23/09/2025 – F.A.K. (Fresh Asia Kitchen)

Until today, I had only ever had F.A.K delivered. The store front is deceptively small; when you walk in to see the open kitchen behind the counter, fridge with various fresh ingredients to your right, and a small booth tucked under the window, you’d be correct to assume it was a cozy hole-in-the-wall operation – the kind lining the streets of the borough of Poplar, in London.

Until you asked to be seated. An attendant takes you up a set of stairs painted with what is reminiscent of Hiroshige’s Suruga-chō, one of 119 woodblock prints in the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo:

and you emerge in a space easily twice as big as the one you first walked in to, with large booths, high stool seating, and a bar. My friend and I chose bench seating by the window:

I think I couldn’t help but comment (loudly) on the exciting surprise. The décor makes this place feel upscale and homey at the same time, a place to go when you want something better than your usual but not stiff. And, the food! There are things on the menu at the restaurant that are not available to order online, such as the create-your-own soups. We did however, decide to go with their tried and true curries (Green Dragon and Yellow Mango) with crispy fried chicken.

We learned later from a longer-than-usual-even-for-a-busy-time wait for the food (almost 2 hours!) and unexpected discount on our bill that there was a power outage in the city just an hour before we arrived and F.A.K was one of the buildings that was affected. If we had known, we probably would not have ordered such extensive dishes. Thank you so much to the kitchen staff, who were working with reduced amenities but still fulfilled our order.

And thank you to the bartender, who kept our drinks topped up…

The fix:

Style:
Lunch and Dinner
Address:
Berliner Promenade 18, 66111 Saarbrücken
Transport:

Opening times:
Monday until Friday 11:30 – 14:30 and 17:30 – 21:00
Saturday 12:00 – 15:00 and 17:00 – 22:00
Sunday 15:00 – 21:30
Languages:
German, English
Payment Methods:
Card, Cash
What is comfy:

What could be difficult: