Jongro Korean BBQ

Last weekend, Ken and I were in the mood to eat out on Friday night but didn’t know what we wanted to eat (as usual!). We finally decided to get Korean and we hadn’t been to K-town in over six months, so we walked over to 32nd Street to find a restaurant. We walked all along the street and weren’t really felling any restaurant and were about to give in to BCD, but then we both spotted Jongro Korean BBQ on the second floor of an office building. I’ve been to almost all of the restaurants on 32nd and they’re all pretty good but I’d never even heard of Jongro before. Ken hadn’t heard of it, either, but it looked like it was pretty packed so we decided to take the chance.

When you walk inside the restaurant, the first thing you’ll notice is the decor – its style is very retro (Korea from the 1970s/80s) and there are BBQ plates at each table:

We originally wanted ramen and soup but when we sat down we decided to do barbecue and soup. I love going to restaurants in K-town because there are always so many banchan (side dishes that they send over after you order). Jongro sent over an egg custard that cooked at the table:

Some kimchi, macaroni salad and sides for the barbecue:

We ordered the seafood pancake (pajeon):

The pancake had a different texture than other restaurants that serve it – the batter tasted a little sweet like funnel cake. Ken and I both liked it – not too much octopus, a good variety of seafood, and dense and a little sweet.

We shared an order of kalbi; if you want to cook at the table, there’s a minimum of two orders of meat:

The kalbi was really delicious – marinated, tender and really good with rice, soybean paste, green onions and a lettuce wrap. We both agreed that it was some of the better kalbi we’ve had in Koreatown.

We also ordered the kimchi soup:

The soup ended up being more of a tofu soup than kimchi soup and it was a little flavorless, so I don’t think I’d come back for their soup. We asked for some rice because we ordered both the soup and the barbecue and I noticed that they charged for rice (which is kind of annoying considering everyone eats their bbq or soup with SOME rice!) The barbecue is definitely worth getting and the atmosphere is very lively (although the music is pretty loud) – a great new addition to our K-town repertoire!