It was difficult to control my salivating while selecting photos for this entry. Korean food, at first, can be a bit intimidating and harsh. It’s a fiery, pungent and utterly unique cuisine that once you acquire a taste for it, you’ll fall in love.

Let’s start with Korean BBQ. Strips of deliciously marinated meat (pork is most common) grilled right in front of you at your table.

The grills are charcoal and they typically have a retractable vent above them to reduce smoke. You can see the plate of raw pork in front of me on the front right.

The meat also comes with a plethora of side dishes, called banchan 반찬. Onions (white and green), lettuce (sesame and iceberg) to wrap it up and sauces to garnish with are all included in the price of the meat.

Kimchi 김치 is in the top left dish and below that is marinated green onions

In the picture above, take a look at the button on the table next to the lettuce basket at the top of the table. This is called the ‘bing bong’ button. Servers in Korea don’t constantly come around and ask you how everything is. When you need something, you press this button and they come. If you don’t press the button, they’ll leave you alone for as long as you like. If restaurants don’t have a button, you have to call out to the servers to request something with a “yogiyo” (“over here please” 여기요).

No discussion about Korean BBQ is complete without talking about soju 소주. This is a clear liquor (about 12-18% is typical strength) in a green bottle that is the best selling liquor in the world. 

This bottle is about 3,000 won ($3) when you get it at restaurants. It’s not uncommon to see a table of 3 Koreans with 6,7, or 8 empty soju bottles around them. In my opinion, it’s one of the worst hangovers I’ve ever had but the price is right.

Korea is the wrong place to be a pig – pork is consumed in abundance. All the grilling meat in the above pics is some kind of marinated pork – in Korean – dwaeji 돼지

Here’s a pic of the front of my favorite bbq joint