Lol. Thanks.
So the meat was actually good. My cousin was like “man I don’t know about this place” after we got transferred to the back room. I told him to sit tight. I told him we had to solve this mystery for HO.
You get the standard noodles with duck sauce and mustard. The korean dinners come with a salad and miso soup. Both were your average Japanese sushi place style…standard issue. Both were good/average if you like those items. The salad was fresh and served with the standard ginger dressing everyone else uses. You also get rice and sides…note sides is plural on the menu. The only side was Kim chi. You’re not getting a ban Chan spread. I’m not sure if they offer this but we didn’t get it. Also, I asked the table behind me and they only got Kim chi too. This was some really tasty Kim chi and it had some heat to it…not crazy but it was a good level. So that was a plus. I was actually surprised at the flavor.
Another weird thing was that as soon as we ordered she fires up the grill and the fan. I’m thinking we are going to get the meat out of the fridge right away… boy was I wrong. Keep in mind they fired the grill at the same time we placed our order. This is after the noodles and before the salad, soup, and Kim chi come out. So yeah, as soon as we order we have to deal with this fan. Is that a legal issue? Do they have to turn the vent/fan on even if it just warming up? It wasnt too loud but it would have been better to not sit for 30 minutes with this thing on.
So onto the meat. For 16.95 my cousin, in the camo, got the bulgogi and opted for the 22.95 galbi. The meat portions were more than I planned and I thought the value was there. I had a heap of short rib. In that pic, that was taken after a few slices were cooking already so my plate was stacked. They cooked up nicely and came out quite tender. I love a piece of blazing hot rare beef off the grill. If I don’t leave with a burnt lip then something went wrong lol.
They serve the BBQ with some onion which is awesome. Those onions just sizzle in the meat juice and rendering fat and you can pick them off one by one as they reach your perfect temperature. I wait until they are caramelized and the smells given off this grill were pretty epic…the meat, fat, onion, bbq sauce and soy sauce all come together to form an outstanding aroma. This is the case with most bbq joints but the onion isn’t something that is traditional I believe. @joonjoon can you answer that? And yes, the grills are gas, not charcoal.
So the bottom line is… this isn’t going to be a mind blowing korean bbq experience but it surely beat my expectations. It has solid bbq food, it’s priced fairly, and has ample parking. The service is slow but I think that they are understaffed. Yes I wish Edison or Koreatown was closer, but it’s 45 minutes to the closest bbq joint in Edison and this is ten minutes away. So yes, I will be back to try some more. It won’t be epic for any hardcore korean fans, nor are they korean, but if you need a bbq fix, you might have a good time here. I can deal with slow service and a weird vibe for some local bbq that isn’t going to break the bank. Again, I’m not comparing this to edison. It’s Holmdel and it’s cool to see something lIke this locally.
Ps…the wait staff was 3 people I think. They were hustling! It was slow but they were working very hard. I wanted to put that out there. I think I have an idea or two that would help this place. I’ll report back in a bit. The owner/Manager here does look on the Internet and responds to people so maybe he will read this.
I posted in this older thread because it ranks on google…first page actually. You might want to combine the two threads. @NotJrvedivici