casserole House for lunch. We have been here previously for lunch (August 2012) and dinner (March 2013), finding the cooking different enough that we suspected they have two cooks, and like many small restaurants, the two styles are just different enough to be noticeable.

We found lunch to be too far to the too-sweet side overall, including the ban chan. Dinner, however, had a better balance, so we thought it was worth another visit.

Carlos is fond of Korean pancakes; me, not so much. But there was kimchee jeon, a pancake with kimchee and vegetables that sounded interesting to both of us, so we ordered it. It took a little while before we started getting the food, and in the interim we were served tea and water. Carlos took one sip of tea and exclaimed, "It's hot!" – meaning chile-hot, not just temperature. I tried mine and agreed. 

Previously we'd gotten cinnamon and roasted grain-flavored teas from Casserole House. They seem to like to experiment with their house tea, which I wouldn't mind if you had a choice to try. But what they bring is what you get, so it's very much a surprise every time you come. Carlos thinks this is fun, so he's okay with it. I'm more "meh" about it, mostly because the only other choices are water, beer, sochu or soda pop, leaving me with only water. I'm not fond of cheap (fake) cinnamon, so for me this is a minus. As certain dishes are greasy, like the pancakes, ice water isn't the accompaniment I'd normally favor. 

Still, this particular tea was certainly an interesting blend. This time it tasted of cinnamon (the hot Vietnamese cassia), roasted grain, and chile peppers. Not chile oil, but more as if they'd steeped the dried peppers in the tea! Carlos had two cups, I drank mine but switched to water afterwards. If nothing else, Casserole House certainly ranks as unique for their house teas.

The pancake covered a very large plate. Well-browned, it was good while it was hot, with a nice crispness. As it cooled it began to taste oily. I would guess these are made with some rice flour, which gives it that slightly chewy texture that Carlos loves. There was enough kimchee (and onions) to give it a nice gentle heat, and the very salty soya with a sprinkle of chile flakes was a great accompaniment.

At our last dinner we had received a superb version of a steamed chicken teriyaki that wowed Inez and me. I ordered the dish again - #22 Dak Gui – but instead got a standard, if well-executed, chicken teriyaki. The pounded rice marinade was so minimal I could barely tell it was there. The chicken was juicy and their teriyaki sauce is a very fine quality. Still, I was a little disappointed. The previous version we'd gotten was exceptional, and I'd been hoping that it wasn't a fluke. Alas, no luck; or maybe again, just a different cook.

Carlos loved Casserole House's seafood soup on our first visit, which was a single small bowl. The seafood casserole on our second visit, OTOH, wasn't anywhere near as good, suffering from a weak broth albeit a larger size. For our third time he decided to try the Dok Mandu Gook, rice noodle and dumpling soup, but this didn't turn out well. We were surprised to receive not the small individual soup bowl, but instead a large family-size bowl. 

Once again the bigger bowl had a weak broth, although it was perked up with long shreds of boiled beef (flank, by the length of them) and small scissor-cut slivers of toasted nori. The rice noodles were the Chinese oval rice cakes, which we both love, but the massive dumplings were not the kind we like. Folded like giant tortellini, the dough was glutinous rice, ponderous and gluey. The filling was the tasteless soy and vegetable paste that we've encountered several times in Korean restaurants. We haven't liked it in any dish, and worse, the filling in my dumpling tasted decidedly "off". 

Our weather has been extremely hot in the daytime during the last few weeks, and if these dumplings weren't spoiled they were the next thing to it. We left more than half the soup, and didn't bother taking any home.

The ban chan were very good, and several that had been too sweet the first time we came, were back to a savory chile-heat that we thoroughly enjoyed. We again received the little chawan-mushi (egg custard) cubes. The medium-hot daikon (diced icicle radish) in chile sauce was a great offset to the sweetness of the teriyaki chicken. Casserole House has good rice, important to both of us.

Not a great meal, but a good one. This is one of those menus we'll need to work through to find the gems. We need to return to Pyeongchang House (which has now codified and changed the spelling of its name to Pyungchang House), for an updated comparison between these two. Pyungchang had a truly excellent seafood soup, but Casserole House is a lot more comfortable with better ban chan. 

Decisions, decisions.......!

