Friday, January 4, 2013

Road to Seoul Korean BBQ

If you've never had Korean BBQ you are missing out.  The meat is marinated to perfection and the culmination of meats that come together is just mouthwatering.  Most places serve it with ban chan (side dishes), kimchi (fermented spicy cabbage), man eul (raw garlic), rice or rice paper, and an endless number of foods.  Honestly, Fourth of July BBQ's got nothin' on KBBQ!  Depending where you go and the many options that they provide all determine what you get out of it.  Before I left for California, Eric and I would drive all the way up to Thornton, Colorado to the only all-you-can-eat (AYCE) Korean BBQ restaurant at the time.  I'm not sure if they have anymore AYCE restaurants there but the one in Thornton, Q-Table, is more of a buffet style where there's many options to choose from in addition to Korean BBQ such as sushi, fresh fruits, and other Korean dishes you would normally order from a sit down menu.  Great thing is that it offers more foods, ideal for those who want a variety of foods to try from.  I wouldn't necessarily say that they quality is superb since buffets tend to emphasize more on quantity, but the food was good enough for me since it is a Korean-owned restaurant with real Korean foods that I would see on the table in my very own home.  

As my friends and I ventured out towards downtown L.A., we stopped by a few places in search for the best AYCE Korean BBQ.  At first we went to a place called Hae Jang Chon Korean BBQ off of 6th street but the place was packed!  After placing our names on the waiting list and standing around for about 15 minutes, we decided to leave because the wait time was well over 2 hours and I'm pretty sure there were 20+ groups ahead of us.  Not individuals.  Groups.  As much as I would have loved to eat their unlimited Korean BBQ, there was just no way we could wait that long for food.
Road to Seoul was our next and what deemed to be our last destination.  Parking wasn't as difficult to find since they have their own parking lot.  We did, though valet the car ($2) and went inside.  By the time we got inside, there was a heap of people but the wait time was only an hour (Thank God!). 

As soon as we were seated I immediately hit up the common items on the menu from option A which gives you the option to get AYCE...

-  Steamed Egg
-  Black Pork Bacon
-  BBQ Chicken
-  Bulgogi
-  Beef Sirloin
-  Whole Squid
-  Korean Pancake
-  Seasoned Beef Rib
-  Baby Octopus
-  Pork Belly
-  Galbi

And other things that I can't quite remember.. The list was quite extensive...Option A only entails every individual at the table to pay $17.99.  The list for Option B has more options to choose from.  Fortunately Option A has, to me, most of the essential and popular meats such as bulgogi, sang-gyup-sal, and galbi.

Road to Seoul brings out a bowl of salad, rice paper (which was a foreign concept to me until I moved out to L.A.), raw garlic, Korean pancakes that consist of green onions, gyeran jjim (계란찜)--steamed egg casserole, kimchi (김치)--fermented, spicy cabbage, and a Korean version of a potato salad--all I remind you are unlimited as well.  I generally take the rice paper, place a few pieces of lettuce on top, then take the meat which is lightly dipped into Road to Seoul's rock salt (which is pretty neat), and then wrap it all up and take a bite into it.  If you want to go traditional, traditional...dip the raw garlic in the this brown pasty sauce called ssamjang (쌈장) and place it on the meat before wrapping up the rice paper.

At a Korean restaurant I generally lean towards galbi but the sirloin steak here was juicy and delicious so I highly recommend you getting

Overall the place speaks for itself.  There's a high demand for Road to Seoul BBQ for a reason.  That reason is because this place is soooooo goooood!  The sole purpose of this write up is because I'm currently craving it at this very moment...

<3 Lina Chen

1230 S. Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90006
323.731.9292

No comments:

Post a Comment