COLOR an affordable Korean place-off Harvard Avenue

Last week, I hit COLOR (166 Harvard AveAllston, MA 02134(617) 787-5656)in Allston/Brighton with my friend NT. This is a small place that is very colorful and simple with a few tables in the dining room. The service was uneven, but the food overall and prices made up for the long wait (we were famished by the time we received our food!) It has been awhile since we ate out and hung out. She is cool and we decided on Korean when the Shanghainese place we wanted to hit was closed and then the second place for Taiwanese ---parking was hard to find.

We got the ttokbokki (Korean rice cake-thick tubular in shape), Color's House Chicken-fried chicken with a sweet chili and garlic sauce (we ordered it after seeing many dishes coming out of the oven that we were were curious) and bean paste stew as well as seafood pancake. The sauce for the ttokbokki at first seemed mild, but got spicier as you ate it. Though I must admit the pojangmacha (street vendor) version on the streets of Seoul were better. I did like the bits of oden in our ttokbokki. As a Korean friend put it best, "It is the special sauce!" The bean paste stew was a first time for NT and she liked it! Not spicy and it balanced the other spicy foods. Very warming on the cold dank and rainy night when we went to Color. I always like getting the side dishes at Korean restaurants. The seafood pancake was good with bits of shrimp and squid in a crisp pancake served with the requisite soy dipping sauce. The side dishes were simple but great respite taking different bites of the food.

We had fun and though the service was slow. I got to practice my smattering of Korean here and there. It took a long time before we got our food but we were eating it with gusto. Seemed all the other customers were Koreans save us (the only non Koreans). Initially they asked if we wanted the Korean menu. Uhhh no we would like English please.

I had fun due to my friend and the conversation. The food was alright but comparing to Korea, it does not compare. (Same could be said with apples with oranges too.)