Two people, lunch: one appetizer (we ate half and brought the rest home), one soup bowl, one main, with tip was $59.

Casserole House Korean in Oakland, CA – update, dinner
Review date: March 2013
(previous reviews appended below)

Carlos and I ate lunch at Casserole House back in August 2012. Although some of the food, including the ban chan, tended towards the sweet side, the seafood tofu soup was excellent – almost as good as PyeongChang – and the jap chae, glass noodle stir-fry, was decent if a bit too sweet. 

Although we don't usually pick a restaurant with spicy food for our weekly dinners with my MIL Inez, Korean food was what sounded most appealing to me, so I chose Casserole House. I figured I could order a jap chae and a chicken teriyaki-style dish for her, while Carlos and I explored the menu a bit further.

The free potato pancake this time was crisper, so we liked it better than the limp version we received on our first lunch here. The ban chan were mostly similar: the sliced eggplant, the pressed tofu and the spicy batter-fried potatoes we liked, and the beansprout salad we didn't. We're split on the strange little crunchy soybeans in teriyaki sauce; Carlos likes them (a childhood thing) and I don't. There were a couple of changes, all to our liking. The spicy daikon pickle and the napa kimchi had less sugar and more bite. I particularly liked the fine shreds of napa cabbage and the lively touch of sourness in its ending note. 

What really wowed us were the cubes of creamy chawan mushi, the Japanese-style steamed savory custard. They were just solid enough to pick up with chopsticks, but still tender. In the four decades that we've been eating in Korean restaurants, I think we've gotten this particular ban chan only twice before. It's expensive to make (comparatively) so one rarely sees it. Carlos and I both love chawan mushi, and were hard put not to scarf the three little cubes down and then demand endless refills. 

I ordered the jap chae and "chicken with house special sauce", as Casserole House calls its teriyaki dish. The jap chae arrived a few minutes after the ban chan were put out. There were more onions in it this time, and the beef was in one long piece, rather than cut up into smaller pieces that would have more evenly distributed themselves. Interestingly, it seemed a bit less sweet than the first time, although there was still a fair amount of sugar in it. I also didn't remember seeing the shreds of nori, the toasted pressed seaweed sheets, in the lunch version of this stir-fry. 

The "chicken with house special sauce" was different than what we were expecting. A small teppan plate – hot but not smokingly so – held an underlayment of onions and a modest quantity of chopped, marinated boneless chicken. The chicken had an incredibly soft, juicy texture, and had been coated with what seemed to be toasted ground rice. The only cooking technique that I know of which gives such softness and uses ground rice is steaming. 

Steaming is a sophisticated technique that has been slowly falling out of favor (endless trays of Chinese dim sum notwithstanding). It was a pleasure to see it used to produce a brilliant variant of an often-abused dish. Although we think of teriyaki as being Japanese, the use of toasted rice coarsely pounded for a steamed batter coating is a classic Chinese technique. Because of the steaming, this is not a crusty batter, but rather, falling-off soft with just the slightest chew to it. The "house special sauce" was an intense teriyaki that was very lightly drizzled over the chicken in a decorative squiggle from a squeeze bottle. If the plate had been hot enough to caramelize the onion shreds, this would have rated five stars. 

Carlos wanted to try one of the casserole dishes. After some discussion, we decided on the Bulnak Junggo, beef and octopus casserole, which has thin glass noodles, firm tofu, and vegetables in a mildly spicy broth. The casserole dishes are about the size of four of the soup bowls, but despite the cost savings we didn't find ours particularly worthwhile. Unlike the rich seafood broth Carlos had enjoyed in his soup last time, the casserole broth was weak and watery outside of the tasty chile heat. The noodles were few, the tofu wasn't fresh, the vegetables included a large amount of watery zucchini, and the octopus was not only small, it was more rubbery than a Goodyear tire. Long fat chewy lengths of rice noodles didn't help, remaining bland and uninteresting. 

We discussed why this soup was so uninspired. I've only had a few Korean soups but the meat broths have always been mediocre, based on plain boiled meat. No vegetables, no fat, no marrow, no bones roasted for that essential Maillard reaction. The seafood broths are flavorful and tasty, but the meat broths never seem handled as well.

