Great new local restaurant - Dotori (8/10)

I subscribe to the Time Out newsletter and give it a quick read every week to see if there is anything interesting happening. My interest was most piqued when I saw a restaurant in Finsbury Park in their Cheap Eats feature this week. The restaurant in question is Dotori and is less than 10 minutes walk from our flat. We went for lunch on Good Friday, a day that is as dead as Christmas Day in Brisbane, but seems quite buzzy here in London.

The restaurant looks very different to everything else around it. I mean, let's face it, the area around Finsbury Park Station is far from salubrious! Dotori is quite small but beautifully decorated with rice paper lanterns and bamboo on the walls. There was only one other couple in the restaurant when we arrived around 1pm, but by the time we left at 2pm, there was a queue. I think the Time Out coverage had been seen by quite a few locals!

They pretty much have two complete menus - a Korean and a Japanese. The Japanese was quite familiar, with sushi, sashimi, teriyaki and bento boxes. The Korean menu was all quite new to me. The waiter was fantastic. He recognised our indecision and offered a recommendation of the Korean Hot Pot, which I decided to go with. Kyle went with his original choice of Japanese Pork Katsu.


But first, we were given these salads. Now I realise this is just iceberg lettuce with some shavings of carrot and capsicum, but the dressing was amazing. Sweet, but salty and very moreish - I think it was probably soy and rice wine, maybe rice vinegar. I did ask what it is, but apparently it is the chef's secret. I wanted to drink the rest out of the bowl, but managed to restrain myself.


To start, we shared a plate of Crispy deep-fried dumplings, stuffed with chicken mince and served with a soy dipping sauce. The filling of these was a little bland, but the wrapping was perfect - light dough, crispy on the sides and they looked beautiful lined up on the plate!

My Hot Pot was really interesting. It was a mix of rice, seafood and raw vegetables (mushrooms, zucchini, carrots, beansprouts) that came in a really hot stone pot (hence the name!), which cooks the vegetables and keeps the dish super hot for ages. It looked so pretty when it arrived and then the waiter mixed the accompanying chilli sauce into it before I could take a photo. Oh well. This was a really tasty dish, very fresh ingredients and a nice amount of heat in the sauce (although I only used a small amount, but I guess that variability is good).

Kyle's dish of Katsu Donburi was described on the menu as Deep-fried pork in breadcrumbs and egg in special sauce. I don't know that I've ever really liked Katsu much, but it is normally served with a rich curry sauce and is all quite heavy. This one came with the 'special' sauce, which was light and really sweet (reminiscent of the salad dressing - more rice wine perhaps?) and was absolutely delicious and huge! The sticky sushi rice it came with was also excellent.

All of this came with Miso soup and we also tried Hite, a Korean beer, which was crisp and resfreshing - perfect with the mild spice of the hot pot in particular.

All of this came to a bargain 21 pounds, which for food of this quality and quantity is outstanding value. I really enjoyed this - the restaurant is lovely, the food was excellent and the service was friendly and helpful. There are also so many things on the menu I would like to try and it is only 10 minutes walk away! So, in summary, we will definitely go back. What a discovery! Good on Time Out.

Food: 8/10
Drinks: 6/10
Service: 9/10
Ambience: 8/10
Overall: 8/10

Dotori
3 Stroud Green Road
London, N4 2DF