Tae Kyung Y.
Yelp
The last time I visited Honey Pig was roughly 5 years ago... and I know that there was a lot of talk about how much it had went downhill - a primary reason why I didn't visit. I completely forgot about its existence, but my friend and I were craving KBBQ on a Saturday night, and we wanted to go somewhere pretty quiet, so we thought Honey Pig would be the perfect place.
Contrary to our thoughts, the place actually had a wait. It wasn't too bad - roughly 15-20 minutes. We were seated, and we decided to get the AYCE A, which was $38.99. Comes with brisket, bulgogi, pork butt, marinated pork butt, pork belly, garlic pork belly, gochujang pork belly, soybean paste pork belly, wine pork belly, gopchang, daechang, spicy squid and more. They also give complimentary corn cheese, soybean paste stew, salad and steamed egg souffle. We also got a somaek tower, which comes with one bottle of soju and 4 beers mixed in a huge tower.
A unique aspect of Honey Pig is that they use a pot lid shaped grill (the only one in ATL KBBQ world actually) and it's WIDE, allowing them to grill a lot of meat at a time. They also have BOMB kimchi and they grill that for you too - it's actually one of the best kimchi I had in my life.
I was so surprised to see that their brisket was NOT FROZEN. Something RARE to see in the AYCE world! The brisket was very good. Perfect and chewy and cooks fast. We also ordered an order of pork belly, garlic pork belly, wine pork belly, marinated pork butt and daechang. I've always noticed this about Honey Pig, but their seasoning tends to be on the lighter side. Even for the marinated pork bellies, it was lighter - that doesn't mean it's bad, I actually really liked it (and pairs great with their sesame oil salt) and it makes me think that this place caters to Korean people fresh off the boat. Despite this, when I visited, it looked like the restaurant was half Korean guests and half foreigner guests.
The pork bellies were amazing too. The marinated pork butt was actually really tender and very good. This was one of the best marinated pork butt I've tried in my life.
Daechang was OK - not the best. It wasn't very flavorful. You have to really dip it in the salt sauce to have some flavor. Because it's so chewy, once you suck out all the salt flavor, it becomes bland again but then again, all the other meats were so good.
Our server was on top of things, making sure we were taken care of. She made sure our banchans were refilled, our sauces were refilled and she was extremely kind despite the busy night they were having.
I would definitely return to Honey Pig again - Man I can't believe I've been missing out. I don't know what the rumors are about it being bad, but I had an exceptional experience at Honey Pig.