However, outside of the casserole disappointment, we liked the other two dishes quite a lot, and the custard ban chan iced the cake, so to speak. The cooking was just different enough that it makes us wonder if Casserole House has a classic schizophrenia going on, that their lunch cook seems so different from their dinner cook. 

We're not sure, but Casserole House has earned the consideration of a third visit for dinner sometime in the future to pin down how we'd rate them against their peers. Right now it's up in the air, because it's as if we visited two different restaurants that happen to share the same space and have the same name.

One thing that we noticed once we were home: neither of us were thirsty afterwards. Not only was there less sugar this time, but also little or no MSG.

This time Carlos wasn't in the mood for the cinnamon-ginseng tea, so we drank water. They bring a small glass of sugar water to end the meal; not surprisingly, I left mine, Carlos and Inez drank theirs happily.

Three people, dinner: one side, one entree, one casserole, with tip was $77.

Casserole House
4301 Telegraph Ave. @43^rd St., Oakland, CA
http://casserolehouse.com/m1.php 
Review date: August 2012

Carlos and I are trying some of the other Korean restaurants in the Temescal neighborhood, where most of them are clustered. We reviewed and liked PyeongChang Tofu nearby, although the banchan weren't quite as good overall as some of the other places. We need to also return to Sahn Maru, which consistently gets good marks from many people on Yelp and Chowhound although we have never been able to figure out why, with our two meals there being only good to indifferent.

Casserole House is on the same block as Sahn Maru – in fact, there are three Korean restaurants on this short block of Telegraph. Casserole House is in the middle, with big color photographs of their food plastered outside. It doesn't quite prepare you for the inside, which is small but surprisingly comfortable. Unlike most Korean places, almost all the highly-polished wood tables are extra-long four person tables. The center aisle that separates the two rows of tables is wide, and the majority of seating consists of well-upholstered booths that look clean and new-ish. It also has a very tiny but appreciated 4-slot parking lot right around the corner. The Temescal has become a very popular restaurant area at night, and street parking rapidly tightens up after 6:00 p.m. or so, especially on weekends.

There was a long menu, so it took us a while to pin down what we wanted to try. They had a selection of tofu soups, as well as a full page listing of tofu casseroles. The casseroles are clearly for more than one as the average price is in the $30 range. The list of soups is smaller, with a more reasonable $10-12 price. Carlos finally chose the seafood tofu soup, and I decided on the pork tonkatsu (yes, I know it's Japanese, but that's what I felt like eating). 

We also picked two appetizers: jap chae and goon mahn du, deep-fried dumplings. But when we ordered, the very nice lady who is likely one of the owners, told us that was a lot of food, so we dropped the tonkatsu. They bring tea and water, but they'll only bring a pot of tea if you ask for refills. Otherwise you receive the traditional small handle-less, straight-sided teacup. Also, this isn't the usual green tea or barley tea. This is a reddish, hibiscus and cinnamon-flavored tea, quite unusual. Carlos liked it, I was so-so on it. 

To our surprise, instead of bringing out the appetizers or banchan, they brought out an 8" pancake, crisped to a golden brown around the edges from pan-frying. It turned out to be a potato pancake, mixed with some other shredded vegetables, and was served with a soy sauce dip livened up with some sliced green onion and a light touch of chile sauce. I liked this one, as I love potato pancakes in any way, shape or form. Carlos would have liked it better if it were crisper, as in deep-frying.

Once we finished this, the appetizers came out. The jap chae uses the thin glass noodles but is nicely flavored, somewhat on the sweet side but thankfully not greasy. There's not much beef in it, appropriate for something listed as an appetizer, and even better, there were hardly any green onions in it. I like green onions, but neither one of us likes long stringy lengths of them used in over-abundance, as many Asian restaurants have a tendency to do. Koryo Wooden Charcoal BBQ (reviewed June 2011) was particularly guilty in this regard, ruining an otherwise good jap chae.

The dumplings were a surprise. First of all, it wasn't the usual commercial wheat flour wrapper. It was thicker, with a chewiness to it when fried that reminded me of the Japanese mochi, rice dough, but not quite the same. The filling of "beef, pork, kimchee, tofu, and vegetables" was sparse and finely chopped. "Deep-fried" wasn't quite accurate; it looked as though they had simply been pan-fried with about an inch of oil in the pan. They had a nice brown exterior, but not the all-over browning that true deep-frying gives. 

