Namu Korean BBQ

1 Reviews on “Namu Korean BBQ”

• Roger K

  A no frills table cooking experience.. One of the first questions that came to mind when we were seated was, did they have to put a whole new concrete floor in after they ran the gas lines to each table? It turns out the answer to that question was basically, yes!The environment has a very contemporary Germanic feeling. It reminded us of a smaller coffee shop that we once found and liked in Vancouver, BC. Two of the walls have what would normally be considered banquette style seating for their entire length. This would be useful for accommodating larger groups by moving tables together, but these tables can NOT be moved because they are attached to the gas lines in the concrete floor. Maybe there are some portable tables hidden in back that they could slip between the stationary ones. Otherwise, the tables appear to be set up as two- or four-tops only. There was also a private dining room with a larger table and dual grills in the long table.The menu is set up in Three major categories: Stone; Korean BBQ; and Hot Pot. Stone is explained as a traditional style of comfort food in Korea served on a hot stone bowl or plate. Namu further groups the Stone menu into Stew & Soup, Rice, Noodle, and More. Some of these Stone dishes, like Gyoza ($6) or Edamame ($4), are small enough to be an appetizer while the stew, soup or rice dishes are plenty large enough to be an entre.Namu is planning on obtaining a liquor license but does not have one yet. Their beverage listing currently consists of soft drinks from Mexico (Coke, Sprite, Fanta), Plum or Yuzu Ade, and Green Tea.We started by ordering a cups of the Jeju Green Tea ($4 each). This was the greenest tea Ive ever seen. Its served with the loose leaves sitting at the bottom of the cup. I dont know if they would have offered a refill, since I was being careful to not empty my cup and get tea leaves in my mouth so they may have thought that I didnt finish it.As we were deciding what we were going to order, our server brought the traditional Banchan to our table. Small saucer dishes of food that would have been considered an amuse bouche in a high-end restaurant. At this point I realized that Ive never used or even seen metal chopsticks before. And I thought the ones that Id received as gifts were upscale being plastic instead of wood. Our banchan consisted of five different dishes. My recollection was that they were kimchi, green beans, pea tops, potato starch noodles, and some type of reddish beans. Our server offered to bring us more banchan when most of our dishes became empty.There were a number of things on the menu that we wanted to try and decided to start with the Shishito ($7) from the Stone, And More section of the menu. The menu describes this dish as a mild-spicy Korean pepper roast served in a hot stone plate. The peppers were delicious and by our gauge just spicy enough to start our dinner. The only drawback was that we probably only had enough time to each eat one or two peppers before our next course was brought to the table. In the future, I would make it clear that we would like them to hold off bringing any entre until after we finished our appetizer.Of course, you could make an argument that it takes time to cook a BBQ dish at a table, and since the servers will be doing the cooking for most of the customers, they might as well start while you are enjoying your app. Also, if your entre includes rice in a hot stone bowl, youll not want to start eating it as soon as it is served because youll want to let the rice sit in the bowl and become real crispy. And this was our exact experience.I ordered the Bibim Bop ($13) so I could compare it with those that Ive had at several other places over the years. The menu gave me the option of several different meats or tofu to choose from. I went with the garlic pork. The bowl was the usual super hot with the rice sizzling at the bottom, a mix of vegetables and the garlic pork on top of the rice, and on the very top was a fried egg. My preference would have been for the yolk to have been more runny. Two sauces served on the side were a sesame oil and a hot sauce. I did not find the hot sauce to be very hot at all once mixed into the vegetables. But all the flavors melded well together once I began to scrape the crisp rice from the bottom, so this Bibim Bop was very good. My wife wanted to order a BBQ dish so she could see how they cooked it at the table. She chose the Herbs Sam Gyeop ($20) thick cut pork belly marinated in various herbs. Initially, she was hesitant about ordering the pork belly because she thought it might have too much fat, but our server assured her that there was a reasonable amount of meat in each slice and the fat would cook down on the bbq. It was interesting to watch our server cooking the four slices of pork and one onion ring. When the meat was almost done, our server cut the meat into bite sized pieces using a pair of tongs and scissors. While the meat was not supper tender, it had lots of flavor and a reasonable amount of chew to it. Two different peanut dipping sauces were also provided for the pork.One item you will see on the menu that may confuse you is propane noodles. I Googled this and found nothing. As noted above, there were noodles served in our banchan that we asked about and our server came back from the kitchen and told us they were made from potato starch. We think that might be what the menu was supposed to say.Service was very attentive and sometimes the music videos became a little loud. I think there is a lot of potential for Namu. I cannot speak to the authenticity of its dishes, however.

  February 23, 2015, 8:03 am

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