Korean BBQ is kind of like cooking (says Cindy)

Last night, after spending a fun day at the Ren Faire, Cindy and I decided to go out to Korean BBQ and eat lots of meat. Mu graciously agreed to stay home and get takeout, and since Eric didn't really want to go out either, that worked out well.  Amusingly, they also ordered Korean, but from a place with more veggie choices for Mu.  Anyhow, Cindy encouraged me to document the outing since one is kind of cooking one's own food there.  Or something.  :)  So, while obviously this doesn't count as a recipe, have a description of our lovely dinner!

Warning, if you don't like meat, you should beware -- there are lots of meat pictures ahead. :)

little plates of sides

raw meat (with the first course cooking already)

For those who haven't been to an all-you-can-eat KBBQ place, it's basically only somewhere you can go if you want to eat lots of meat.  There's a range under your table with a metal grill over it, you get plates of meat, and you cook it right in front of you.  You also get lots of veggie side dishes -- kimchi, bean sprouts, chap chae (Korean potato noodles), fresh salad, spicy cucumber, and for some reason, potato salad.  Oh, and also fish cakes, but those aren't veggie.  Oh, and there was also a steamed egg in broth thing, but that came slightly later, so it's not in the pictures of the other sides.  You can see it next to Cindy in the pictures of the cooking meat.

beef short plate (steamed egg in background on right)

Cindy and I ordered 4 different types of meat.  Usually, you only order 3 to start with, but we asked for half portions of each, because we knew full portions would be way too much. This way, we got to try an extra thing but still not feel like we were about to explode afterwards. The raw meat arrived on giant plates, and then we cooked it, one type at a time.

We started with the beef short plate, which I'd never had before because I didn't really know what it meant.  Honestly, I still don't know what it means, in terms of what cut of meat it is.  Whatever it is, it's super tasty!  It comes in thin, pretty fatty pieces of beef (Cindy says it's best not to think about the fat -- it's what makes it so delicious, so you may as well not worry about it).  Because it's so thin, it's the quickest to cook.  Also, it comes without any marinade, so it was the perfect choice for the first course -- one wants to cook it first, before the grill gets flavor from other marinades.  

Bulgogi with onions and mushrooms

already cooked short rib among the sides

spicy chicken

Cindy was mainly in charge of actually cooking the meat, since she's been to KBBQ more than I have and knows approximately what it's supposed to look like when it's done.  I did, however, cook the onions and mushrooms later on, as well as the spicy chicken.  So I contributed! :)  Anyways, we cooked and ate the short plate (alternating with salad and sides, because you really do need something to break up all the meat flavors) and then put on the bulgogi and its accompanying mushrooms and onions. Bulgogi is also thinly cut beef, though it's a little thicker and marinated.  It takes a bit longer to cook.  Cindy was afraid that we got too much liquid on the grill so the meat would steam instead of sear, but it turned out very yummy nevertheless. 

At that point, the grill was covered with remnants of sauce and meat and we didn't want to put anything new on it, so we had a little break and munched on more sides and chatted.  Eventually, a waiter came over (this place is super busy so it's hard to track someone down) and exchanged our dirty grill for a shiny new clean one, so we moved on to the next course, beef short rib.  These are smaller, thicker chunks of meat that took a little longer to cook.  They're also marinated in something slightly different.  I sadly forgot to take a picture while it was cooking, but I did get one of a bowl of short rib meat, sitting on the side while we cooked the chicken. 

The last course was spicy chicken.  I cooked this one (for no good reason other than to have something I actually contributed to).  The chicken had a really great, rather spicy marinade, so it was a good choice for the last course -- very strong flavor, so it was good not to cook anything else on the grill after it.  It was spicier than I had remembered from last time, we definitely had to alternate with more salad and water.  Very tasty, though! 

As you might imagine, it was a pretty long meal, given the amount of food.  Getting the half portions was a really good idea, since as it was, we were pretty full.  I don't feel too bad, though -- I eat KBBQ about twice a year (last time was when I visited Cin in November), so it's an infrequent splurge.  So yummy!