Located in Dinkytown, Pagoda restaurant is just fun. It has a very young college vibe with a lot of young college diners to back them up. The dining area houses plenty and I doubt you’ll ever wait long for a seat. The decor is a mix of Asian, modern, deli and bar. I personally enjoy the large windows in front, good people watching. If you like to be the one being watched, perhaps you will partake in their karaoke. However, I think they might only have Brittany Spears and Backstreet Boys, at least that’s all that I heard. Still, very entertaining…beer doesn’t hurt at this point.

The menu is almost a novel, literally 21 pages for you to browse while enjoying your 2 for 1 beers (HH 3-5 and 9-close). Their menu is also diverse featuring Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Korean and Thai dishes. The prices are also super reasonable. If you can’t find something here that works for you I would be surprised. A couple neat things on the menu that make Pagoda an automatic winner in my book: durian smoothies, kimchee, squid, BBQ, hot pots and a whole 2 pages dedicated to noodles…ahhh, noodles. There are also lots of vegetarian options. Portions are big enough to share.

The couple negatives are no parking lot, but I imagine lots of students just walk to Pagoda. It’s also pretty far from my house so I haven’t been back as many times as I would like. Also, my 4 star rating is partly attributed to our Stone Grilled Beef & Fresh Egg Rice dish. In theory this dish should be out of this world! However, it was fairly bland and I was disappointed, nay, sad. The beef seemed a little under seasoned. Still eatable, but not everything I hoped it would be. This one fair dish did not sour me on Pagoda however. I would like to tackle some more of their menu because I’m sure there are some real hidden gems. I intend to find them.

The negative attitude all the workers have is enough for me to not give this place another chance. Food was too salty as well.