Soot Bull Jeep

Soot Bull Jeep
3136 W 8th St
Los Angeles
213-387-3865

Having been a couple "all you can eat" Korean BBQ places, like Manna Korean BBQ and Road to Seoul in Koreatown, I wanted to try a non all you can eat, Korean BBQ restaurant. So I went to Soot Bull Jeep.

I've heard about Soot Bull Jeep, because they are one of the few Korean BBQ restaurants that use charcoal instead of gas grills. So, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, I decided to have lunch at Soot Bull Jeep.

Everybody tells me the major difference between all you can eat and ordering off the menu, is the quality of meat. The meat at the all you can eat places are a lesser grade of meat compared to the order off the menu places, or they are suppose to be.

I was surprised at how limited Soot Bull Jeep's menu is, they had about 13 meats listed, but that included two different types of beef, squid, and pork, a short rib, chicken, honeycomb, beef tartar, and eel. Where is the pork belly?

BBQ Pork, $18.99. This was marinated with some paprika, soy sauce, and salt and pepper, it had a bit of a kick. (I was rudely informed that they use chili flakes, not paprika. But, a closer look at the meat, I think they use chili powder, not chili flakes. I don't see any flakes on the meat, but I certainly tasted the spiciness.) This was pretty good, but it had it's share of gristle and fat. I mean, $18.99 for a good sized portion, but the meats is about the same quality as all you can eat?

Ok, the charcoal added some flavor but not worth this price.

BBQ marinated sliced spencer steak, $19.99. Spencer steak are suppose to be from the rib eye, which means not that much fat or gristle but plenty of marbling. Well, this wasn't a spencer steak, it wasn't from the rib eye, more along the lines of sirloin and it was a cheap grade of beef, select.

This was marinated in a sweet sauce, maybe some honey or sugar, and tasted very much like bulgogi. But, again this wasn't any better than the meat from the all you can eat places.

Service was pretty good. The server was nice and friendly.

Honestly, I wasn't impressed with Soot Bull Jeep at all. Ok, the charcoal is different, but everything else is about as good as the all you can eat places I've been to. I can't believe I paid about $40, for two meats, when I could have paid half the price, and gotten more meats that were the same quality!!

There is no reason for me to comeback to Soot Bull Jeep, overpriced, average quality meat? Why bother!!

Sanya Korean BBQ Restaurant

Sanya Korean BBQ Restaurant
2897 W Olympic Blvd.
Ste. 105
Los Angeles
213-383-1144

An all you can eat Korean BBQ for $9.99? Sounds like a good deal. But, as with anything you get what you pay for. Sanya Korean BBQ is filled with college aged kids, looking for a cheap meal. That should have told me, that the quality of the meats isn't going to be that high.

There are a few options for all you can eat, at Sanya. The $9.99 options includes brisket, marinated beef, pork belly, chicken.




Brisket- I'm not a fan of brisket at Korean BBQ since it is not seasoned or smoked. I'm not big on dipping meat into sauces. Hell I would bring a bottle of A-1 steak sauce than dip it into some of the sauces I've seen at Korean BBQ restaurants. This brisket was sliced very thin, so it cooked very quickly and was pretty good. I put it on top of rice or wrapped it in lettuce and dipped it into soy sauce.




Marinated beef- This had a sweet marinate to it. Not the best quality meat, lots of fat and gristle. But I trimmed off some of the fat and this was a pretty good item.



Potato salad-This was the highlight of the dinner. A smooth and creamy potato salad, with very little to no mayo. This had some raisins and carrots mixed into the smooth, very well cooked potato. I really enjoyed this dish.



Pork Belly-Another non marinated meat. The only time I've ever seen pork belly with some of the bone attached. Very fatty, yeah I know it's pork belly and suppose to be fatty. But the actual meat wasn't good. I only ate one piece of this.




Chicken-The chicken has a light hint of marinate, some soy sauce and some sugar. Most of the meat was dark meat, I believe thigh meat, and this cooked up pretty good. It was a tender but lacked flavor. You can tell this was a poor quality chicken.

Another thing that was poor, was the service. First it was raining that night and where we were sitting, the ceiling was leaking. The server, who maybe the manager or owner, tried to downplay the issue. Well I don't like sitting at dinner and having water drip on me. So after some discussion, we wanted to move to another table.

The banchan, side dishes are meant for the entire table, not for each person. That's fine, but the banchan is served in very small portions for the entire table. I mean a scoop of potato salad for three people? Yeah, that's going to work. They were very slow in refilling the side dishes and they had attitudes when you asked for refills!! At our table, we just had the potato salad and left most of the other side dishes alone.

The general attitude of the server is really bad. They are rude, not helpful, and lazy. They have a rule that any leftover meat is charged at $6lb. Since they were very slow to take away empty dishes, we stacked the dishes and when the server finally came by, she actually checked each dish-most of them were side dishes, to make sure we didn't leave any meat. Yeah nice.

