Sarku

LOCATION: Natick Mall Natick, MA (tough one to guess, huh?)
TYPE OF FOOD: Asian
REVIEW: The food court is one of the few places on Earth in which you have to deal with zit faced 16 year olds (who speak fluent Lady Gagan, too). It can also be the worst place food, in terms of healthiness. McDonalds? Bad. Sbarro? Bad. Burger King? Super bad (oh, I didn't realize I was referencing something there). Luckily there remains one cuisine which managed to avoid anything related to Ray Kroc, Disney, or 4Kids (a channel that dubs anime, I don't want to go into it... the memories are so painful....): Asian. And with that, I walked up to Sarku.

There's not a terrific amount of menu items. I knew what I wanted almost instantly: the chicken teriyaki. So I walked up and ordered it, and instead of the rice that came with it, I ordered vegetables (okay really, did you expect me to order something other than the chicken teriyaki?). After a couple of minutes, I received the food in a styrofoam container along with plastic cutlery and sat down at a table.

I took one bite-and guess what?-and burned my mouth. The food was send to the back of my tongue where I swallowed it. The second bite, much less cooler, send the delicious taste into my mouth. The taste of the chicken, freshly made, was delicious with the sauce (I'm guessing it's a sauce) on it. The vegetables were freshly grilled, with plenty of flavor. Since I had a small lunch (a cup of grapes and an English muffin, sorry mom!), I ordered double meat. I ate every piece of chicken and vegetable, and it must have taken me at least fifteen minutes. But finally I finished the workout, threw my trash away, walked through Sears into the parking lot, and drove off.

SERVICE: The service was very authentic. The people there looked like they had many years of experience and were kind and wise (and yet they work in a food court). They cooked the food right in front of you and were concentrated and not dosing off. Plus they did not have food or gum in their mouths, they were not staring at you like you had a giant mole on your forehead, and did not crowd in one area. Where's the Guinness Book of World Records when you need them?

ATMOSPHERE: The atmosphere was nice. The floor of behind the counter was clean, there was a sink, so I assume they wash their dishes/hands there. And if your attention span is longer than three minutes, you can stay and watch your food get cooked. The grill in which they cook it on, by the way, takes up 90% of the front area. It's not distracting or anything, and you can hear your food getting cooked across the food court. And that is real cooking (looking at you fast-food giants, because everything is just "add water", "microwave this", "nuke that", whatever happened to stoves?).

PRICE: My food was $7.50. That's with double meat. Double meat only adds $1.25, so my dish would have cost $6.25, which is still cheap. 15 to 20 minutes of food for $7.50? If that isn't enough time to spend with your family while they eat from the McDonalds two stalls away, what has more time? A board game? Good luck getting your six year old from that iTouch to play Life. Just saying!

RATING: Sarku is a small stand at the Natick Mall food court with excellent food and good service. If you can successfully avoid the other diverse places (from Indian to salads), go here. Just make sure if you get double meat not to have a impatient person around. Four words: kicked out for life. Bad, bad times. Sarku gets a five out of five.