Tag: korean bbq

Categories
Chinese

Mr. Buffalo BBQ 牛鲜生中式烤肉 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

The concept of a “Chinese BBQ” restaurant is a bit foreign to me, as to the best of my knowledge Chinese food culture doesn’t traditionally include a kind of setting where you sit down in front of your own hot plate and grill your own food. Chinese BBQ, up until now, referred mostly to Cantonese BBQ, where meats are pre-roasted by the restaurant and cut and served to order, whilst other forms of BBQing, like cumin-coated lamb skewers, have also existed, again being prepared in the kitchen prior to being served.

Calling what is essentially a Korean BBQ restaurant “Chinese BBQ” just because it is run by Chinese people seems to be a bit of a misnomer, otherwise 90% of the sushi restaurants in Sydney should be calling themselves “Korean Sushi”.

There were, nonetheless, some more “Chinese-esque” flavours to be had at this Chinese-themed Korean BBQ restaurant (mainly the aforementioned lamb and cumin).

The food was good and reasonably priced. The giant piece of squid that we barbecued was more of a novelty than anything else.

In some sense, this was more of a Korean BBQ+, and could reasonably fulfil the niche that Korean BBQ offers, with additional flavours on offer.

We waited an exceptionally long time for a table, and were rewarded with a round of free drinks, which was very nice.

Mr. Buffalo BBQ 牛鲜生中式烤肉
Shop/6 Unity Pl, Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Korean

Dragon Palace Galbi Korean Charcoal BBQ – Campsie NSW Restaurant Review

One of my fondest memories from 2015 was having Korean BBQ, possibly for the first time, with my then-best friend and current fiance at Se Joung in Campsie, next to Woolworths Campsie on Evaline St. Though almost all mention of this restaurant has been scrubbed from the internet in the seven years since, long time internet food people like Grabyourfork’s Helen Yee and Aimee Chanthadavong still maintain primary evidence that our boozy KBBQ meal here, where we sat cross-legged on floor mats and had our food cooked for us by Koreans who only meant to protect us from our own incompetence was not merely a fever dream.

Alas, on our recent visit the restaurant space had been renamed into Dragon Palace Galbi Korean Charcoal BBQ and revamped, and probably not for the better.

Perhaps as a holdover from past uncertainties where there were two extremely similarly named Korean BBQ restaurants in the same suburb, the woman who picked up the phone at Dragon Palace Galbi Korean Charcoal BBQ answered with “Dragon Palace Galbi Korean Charcoal BBQ Restaurant next to Woolworths Campsie.” Having customers intending to go to your restaurant Se Joung but ending up at local competitor Se Jong must have really left a mark.

There was nothing particularly bad about our meal, but probably at least a little due to nostalgia, the experience of dining just didn’t feel the same. We ate close to closing time, and there were only two staff left by the time we were there. If there was still traditional mat seating on offer, it was in an area that we couldn’t see from where we were.

Helpfully though, ordering was online via a scanned QR code. We had this vague wagyu beef, not-further-characterised, which was pretty good.

We also had some pork jowl, inexpertly cooked by us on this grill. They offered to bring us the pork cooking grill to avoid flareups, but we wanted to maintain variety throughout the course of our meal. There was sadly not much greenery offered with the pork. It would’ve been nice to get some perilla and some lettuce to wrap it in.

This short rib soup was also alright.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Our experience was confounded by nostalgia so difficult to rate accurately, but I do think that the meat was of a higher quality (though more expensive) than Se Jong on London St (the extant one, not the one that was where this current restaurant is).

Dragon Palace Galbi Korean Charcoal BBQ
Shop 3/68-72 Evaline St, Campsie NSW 2194
(02) 9789 1588

Categories
Korean

Mapo Galbi Korean BBQ – West Ryde NSW Restaurant Review

We had a pork based meal at this West Ryde Korean BBQ restaurant allegedly known for its beef ribs.

The banchan offering was diverse for 4 and included marinated raw crab, which neither I nor my Indian gastroenterologist friend were game to eat. Our Korean gastroenterologist and intensivist were game. Banchan was not refilled through the meal.

We had 3 servings of marinated pork rib ($29 each) between the four of us. Cooked skillfully by a Korean born Korean, I have no complaints.

Perhaps the only thing is that when I eat with these guys we only ever get multiple orders of the one meat. See related review of Stoneage BBQ, also in West Ryde.

The miso stew ($17) with a bit of clam inside was a nice thing that I never get to eat when I eat with my partner, because she just hates anything clammy. I’m told not bad with rice, but it was also not bad without rice.

Mapo Galbi Korean BBQ
999A Victoria Rd, West Ryde NSW 2114
(02) 9807 2278

Categories
Korean

Pork Over Flowers (꽃보다 삼겹)- Strathfield NSW Restaurant Review

Pork Over Flowers differs from most Korean BBQ restaurants in that it focuses on grilling a majority-pork based menu together with kimchi, bean sprouts, and shallots, allowing the rendered fat and meat juices to soak through the vegetables as they cook.

Banchan selection was broad, but was not refilled even though we fully cleared most of the plates.

We had the fresh pork belly set ($89) with an additional serving of pork neck ($26). The meat was cooked at the table for us, and just as advertised the rendered pork fat and meat juices did combine to add a umami flavour to the mix of kimchi, bean sprouts, and shallots. This was pretty good, and also a pretty novel experience for us three Chinese guys who hadn’t had broad experience in different styles of Korean BBQ.

The Kimchi Pancake ($25) was not as bad as people online indicated it would be. It certainly didn’t stand out, but reading what others hand said you would think that it was poisonous.

There is allegedly soft serve ice cream included for all customers at no extra cost, though the machine was not working during our visit.

One problem I do have is that I noticed while writing this review that this restaurant offers freebies for positive Google reviews, which I feel really defeats the purpose of the review process. It’s already hard enough to find nice places to eat with all the social media influencers with undeclared paid partnerships, but when the Google review system is gamed it makes it really unfair. (On that note we did witness like five Instagram girls spend an extremely long time taking photos of their mountain of food only to not eat it).

Categories
Japanese Korean

Suminoya – Sydney NSW Restaurant Review

My partner’s younger brother took us to his favourite Korean-run Japanese BBQ restaurant in Sydney. We had the $89 pp deluxe BBQ buffet with a 70 minute ordering window and a 90 minute seating time and access to the restaurant’s full selection of meat and non-meat foods. The meat quality was good, and he ordered a literal kilogram of wagyu straight off the bat, which was definitely too much, and kept us well occupied throughout the entire meal.

Alternative meats were of course available, and we did sample some pork jowl as well as some duck. I didn’t love the duck, which I found chewy. but respect that this could’ve been a result of my poor cooking skills.

We did eat other things. We had an unusually large amount of aburi wagyu nigiri (too rare for me), aburi salmon nigiri, one single slice of salmon sashimi (my partner had difficulty understanding the ordering quantities), some mushroom, some garlic butter, and all of the available desserts, of which the calpis jelly was our favourite.

It was overall a good experience, though I have a major complaint about this seemingly unnecessary charge for a new grille. Rather than pay the $2-3 per BBQ grill change on top of our already $267 bill between three, we just chose to have more cancer.

Why nickel and dime?

Suminoya
1 Hosking Pl, Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 9231 2177