I wouldn't go back to Sanya again. Poor quality meats, terrible service, and bad attitudes.

Tangier Korean BBQ of Tokyo-Closed

Tangier Korean BBQ of Tokyo
2138 Hillhurst Ave
Los Angeles
323-663-2000

What do you say to all you can eat, US Kobe beef, for $24.99? Well, Tangier Korean BBQ of Toyko offers this great deal, everyday of the week. Interesting name, huh? Like the LA Angels of Anaheim?

Anyways, I've heard good things about this and wanted to give Tangier a try. Kobe beef is specially raised beef, that has more marbling and very tender and flavorful.

Tangier offers five all you can eat items, with three US Kobe beef items; Harami, short plate, and kalbi, along with chicken and pork belly.



Short plate. I think this is a brisket. These are unseasoned and sliced very thin. They grill up quickly and need to be dipped into their sauces to add any flavor. I didn't really like this short plate.




Harami with short plate. Harami, isn't marinated, but is well marbled as you can see. This was pretty good, very tender and flavorful.




Chicken, kalbi, and harami. The chicken, which was white meat, was marinated in a sauce that was kinda of salty and actually pretty tasty. These grilled up pretty well, was flavorful and pretty good.

The kalbi, is the star of this show!! It's marinated in a light, slightly sweet marinate and grills up pretty quickly. Just a lot of flavor, so tender, and juicy.




Pork Belly- as usual with Korean BBQ, I'm not a fan of the pork belly. So, I'm suppose to dip this into a sauce, maybe wrap it in some lettuce. But, I can't get over the fact the pork belly is not seasoned at all, and dipping it into any sauce doesn't add any flavor.

I had a few of the side dishes, the potato salad was very good. It was creamy, almost liked a mashed potato salad, wasn't drowned in mayo. Just light, smooth goodness. The veggies, I got lettuce, carrots, and onions were very fresh. I didn't care for the black beans, which was pickled, and wasn't completely cooked, very hard.

Service was great. Ok, the restaurant wasn't busy, but we had two or three servers waiting near our table, ready to help. The best part of this, they didn't make this a bitch session about their job or other customers. They were standing their quietly, waiting to help us. At many restaurants, when two servers are together, it becomes a bitch session. Very unprofessional. But, not a Tangier, they only talked about work or they were quiet.

What isn't quiet, is that they scream, I mean SCREAM, whenever somebody walks in or leaves. It can be very unnerving and then annoying.

I would go back to Tangier anytime. A great deal, with great cuts of meats, better than any other all you can eat Korean BBQ, I've been to.

BBQ Chicken

BBQ Chicken
2750 Alton Parkway
Irvine
949-752-2001

Located about three doors down from Original Buffalo Wings, BBQ Chicken is a Korean fried chicken chain.



I got a half order of the olive crispy chicken, $9.25, which came with six pieces of chicken. The chicken had a light crispy skin, which I really liked. But I didn't like the seasoning, a bit of ginger, which is fine, but and too much olive oil taste. I wasn't my thing and to top it off, the pieces of chicken are small. The breast pieces looked big, but that is deceiving, there is a small amount of meat, which was very juicy and tender, but not enough of it.

Service is good. Nice, helpful and friendly.

I would not go back to BBQ Chicken. I think the prices are high for the amount of chicken you get.

Ondal Restaurant

Ondal Restaurant
9240 Garden Grove Blvd
Garden Grove
714-636-7289

Ondal is known for their spicy crab soup. There are two location in LA, one in Koreatown and the other in the Palms area. I checked and this Ondal, in Garden Grove is part of that Ondal chain.

I was looking forward to try the spicy crab soup and it did not live up to my expectations.




Medium spicy crab stew, $55, blue crap, bean sprouts, and spicy broth. The medium comes with three blue crabs. The shells are only used as an eye catcher. They are quickly taken off and the server, finds the body of the crabs and cuts it up for you.

I took a crab and it was so mushy and overcooked. The crab was no fresh and tasted bad. The spicy broth was a bit too spicy for me but pretty good overall. But, I couldn't get over the fact the crab was so mushy.



I only had one piece of crab, so I was still hungry and ordered the spicy BBQ pork, $7.99. This was better than the crab, but not much better. They use such a poor quality pork-such much gristle and fat. The few good piece were very flavorful, a bit spicy, and tender. But there wasn't many good pieces.

Service was good. The lady, who I believe is the owner, was very nice and helpful.

Ondal and the spicy crab soup did not live up to expectations. I thought it was a waste of money, I much prefer to go to Boiling Crab.

