Summary

Korean BBQ in NYC is often straight forward. If you want to eat it, you go to Koreatown for a safe bet. If you go away from Koreatown, you risk eating somewhere that may not satisfy that lust. Perhaps the meat would not be as good, or the side dishes would be awful.

Fortunately this place in Chelsea was actually pretty decent.

I definitely want to preface that the ventilation in this restaurant is not good despite the ducts over the grills, so your clothes will smell.

This place uses the standard grill with water and heat. So you know to expect no charcoal flavors. In the center holds the sukiyaki soup that comes with any BBQ combination. For this we got the kimchi jigae. The jigae was pretty good, similar to the soondobu kimchi broth from BCD Tofu.

We ordered the first combination for 2 on the menu which was deungsim, saeng galbi, and yangnyeom galbi, which is basically prime rib eye, non-marinated beef short ribs, and marinated beef short ribs. They took the beef fat and used that to grease the grill.

The banchan came with an array of side dishes including: kimchi, green onion salad, small fish cakes, broccoli, pickled radish wraps, and spicy radish slices with jalapenos. The BBQ came with lettuce wraps as well. They don’t give you the oil/salt sauces unless you ask.

This is one of the few Korean BBQ places that does not give you complimentary steamed egg. We ordered this on the side, and found it pretty comparable to other Korean BBQ places.

When we walked in, the front host wouldn’t seat us despite a pretty empty restaurant until 2 people at their existing table left. When you have to stand for 5-10 minutes waiting for seats to open despite a 50% vacant restaurant, it’s just not a good perception. They definitely don’t do a great job at turning tables, as I was tempted to look for a different restaurant when I was waiting.

Overall, I thought portion size for the price was decent. It’s still not great compared to LA, but the vibe feels like the cheaper LA Korean BBQ places. I felt the meats in general were pretty good quality, but it’s still no Koreatown. Fortunately, we were full at the end. The banchan dishes were all decent though they didn’t seem to refill it automatically or ask us if we wanted.

Final Verdict

This is actually a surprising decent Korean BBQ place near Chelsea/Flatiron without having to venture all the way to Koreatown. If that was what you wanted, it’s a solid choice to satisfy the urge. Just don’t expect the service to be the same as other Korean BBQ restaurants.

Yelp Jabs

Had some of the best Korean food of my life here!!

This elitist hasn’t really had much Korean food in their lives, so take that with a grain of salt.

My boyfriend and I got an order of the galbi and a stew with veggies.

Here’s a general rule of thumb: don’t go to a Korean BBQ restaurant and order mains that you don’t put on a grill. Same rule applies if you go to a seafood restaurant ordering steak or a pizza restaurant ordering spaghetti. You just don’t do this unless you like to set yourself up for a higher risk of disappointment.

Only thing that was tolerable was probably the free steamed dumplings we got from Yelp for checking into the restaurant.

Here’s another rule of thumb: free Yelp food check-ins is like using a Groupon. Set your expectations reasonably.