Samantha Egelhoff
The Korean fried chicken is a legit Southern meat-and-three, with kimchi mac and cheese, Chinese braised greens and a buttermilk biscuit.
Indie singer-songwriter Kurt Vile was about to take the stage at the Sylvee, and Sujeo was bustling with a millennial-heavy crowd of pre-concertgoers. Winter coats were piled up on the windowsills, and the restaurant’s sound system was bumping high-energy tunes. Some of this was familiar, but there was an energy to the dining room that felt new, revitalized.
The game has certainly changed at Sujeo, which chef Tory Miller opened in 2014. Its Asian-inflected menu traditionally felt the most autobiographically Miller (a Korean American adoptee) even as it has often thrown tradition to the wind. But as summer came to a close in 2018, Miller announced Sujeo would change from a full table service restaurant to a fast-casual model.
With that change came a new menu designed with sous chef Jamie Hoang. A number of dishes I would have expected to stick around (or to make a comeback) were jettisoned. No more chicken skin bao, no more honey butter potato chips. Instead, a small selection of sandwiches, several noodle and rice dishes, and Korean fried chicken form the heart of the menu.
The Korean fried chicken is a holdover from Sujeo of yore. It’s presented as a legit Southern meat-and-three platter, on a butcher-papered metal tray even. The outer surface is no longer drizzled with sweet and funky gochujang, which allows it to freely and proudly shatter and crunch with every bite. The sauce has been moved to the side, along with a portion of braised greens with thin coins of Chinese sausage, a big (if slightly bland) buttermilk biscuit with bourbon barrel maple butter, and a lightly kimchi’d mac and cheese. It’s a lot of food, but it feels appropriately portioned.
What it didn’t feel, on the night I had it, was particularly hot. The chicken was fresh, and the biscuit was warm, but the mac and cheese and braised greens were both moving fast toward lukewarm. A bowl of chef Tory’s B-Bap could have bested not only the old Sujeo’s bibimbap but also Graze’s legendary version — if it hadn’t been downright cold in spots. Otherwise, the dish nailed it with complex flavor, tender beef, geometric cubes of crispy rice, and a perfectly cooked fried egg with runny yolk.
A big bowl of fried Brussels sprout leaves and kale wasn’t as warm as I’d expect a freshly fried dish to be either, but that mostly meant I didn’t have to wait for it to cool down before tucking in. I found myself mindlessly nibbling on it long after I probably should have stopped, enjoying every salty bite. My doctor shouldn’t mind me overdoing it on cruciferous veggies. We won’t mention the equally munchable Imperial Cheese, batons of squeaky Oaxacan cheese fried in crunchy wonton wrappers.
Dan dan noodles are usually an oil-slicked and spicy affair, but Sujeo’s are rich and velvety, hearty on a winter night. I’d love to see the approach get a little lighter and spicier as the weather warms, but this ample portion will do just fine during the blustery months.
Sandwiches are large and messy, and succeed at replicating their namesake Asian dishes. The Pho Dip (a canny reference to the French colonial influence in Vietnam) combines a shaved beef banh mi and uses pho broth as a dip. It’s an eerily true pho experience.
And while I would never expect a soft-boiled egg half to work as a burger topping, the Sooj Ramen Burger nonetheless heaps a veritable bowl of pork belly ramen, egg and all, onto a nicely toasted bun and turns it into a burger that’s actually consumable by human jaws. It’s still huge, but there’s an incredible depth of flavor. Forget bone broth, this is a bone burger. Pure tonkotsu richness. This is what the Flintstones would eat if the show were set in Japan. Order the sandwiches with a side of togarashi-dusted waffle fries for maximum success.
Sujeo has always been more creative than traditional. The reborn Sujeo, however, is a new and lighthearted experience. You can dip in, order without having to think too hard, and get out in pretty short order. Sujeo’s new brand of wackadoo mashing-up feels like Tory Miller has stopped trying to educate Madison on Korean food, and is instead serving the most personal version of Tory Miller cuisine we’ve seen.
Sujeo
10 N. Livingston St. 53703; 608-630-9400; sujeomadison.com;
11 am-9 pm Tue.-Sun., late night service 9 pm-1 am Fri.-Sat.; $2-$19
