The first thing that you should know about most Traditional Korean BBQ restaurants is that the menus are all in Hangul and the waitresses don’t speak English.  So, if you fancy trying a Korean BBQ Restaurant either learn how to speak Korean real quick, or cheat, like I did, and go with someone who can speak the language and show you the process.

I was very lucky to experience my first BBQ with a native Missourian, like me, who had not only studied Korean in the US, but had lived in Daegu for three years.  (And so happened to be the English teacher I will be replacing at Study Factory.)

We walked in and were taken to our four seater table.  In the middle was a large square grill.  The extensive menu was on the wall.  All in the indiscernible characters of Hangul. (I’m told I’ll be reading the language with ease in a few weeks, but having only been on the ground a mere 36 hours, it all looked incredibly foreign and complicated to me.)  My ‘guide’ explained the menu. The items listed on the left under the blue line were drinks.  In the middle under the purple heading and line were the pork options.  Under the red section beef.  To the right, under the green heading and line were the sides.  The color coding seemed intuitive to me, but I was still clueless what the individual items meant.

Our order was taken.  In expert Korean, Kristina asked the waitress to bring us 2 beers, 2 small dishes of rice, a soup, and 300grams of beef which came with mushrooms.  While we waited for the meat to arrive, we ventured over to the condiments table where there was an array of dishes from lettuce leaves (to wrap your meat in), onions, kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage), a spicy soy/sesame sauce (essential I was told), garlic and several other things including a Pepto Bismal pink colored sauce (which I did not try!).

Once our meat arrived, we started grilling.  The beef was marbled with fat which sizzled on the grill and then melted in my mouth with the most incredibly delicious taste.  The spicy soy sesame sauce was particularly moorish and indeed essential.  I ate until I was stuffed, but felt the meal was relatively healthy. And the price wasn’t bad either.  A mere 24,000KRW.  (About US$21 for 2). I can’t wait to go back again – with someone!  I fear I will never be able to speak and read Korean well enough to go on my own.