Korean BBQ is one of my favourite things to eat and it’s essentially, an indoor barbeque which is pretty fun. If you were wondering, Saranghae means ‘I love you’ in Korean and well, I guess I do love Korean food and that phrase is just about all the Korean I know after listening to Korean pop and watching their dramas. I wish I could say that my last decent Korean BBQ meal was in Korea but the closest I have got to that country is of course, Hong Kong. Cue, me opening up my HK folder and finding a bazillion photos of food which I have not blogged about yet! So lets get back to business and let me introduce you to Kaya, a Korean restaurant I visited back in the Summer in HK near Times Square.
Similar to hot pot, it’s all about sharing and cooking each other food! It’s fun but your clothes definitely smell of the smokey BBQ later and you only have yourself to blame if you get food poisoning….so you need to make sure everything is cooked through! You order the meat you would like to cook and it always comes with lots of side dishes which of course includes the traditional Korean dish, Kimchi which is a fermented vegetable dish (usually Chinese leaf) and it is chillies that give it the red colour.
Super blurry pic, sorry! One thing we always order a beef brisket/stew
type dish but this pot was tiny and was hard to divide among so many people.
The restaurant was full of Korean customers which is always a good sign and also run by Korean staff. I always stress this, but if you find ‘locals’ inside restaurants then authenticity can be guaranteed which I suppose is obvious. The place itself was slightly more expensive than we had experienced before. You can tell just from the quality of the beef, the slightly marbled slabs of beef are definitely highly graded.
Grandma, Hailey and Me
All finished off by some Sujeonggwa which is a Korean cinammon based dessert/tea
While this place was lovely for dinner, my HK family didn’t rate it as much due to value for money and selection of food on offer. However, if you want more of an atmosphere (i.e. rowdy Cantonese style), cheaper menu and more side dishes, visit Han Ah Rum in Causeway Bay which was pretty good too but there was a distinct lack of Korean being spoken there…or maybe the HK locals were drowning them all out?
There are a couple of places that do Korean BBQ in Birmingham but they’re not authentic and run as Hot Pot/Chinese restaurants. Though in a more international city like London, you’re bound to find some authentic Korean restaurants if you wanted to give this a try!. One thing is for sure, Korea is definitely a place that Hailey and I are desperate to visit. I really need to visit and say hey to my friend in Seoul who said she would introduce me to the er…food. Sounds good right?
