K is for Korean

All up in my BBQ grill

Believe it or not, I had never had Korean BBQ before.  Yup, Melbourne born and bred but no, no Korean BBQ.

We stayed away from the inner city and found a great little North Melbourne gem called Toodouri.

We were greeted at Toodouri by a lovely but slightly reluctant waitress.  Reluctant in the sense that when we asked her just to “feed us” (see: we have no idea what to get) she was truly confused.  Getting the waiter to choose what you’re about to eat is a phenomenon as ever present as “dishes designed to share” in Melbourne restaurants at the moment, so her confusion was actually kind of refreshing.  It made it hard to convey our lack of knowledge in the Korean BBQ arena and that fact that we actually needed her help, but she came round to the idea and lit up the barbie.

As soon as the barbeque was firing, she brought out the many tiny side dishes, the Korean beers (delicious) and the pork belly.  The pork and veges started sizzling away, but it wasn’t long before the waitress knocked over one of the beers.  It spilled all over the barbeque and the meat………YUM! The beer was also promptly replaced so overall the spill was a bonus.  I wonder if she did it on purpose.

The many tiny side dishes were continuously refilled and followed by prawns on the barbeque, bibimbap (an amazing korean concoction of who-knows-what) and a salad that would appeal to any non-vegetable eater.  The ingredients? Lettuce, mayonaise and tomato sauce. A memorable dish among the men.

We followed dinner with shots of soju, a korean liquor strong enough to kill a small animal or the weeds in your garden and were then given strange sweet coconut jelly drinks.

We paid about $40 a head, were pleasantly full and throughout the course of the evening and our waitress, much like the barbeque in front of us, really warmed up throughout the night.

One of the alphabest.

8.5/10