Restaurant Review - Up to snuff

Except for the occasional Ethiopian-Somalian restaurant — there is one of those in my neighborhood, believe it or not — nothing feels like a greater culinary adventure to me than eating in a Korean restaurant.
Possibly for some cultural reason with which I am not familiar, the staff at the typical Korean restaurant in Atlanta does not speak English and seems disinclined to try. I don't mean this as a criticism — it isn't as though I'm making an attempt to learn Korean, after all. I simply note the contrast between the practice at local Korean restaurants and the Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants that share miles of Buford Highway above and below the Perimeter.
In the language-barrier sense, Harue Cafe is typical of the metro area's Korean restaurants. But that is the only sense in which it bears a resemblance to them. In every other way, Harue Cafe is in a class by itself.
First of all, there's the neon highlighting the interior of what used to be a fast-food restaurant. (Yet another defunct Arby's? You may recall that another Korean restaurant, 88 Tofu House, set up shop in a converted Arby's further south on Buford Highway not too long ago.) This isn't cheap barroom neon, it's more like contemporary artwork neon, orange and sky blue.
And that's not all. Peering through the large potted plants in the center of the modestly sized main dining room, I spied a large, goofy statue of a golfer, decked out in his plus-fours and tam o-shanter. Why this is here, I have no idea. Harue Cafe isn't exactly a whimsical kind of place.
The shiny hardwood floor seems alternately sleek and stark, depending on how many other diners are in the room at the time. The round tables and straight-back chairs — half of them upholstered in pale green, the other half in dusty pink — give the same impression.
Virtually every patron is Korean; it's always a good sign when visiting an ethnic restaurant to find the home folks in residence. Harue Cafe brings in everyone from business types to dates to bridal showers and birthday parties.
That being the case, get ready for some s-l-o-w service, because the restaurant is woefully understaffed. Fortunately, however, the kitchen is up to snuff.
And what an array of diverse dishes and flavors there are — everything from sushi to fried chicken to the most glorious dishes of all, the heavenly soups. Not all of this is on the printed menu. Most of it is, but the rest you will have to point to as it passes you on its way to native diners.
Harue Cafe's sushi is savory and loaded with odds and ends, unlike the stylistically clean Japanese sushi. Now that I think of it, "savory" and "odds and ends" describes a lot of what comes out of the kitchen here. Except the chicken; $16 will get you a plate mounded high with small chicken pieces miraculously fried without any apparent grease, hot and crisp. It can be ordered with hot and sweet sauce, which is a little much for my taste.
No matter what you think of tofu, I urge you to try the rich, silky tofu soup here. On the other hand, the seafood soup is a brilliant and beautiful medley of shellfish and various odd lots in a large glass bowl. The gorgeous, decorative hot pots are crammed with fatter than usual udon noodles. And then there is the cold noodle soup, delicious and refreshing.
The typical seafood pizza is considered a side dish here as are roasted chicken gizzards.
Pork dumplings are the lightest I've eaten. (You might have to ask about these. They were not on the printed menu at the time of our visit, but we were told a new menu was being printed.)
Somewhere in Harue Cafe's kitchen is an expert chef, because everything with seafood in it tastes fresh — hot or cold — and everything else is juicy with a slight tang. It's a very interesting place.
__Harue Cafe, 872 Buford Highway, Doraville, 770-220-3013. Open daily, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Inexpensive. Credit cards. Dress: casual. Ambiance: contemporary hangout. No-smoking section. Wheelchair accessible.

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