Indochine. Also, I am fully aware that there is no such thing as the Asian Language, I just wanted to make a point in regards to this horrible Thai/Japanese fusion restaurant.
Anyways, for those of you that don’t know, in Miami there is a sushi bar on every block. There also are very few people of Japanese decent living in Miami. All of these restaurants are either owned and operated by Koreans or Thais. That is not to say that there aren’t some extraordinary and wonderful sushi restaurants in Miami, and I suggest Matsuri, Su Shin or if you have money, Sushi Samba, however you also get a lot of, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it, shit restaurants that for some reason are insanely popular. This is true of any food variation, and I have learned a unique way of identifying which restaurants are the best. If you are going out for Chinese, and everyone eating in the restaurant is white, get out. If however you are going out for Chinese and everyone is of some Asian descent, stay. The Chinese know better Chinese Restaurants than any white person ever could. And thus the same goes for any ethnic group.
Well, what get Indochine on my black list is this story which started yesterday: my coworkers and I wanted sushi in the Brickell area. There are a few places in the area, but Indochine had a mix of Thai and Japanese, similar to my beloved Bangkok Square of Orlando, and that prompted my urge to go, and my coworkers were in agreement.
The place had that “trendy-crappy” feel to it, with the projection TV, retro style stools in front of the bar, and other knickknacks throughout. However the booths and the chairs looked like they had been stolen from the Titanic. Also, our booth was extremely claustrophobic. I was thankful I wasn’t a fat man, or they would have needed the jaws of life to get me out. Moving on, we opened the menu, which wasn’t bad. A few things stuck out as odd, like edamame for$6 and a california roll for $7, but we ordered away as the place quickly got packed. The group ordered Garlic Beef, Chicken Teriyaki Bento, and I ordered the Shrimp Teriyaki Bento.
Our soups came out first, the bentos with miso and the garlic beef coming with Tom Yum Gai. The miso wasn’t bad; my coworker said the Thai soup tasted like dish water. Next thing, the Garlic Beef shows up; between 5 and 10 minutes later the bentos arrive. I’m sorry, but who the hell brings out only one persons food. They could have easily waited to serve the group. Ahh, but as for the bentos… For $15 I got not 1, not 2, but 3 Shrimps. Not jumbo shrimp either. Also, I wouldn’t exactly call them teriyaki either. So I finished my shrimp, and looked across the table at my coworker with the teriyaki chicken making a face. We all ended up trying the “chicken”. We still don’t know what it really was, but none of us have ever had chicken of that texture before. We think it was really tofu.
So with our crappy meals completed, we paid and left and said to ourselves “We can get a better and cheaper bento at Finnegan’s, and probably more shrimp.” And we thought that would be the last time we ever had to deal with that overpriced, underfooded, and somehow popular restaurant.
I was wrong. My coworker this morning checked over her online banking and saw that they had charged her twice. She called, and their immediate response was “oh yeah, we get a lot of calls like that.” Turns out they double charge you to make sure you have money in your account. Which is bullshit because everyone in Brickell has money, just look at their Mercedez or Ferrari if you need proof; and double charging just means you take more money out of their account and in the case that they had no money in their, you would cause them to go into the red. We all just decided this was a form of embezzlement or credit card fraud by Indochine, and my coworker quickly informed her credit card company.
So, don’t go to Indochine. If someone tells you they love it, they are clearly morons who either like to waste money, or have awful tastes. I only suggest going to Indochine if you are one of those sheep who goes to PF Changs when they want Chinese.
Jason Orkin, Connoisseur
Tags: Complaints, Restaurant, Sushi
