Dosi is a tapas-style Korean restaurant and soju bar that took over the former Toyama space on S. Shepherd, just across Harold Street from Houston Wine Merchant and across the busy main thoroughfare from Triniti. It’s from An Vo, who previously managed Kpop, the enormous buffet restaurant. Okay, that’s the simple who-what-where description. There’s much more to this new restaurant.
Walk in the front door after dark when the restaurant’s soft lighting pours into the foyer through the wall of glass jars containing soju (a Korean alcoholic drink made from rice, wheat or barley) that is being infused with various fruits and herbs. It’s a geometric stained-glass display, beautiful and silently working, slightly different each day. The food-as-art display is a clue to the kitchen’s lively imagination.
The well-priced menu by chef Jordan Asher (previously at Oxheart and Iziba) and sous chef Daniel Toro (previously at Just Dinner) is fusion-Korean, including a version of bo ssam, the slow-roasted pork shoulder in lettuce wraps made famous by Momofuku in NYC. But it’s not quite what you might expect.
Yes, the dishes are Korean-inspired, but there are Southern influences, too, such as the use of pickled tomatoes ($5, photo below) that bring a buzzy fermented sensation to a carefully composed linear salad of wildly different textures and flavors that also include grilled tofu cubes, pickled onion, shiso (a pungent herb) and toasted puffed rice.
Start your meal with wavy large crisps of kale ($5) that are polka-dotted with tapioca balls. How do they do that, you wonder? Actually, you’ll probably find yourself questioning your server often.
Take, for example, the lamb collar ($12) that is cooked to shredded tenderness in a sauce of preserved roots and persimmon, served with crisp-chewy rice cakes (like the so-called “Korean dumplings” you’ve probably eaten at Underbelly). Where does that undercurrent of spice-heat come from? How long does this dish take to prepare? How are the rice cakes made?
Because I did ask our server, I can tell you that it takes a full week to prepare the bo ssam (photo below): 72 hours of brining, followed by 72 hours of sous-vide cooking at low temperature. It’s then finished to order in a hot oven to make the skin puffed and shatteringly crisp. The pork shoulder is presented on a platter with Bibb lettuce leaves, pickled cauliflower, pickled cucumber and house-made kimchi. Bowls of rice, meat “pot liquor” and a sweet-and-spicy kochujang-ssamjang concoction are served on the side. You build your own wraps using the lettuce. It’s a magnificent feast, and it’s just $60. The menu says it’s meant to serve three; I think it would serve five to six generously.
Add one of the other small plates – shrimp with adzuki bean porridge ($12) or black bean noodles ($12) cooked in an essence of oxtail and maitake mushrooms, served with fresh cucumber and mung beans – and you and friends will eat a very fine meal for well under $100.
There are currently just two desserts on the menu. My favorite was made of goat milk that is frozen and then shaved Taiwanese-style into the lightest, wispiest shave ice ever. It’s like snow and comes topped with pine-nut granola clusters, freeze-dried strawberries, vanilla yogurt and matcha (a kind of green tea).
There’s much more to discover at Dosi. People who are fond of pickled foods will think Dosi is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
DOSI, 2802 S. Shepherd bet. Westheimer & W. Alabama, 713-521-3674, dosirestaurant.com.
Currently serving dinner only, Monday through Saturday.