BonChon-Closed

BonChon
3407 W 6th St
Los Angeles
213-487-7878

After going to Kyochon, we stopped at BonChon to find which Korean Fried Chicken is better.



We split two large orders of soy garlic and the hot wings, $16.99 each, which was about 10 wings in each order.

BonChon does a much better job frying their chicken. So light and crispy and moist. The chicken was huge, among the biggest pieces of chicken I've had.

The soy garlic wasn't as flavorful as Kyochon, but still pretty good.

But the hot, was so much better. The hot had enough heat but wasn't so hot, it burned your mouth.

Service was pretty good, much better than Kyochon.

Overall, I liked BonChon better. I liked the fact that the chicken was more crispy and moist. If you could combine the soy garlic at Kyochon and with the chicken at BonChon, you would have an almost perfect chicken.

Kyochon Chicken

Kyochon Chicken
3833 W 6th St
Los Angeles
213-739-9292

Kyochon and Bonchon, are two of the more well known Korean Fried Chicken restaurants. I noticed that Koychon and Bonchon are with a mile of each other on 6th St. So I went to Kyochon frist and then Boncho to see which place is better!!




Six people split the large order of 10 wings, $16.99, half soy garlic and half spicy. They screwed up and gave us all soy garlic, then later, realizing their mistake gave us the spicy.

Korean fried chicken, actually, most Asian fried chicken is a two step process. The first step is to render out the fat, to make a nice crispy skin. Then cooked again to fully cook the inside!! So these wings take 20-25 minutes to cook, so prepare to wait.

Kyochon did a good job of frying the chicken. Nice cripsy skin, moist inside. The soy garlic had so much flavor. I really liked this chicken.

The hot was HOT. If you do not like hot, do not get this. It is among the hottest chicken I've ever had.

Service is so slow and bad. It took forever to get water, one person in our group didn't get his water until we were almost done with our meal and 3-5 reminders. Drinks were not refilled, they took forever to take our orders. They really need to work on customer service.

The only good thing to say about them is that they self corrected their mistake and brought us an order of hot and spicy. But there is no excuse for slow service, you can measure the amount of time they took with an hourglass.

I would only go back to Kyochon, if I placed my order in advance. I won't put up with their bad table service.

Sam Han Korean BBQ-Closed

Sam Han Korean BBQ
1725 Nogales St
Rowland Heights
626-964-3389

Sam Han is the third Korean BBQ I have been to in Rowland Heights; after Feedable BBQ and Korea House.

Sam Han has recently been remodeled and while I haven't been there before, the remodel version looks very nice, with it's open concept.

All you can eat for $19.99 on weekends. So a little high but a friend was paying so I didn't care!!



In the back there was the buffet, filled with meats and sides dish and desserts. All the dishes were refilled quickly and they had people cleaning the area. Very good compared to Feedable, where the buffet line was mess at times.



As most readers of The New Diner know, I'm no a fan of the sides of Korean BBQ. But Julie, a very nice Yelper, (Yes, I know an oxymoron, since most Yelpers are punk kids who steal copyrighted photos.) called me out about Korean BBQ. So went to Sam Han with the intent of trying all the sides. But when I saw some of the items on the buffet table, I said forget those sides.

Since I found something great; a chowmein dish that was just awesome. Tender soft noodles lightly fried in a wok, some cabbage and soy sauce. The perfect compliment to grilled meat!! Hey Chinese-Korean fusion!!

I also liked the large amounts of fresh iceberg lettuce. I would top the grilled meats and make a protein style taco!!!




Beef short ribs and bugolgi. The best part of all you can eat Korean BBQ, is the all you can eat part. The worst part? Poor quality meat!! The bugolgi was one of the fattiest, toughest, chewiest pieces of beef I have ever eaten. Though there was pretty good seasonings and flavor.

The short ribs were full of fat and also chewing.






This was just labeled beef. This was the best example of beef at Sam Han. Not much fat, tender, flavorful.




If you like pork, Sam Han has some great pork. The reddish colored item is spicy pork chop. The other is just a seasoned pork chop.

The spicy pork chop wasn't too spicy but wasn't mild either. The seasoned pork chop just had salt and pepper.I loved both. They were good quality- tender, flavorful.




Bacon and brisket. These were like any other Korean BBQ, bacon-not seasoned or smoked. When cooked, very fatty, not flavorful.

Brisket, sliced thin but tough and chewy. Does this ring a bell?




Chicken and spicy chicken. The chicken was frozen!!! But it just meant, it would sit on the grill a bit longer. It was OK, kind of bland, lacking seasoning. Fairly tender.

The spicy chicken was marinated with the same spices as the spicy pork chop. I thought the spicy chicken was tender and flavorful.

Service was pretty good but a bit slow about refilling drinks. I was impressed with how quickly the meats were restocked on the buffet table and how clean they kept the buffet table.

