Korean or Japanese BBQ recommendations

Isn’t there a place with good beef, pork and seafood?

Quarters has all three of those things, right?

I know I am a bit of a luddite, but I don’t entirely grasp the point of high-end Korean BBQ. You look at the price list of a place like Gwang Yang, and every order of meat is $34+. That’s within a hair of the pricing of somewhere like Chi Spacca (excluding the large pieces of meat obviously).

And then people are saying that the banchan are not good at that price level?

Why pay so much just for quality meat you cook yourself, which is mostly unadorned, with poor sides, when you can pay a few bucks more and have chefs preparing equally high-quality meat with inventive preparations for you, and have incredible sides?

And on the other hand, if you just want some high-quality meat without much in the way of specific preparations, why not just go to a good butcher shop and cook at home?

It seems more interesting to eat at a place like Quarters, pretty good quality meat, reasonably priced, with interesting accompaniments.

Well…people can spend their money however they like, naturally. Maybe there is some special cache in eating Gangam Style Bulgogi given the eponymous song that I am missing. Maybe just a different spin on meat after eating European preps too often.

I suppose that’s a bit off topic hah… I suppose I was just curious why the conversation is limited to the high-end of Korean BBQ recommendations :stuck_out_tongue:

Korean bbq has a lot of factors (tons of varied sides and apps). Cooking at table is interactive and fun. More lively and fun for the crowd i’m going out with than any steakhouse. 34$ galbi order comes with a crazy amount of food and you can ask for more.

High end because while many times I like normal korean but other times i dont want to sit in an overly lit room at cafeteria looking tables cooking meat i can get at Ranch 99… it’s just a unique thing

also, soju shots every 5 minutes

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Ah, sorry, but do you mean that the orders have “free refills” at the high-end places?

All banchan everywhere are “free refills”

Oh, ok.

But you’re not going to the high-end places for banchan, right? Other people seem to indicate that they aren’t particularly good sadly :confused: Except Genwa I guess. So does that solve the problem? Might as well go to the place where the free food you mostly eat is the highest quality, right?

I’ve never had poor banchan at good kbbq places, only at AYCE places. Genwa is a classic but i’m over it, prices are ridiculous and I just have more fun in Koreatown than a Korean place built for white people (good food notwithstanding). I’ve been going there since they opened because they’re by work, countless work lunches etc. They love me as I was there when they were dead, so they invited my family for fully paid grand opening of their Bev Hills spot. Was nice to be treated :slight_smile:

Seems like Gwang Yang is your only real option then haha

For bad banchan, I was just saying that because other people in this thread seemed to be indicating they aren’t very good at some of the other places besides Genwa.

The Buzzfeed guys seemed to love Chosun:

Have you tried Ten-Raku (which was mentioned above)?

Thanks again. Yes that’s probably best option.

1… buzzfeed can lick my nuts… 2… study was inconclusive lol

Yeah, it’s fun how all of the places featured say that what makes them special is their meat quality haha

Ah well…

I mean hey, after enough soju can you still tell the difference between Oo-Kook and Park’s??

I really like Kang Ho Dong lately… we almost never go out for bbq… always some other specialized korean… i do really like the place that place that does all duck bbq

I’d say it was really good but not sure it’s worth the price. My damage there was $450pp and while we consumed a lot of wagyu beef and wine, I’d much rather eat at many other places for that kind of dough.

Indeed; Yazawa is an experience, but the QPR is entirely lacking. At $450/person, one can eat at just about any of the nation’s best restaurants, of which Yazawa simply isn’t one, though it is good.

Thanks for the info. Did you go with an omakase option or order a la carte?

We did Omakase + bonus rounds

Last question (promise!): Did you go bonus rounds because the omakase didn’t fill you up or just because you wanted to get gluttonous? Second last question (I lied earlier): Which priced omakase did you go with?

Thanks again.

I don’t remember exactly but I think we weren’t completely full. No idea which omakase we started with. Something in the $200 price range.

For my money, I’d go somewhere else. I was taking some clients out on an expense account.

Based on your caveats, we cancelled our reservation at Yazawa and went to Genwa (La Cienaga outpost) instead.

I’m surprised Genwa doesn’t come up more on this board as we enjoyed a meal that rivaled Park’s and Kang Hoe Dong in my opinion. Their ban chan spread is vast, the prime galbi, beef brisket and Australian wagyu were all high quality and cooked perfectly. Service was friendly. And the alcohol markups seemed pretty reasonable. We got a bottle of Dassai 39 for 63 dollars. Will certainly be back.

Thanks again.

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