They were a little oily and rather heavy. But with such a sparse filling, there was no kick from the kimchee. They were just bland little fried cakes, although tasty enough when eaten with the same soy sauce dip that came with the potato pancake. This is one of those "I grew up with this" dishes, a peasant dish of starch and grease that extended pricy meat and scant vegetables. Like Nicaraguan tamales, authenticity is often an acquired taste.

After that the banchan was brought out. Casserole House's penchant for sweetness showed in several of them. The shredded daikon with chile was mild and sweet, making this a good choice for anyone tentative about their chile tolerance. There were two kimchees, both in a thick red chile sauce, with the cabbage well-drained. One was medium-heat and one was slightly hotter. I really liked the medium-heat one, but Carlos prefers his chile heat without so much sugar (sugar, like oil, takes the edge off the chile burn). 

There was a cold beansprout salad, not very tasty or fresh. But the pressed tofu shreds were yummy, as they usually are. There was a dish of thin-sliced Thai eggplant in a slightly sweet brown bean sauce. It hadn't been cooked long enough despite the thinness, so the eggplant came off somewhat rubbery in texture. There were small cubes of batter-fried potatoes, in a sweet, very mild chile sauce; it looked spicy-hot with the redness of chile sauce, but wasn't.

One dish was one of the odder banchan we've encountered: small white and black soybeans, semi-cooked but still hard. Far more to our taste was the small spoonful of the tiny, pungent dried fish we love, that so nicely flavor a mouthful of rice. And the rice was good Japanese short-grain rice, properly soft and moist. 

The haemel soon tofu, seafood tofu soup, is one of the small individual bowls with custard tofu, clams, oysters and shrimp. There are chopped vegetables including onions and cabbage in it, but not too much. The small Manila clams are shelled. The shrimp are tiny, unshelled with the head – more for flavor and sucking on to extract the juices; they're not big enough to be worth shelling with your fingers. I only had a small amount of the soup, so didn't get an oyster, but Carlos said it was fine. 

As many places do, the kitchen held off the chiles, making it mild without asking. We don't mind this when it's our first few visits and we're working our way through the menu. We'd rather get a feel for how they make dishes in general, before deciding whether we want the heat turned up or something left out. 

In this case, neither Carlos or I missed the chiles. I'd give a slight edge to PyeongChang for their soup broth, but this ran a very close second. This was a well-balanced seafood broth that used a good proportion of fish bones in it, along with the shellfish juices. The touch that really wowed us was the egg they had dropped into the boiling soup at the last minute. 

Asians use eggs in soup in two ways. One is to stir and continue to cook the broth, as in Cantonese egg drop soup or Sichuan hot and sour soup. It's the same technique used by the Italians in making their stracciatella soup. The other method is to leave the egg undisturbed for about three minutes, then gently break the yolk apart, letting it emulsify through the broth. This slightly thickens and enriches the broth – and is what Casserole House does, to wonderful effect. 

You don't often encounter the latter technique done for you in the kitchen, before bringing the order out. They'll always give you a raw egg if you ask, but it's much better done in the kitchen even if it requires split-second timing. As a result it's almost a lost art, even in Asian cooking. Sea Salt/Berkeley accomplishes the same thing but they have to poach the egg, because you don't want to boil a clam chowder based on milk and potatoes. A simple step, but one that can lift a very good dish into extraordinary. This soup is so good by itself, we ate it without the rice.

Despite there being a little too much sugar, due to the combination of a sweet teriyaki-style jap chae and the several banchan that were sweet, we liked our lunch at Casserole House and plan to return. If we'd gone with the panko-crusted pork tonkatsu instead of the jap chae, the overall flavors would have been more balanced. With that excellent soup as an example, we want to try sharing one of their casserole dishes to see what they're like. 

This is a comfortable, friendly place. It's a nice change to sit in an Asian restaurant that doesn't look like they bought in bulk from the Cheap Used Restaurant Furniture Store. The lady that seated and served us is also the one who made the seafood tofu soup, and service was attentive without being obtrusive. 

Two people, lunch: two appetizers, one soup, with tip was $46.