Jason C.
Yelp
On my way back to mitten state, stopped by to get my Korean filling. I have been to two other popular Korean restaurants, so decided to switch it up a bit and try this place.
We were seated in non-bbq table, after reviewing the menu, we went with the following:
- Ddukbokki (spicy rice cake)
- Kalbi Tang (Short ribs soup)
- Jeyukgui (their version of spicy pork)
I like that they leave pitcher of water on the table, call it a convenience for the server or us, it was nice not to ask for refills and just fill up the cup yourself. When we got there, there was only one server and after a while, a lady took over as the main server and the gentleman was the backup.
We got the banchans (Side dishes) first and also got free steamed egg. Like Seoul Garden, they offer free steamed egg for all orders.
As for their banchans goes, they are ok, not the best, definitely rising grill out shines them when it comes to banchan area.
Ddukbooki - Good, it came with a lot of veggies, meat and fish cakes. It wasn't too spicy and hit the spot after few days without any Korean food. Not sure it's worth $10, but worth trying at least once.
Kalbi Tang - very disappointed in this dish. It should be called Korean Eggdrop soup. They had 5-6 pieces of bone meat in the soup and no other slices of beef. The bone meats were the leftover from the LA Kalbi and it had more fat then meat and tough to eat. I would recommend you avoid this if you can. As for the flavor, your standard taste, nothing special.
Jeyukgui (Spicy Pork) - very Americanized dish. Every restaurant uses different cuts of the pork, here they use samgulsal (pork belly). The dish itself was decent, there was no "wow" factor and for $17, it was okay. The meat to veggie ratio was like 40:60, more veggies then meat itself.
Overall, decent place, the service was decent, majority of the clientele here were non-Koreans, saw more non-Asians, then Asian folks. While not in my top, definitely work a visit. One down side to this place, they do offer BBQ, but they have no separate ventilation system above each tables, so when they have customers doing BBQ, the whole place will smell like BBQ and smoky.