This is a GOOD Value, Buffet-style Korean (Chinese) AYCE for $17.......if you are looking for fancier Table Service Korean (Japanese) AYCE, look elsewhere like Kyo $23. Both are lunch prices.
Read different reviews for this restaurant and have to address some of the comments in taste and service. Then will address food selection and eating strategies for yielding the maximum satisfaction from this place. With a 90-minute lunch limit, plan ahead to get the most food.
TASTE
If you know how to assemble a complete Korean BBQ entre then you can succeed in getting a delicious meal out of this AYCE: Meat+Onions+Dipping Sauce+ Lettuce!
SECRETE IS IN THE SAUCES
The meat is "lightly marinated" so pick the ones in the bottom if you want more taste. Otherwise, use the:
1) delicious tangy dipping sauce with orange (located first thing next to the green leaves salad bar). It looks like soy sauce but taste nothing like it. Highly recommended if you want a decent Korean BBQ taste.
2) gochujiang, a red thick paste made of garlic and soybean paste, located by the wall next to kitchen entry, in a bucket next to al the bean sprouts. You cannot skip this sauce for the proper Korean Pork Belly Lettuce Wrap experience.
THE MEATS
*their stove does not have even heat so it takes a long time to cook thicker pork pieces
*cook pork first, leave the seat to get other food while it cooks to minimize time spent away from stove just looking for food
-Once you grilled the meat, cut them up to smaller pieces and dip into one of these sauce.
-Placing onions over the red meat tenderizer them.
Pork Shoulder (looks like pork chops)
-fat and tasty, the most versatile meat that will not get overcooked.
-best grilled as whole piece then cut into small pieces
-topped with gochujiang and wrapped in lettuce
(See photo)
Beef
-lean cut and very thin
-must unfold properly once placed onto the grille
-cooks real fast on hottest part of grille and flip the meat. Do not overcook or it will be rough and chewy
-best with light tangy sauce
Chicken and pork slices
- only good when browned on high heat. Sometimes the staff come over and lower the heat and the meat gets dried.
SIDEDISHES
There are two stations of Korean side dishes. There is a big salad bar with Chap Chae (delicious glass nodded) raw kimichi, kale, slaws, potato salad, watermelon, seeweed etc. You can assemble a decent setting.
The other station is by the kitchen entry, made of typical Bibimbap toppings such as sprouts, carrots, radishes and this is where you get the gochujiang. I skip the big bowl of rice and use these veggies to supplement my side dish ensemble.
***Their kimchi is not fermented so it taste better (and easier to digest) if you cook it instead. My first visit I didn't know so I had stomach pains from eating the raw rough fiber.
COOKED HOT FOOD
Their hot food is mainly of Chinese style food. Nothing really worthy to fill your stomach with it except: fried chicken wings, spring rolls, beef bulgogi, and maybe some veggies. On both occasions I find their fried fish and fried pork to be not freshly tasting.
The soup station offer a variety of seeweed, beef bone broth, pumpkin porridge (sweet), along with rice for those inclined to stuff themselves with someone that is worth only a penny to a pound.
SWEET ENDINGS
There is no dessert offerings, BUT I still managed to pull together a nice little dessert plate. In the hot food section, you can find a sticky rice cake with red sauce over it. The Pumpkin Porridge is a thick starchy soup that I really enjoy in very small quantity. Then there is the watermelon pieces that is always sweet. The potatoes salad has generous amount of juicy swear apples in it. I walked away feeling quite content with this selection of sweet offering.
SERVICE
The "servers" function more like bus boys to whisk away emptied plates and to change the grills when they get all mucked up. Do not expect to have any conversations or nice greetings from them. They respond to our various requests to adjust the heat up and down, and kept our BBQ experience smooth.
You do go up to the till to pay the bill, and you will be watched if you are wasting food or secretly stowing food away ($10 penalty if you leave food on your plates unfinished). Great policy.
For the price, I really enjoy this AYCE. Compared to $50-$60 for dinner of 2 at regular middle of the road Korean restaurant, getting ourselves stuffed with 8 plates of food for $17 each is really a steal (we can eat 2-3times of what normal people can eat)......It is of good value, and if you have the skill set, you can get many plates of delicious Korean BBQ meats, side dishes and event desserts out of it. Don't blame the paint for a lack luster painting, it's all with the painter! read more