I wouldn't rush back to Sam Han because of the poor quality of the beef. But I do like the sides they offer-loved the chow mein, and the pork chops.

Pizza & Chicken Love Letter

Pizza & Chicken Love Letter
18333B Colima Road
Rowland Heights
626-839-1235

My first experience with Korean fried chicken, was at Chicken Day. I wasn't really impressed so I haven't been back to any Korean fried chicken locations. But when I went to Feedable BBQ Buffet, I noticed Pizza & Chicken Love Letter. Love Letter is a well known Korean fried chicken place. Actually a The New Diner reader, told me about it. So it was late, I was hungry and I wanted something fast. So I decided to go to Love Letter.

Love Letter has five different flavors of wings, I split the 12 piece wings, with lemon pepper and buffalo flavors, $8.99. The wings are fried to order, which is always great. But the wings are a bit small.



The lemon pepper is very good. A more subtle lemon pepper than I'm used to, most lemon pepper wings are very powerful. The wings were fried just right, well fried, crispy and the inside was moist. I liked the subtle lemon pepper flavor.



The buffalo was OK, very mild. If you're expecting spicy, this isn't it. But again it was well fried, crispy and the inside was moist. The wings were also bigger than the lemon pepper wings.

Service was good. But for some reason, you can't split some flavors of wings, which is there way of making more money!!! I mean if you ordered a 6 piece wings of one flavor and another 6 piece of another flavor, they should as hell would serve that, right? But, of course you would pay more when ordering six pieces.

The chicken wings at Love Letter are pretty good. But there aren't anything great and could be bigger. I wouldn't go back to Love Letter.

Feedable B-B-Q Buffet-Closed

Feedable B-B-Q Buffet
18311 Colima Rd
Rowland Heights
626-964-9595

I'm going to do Korean BBQ reviews a bit differently. I will post a before and after picture of the meat and then a review of the meat. Too many pictures can make things confusing some people. My old policy of just taking picture of the raw meat, isn't a good idea.

I was on a Korean BBQ kick this week, mostly because I was planning a dinner for a few friends who wanted to go to a Korean BBQ restaurant, so I scouted a few restaurants. One of the first restaurants I went to, was Feedable B-B-Q Buffet and as I was looking at their restaurant, I realized this was the first Korean BBQ restaurant I ever went to, back in the mid 90's. I remember a friend and I were looking for another Korean BBQ restaurant that we saw advertised, but we couldn't find it and saw Feedable and went in. I thought it was good but I didn't have anything to compare it to.

Feedable is unique for a Korean BBQ restaurant, instead of the servers getting your meats, there are bowls of meats on top of ice and you can get as much as you want. One thing I hate about other Korean BBQ restaurants, they may bring you a ton of meat and if the meat isn't that good, you have to finish it. At Feedable you can take as much or as little meat as you want. The buffet is $18.99 and there is a wide variety of meats. They have all the other side dishes but I never get those.





Marinated beef ribs- A nice sweet, soy sauce based marinate. Lots of fat, not tender meat. I wasn't impressed.



Bulgogi- Very sweet, among the sweetest bulgogi I've ever had. But a lot of fat and not that tender.




Pork belly- I picked these slices because they wasn't that much fat on them. But there was also no flavor, pretty bland and tough.




Brisket point. This was terrible. Very tough, chewy, lots of fat and no flavor. I almost choked on a few pieces. Ok I know brisket is a tough cut of meat but I've had other brisket at Korean BBQ restaurants and they weren't as tough and chewy.





Chicken and spicy chicken. The regular chicken was marinated in a sweet sauce. The chicken was mostly dark meat, lean, tender and flavorful. I was impressed with the chicken.

The spicy chicken wasn't as spicy as I thought it would be. I was rated it about a 5. Tender and flavorful, just not spicy.




Short ribs. I loved the marinate short ribs. The marinate was the same as the pork ribs. But these ribs were much more flavorful and tender. A good cut of meat. My second favorite meat at Feedable.




Boneless short ribs- My favorite meat at Feedable, because there were no bones, just grill and enjoy!! The same marinate but the meats were cut into thin pieces and just melt in your mouth. A great great meat.

Service is a bit lacking. As you first walk in, there isn't a hostess. You walk to the back and the servers will ask how many. Ok they are friendly but they didn't provide good service. Ok they don't bring you meat. But they should clear plates and the grill when needed. Well I had plates piled high at my table, I never had the grill changed. Why? Because the servers were eating dinner!!! Yes they sat down and were grilling meat!!

The meats at Feedable are overall among the worst I've had at Korean BBQ restaurants; even tough, fatty and lacking flavor. They got a B rating from the Health Department. I also think the $18.99 is too much for the lack of quality meat. I would not go back to Feedable again. Korea House is a much better Korean BBQ in Rowland Heights.