The Payoff: Moim

Today, as expected, Frank Bruni awards one star to Moim, a four-month-old Korean restaurant in Park Slope:

Moim does a tempered, tweaked version of Korean cooking that’s still rarer — still more of an exciting discovery — than you’d expect, given all the Momofuku mania. Many of its dishes, distinguished by a beautifully modulated and lingering heat, are compelling. Most are at least satisfying…

And the prices at Moim — $4 to $10 for small plates, $8 to $22 for larger ones — amply reflect its liberation from Manhattan rents.

This is Bruni at his best, calling attention to a good restaurant without resorting to star inflation. And, in a rarity for him, discovering a place not already discovered by others.

Eater and I both win at 3–1 odds on our hypothetical $1 bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$52.50		$55.67
Gain/Loss	+3.00		+3.00
Total	$55.50		$58.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	22–6		21–7

Rolling the Dice: Moim

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Moim, the four-month-old Park Slope Korean. The Eater oddsmadkers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 8-1
One Star: 3-1 √√
Two Stars: 6-1
Three Stars: 50-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: This week’s Bruni target is something of a wild card. The owners, Kiho Park and Saeri Yoo Park, were featured a couple of months ago in a New York Times piece about their Park Slope brownstone, but I could not find a single review of their restaurant. The chef, Saeri Yoo, has some serious credentials, with stints at Spice Market, Café Gray and The Modern.

Bruni has never issued a zero-star review outside of Manhattan. Given the rarity of his outer-borough visits, it would be silly to write a review only to say, “Don’t bother,” especially for a restaurant that the other critics had already ignored. So you can bet that Bruni is going to be fairly enthusiastic. The only question is: one star or two?

Bruni definitely has a two-star bias when he reviews an earnest out-of-the-way family-owned place. It has happened over & over again. You can bet that when he walked in the door, he was itching to pull the trigger on two stars. Is Moim good enough? Eater seems to have a good point: if it were that good, surely it couldn’t have flown under-the-radar for so long.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award an enthusiastic one star to Moim.