Thursday, June 28, 2007

KBBQ


K doesn't get home from work until 9pm most nights, and in our current state of unpacking (plus busted oven and microwave!) we're in no shape to throw a meal together at home. So our general interest in late-night dining is considerably heightened.

There's the Press in Claremont, which serves the bar menu until midnight, and Alberto's dishes up tacos 24/7. It turns out that we can another old favorite to the list: Korean BBQ, on Holt, just over the Montclair line, is open till 10pm.

Last night we pulled in, just in case they were open, and the grandpa who presides over the place gave us the thumb's up, even though no one else was there.

Usually we get the beef and cook it at our table, but we were feeling bad about keeping them late (those grills have got to be an unholy pain to clean), so we got jap chae (stir-fried glass noodles) and regular bibimbap. Actually, we tried to get something called "cool water noodles," but the waitress insisted that we wouldn't like it. Ordinarily, that wouldn't put us off in the least (I still have the strong suspicion that it resembles a Japanese dish of the same name), but we were worried that she was saying that because it was a pain for the kitchen to make at that late hour.

We have eaten at about two zillion Korean restaurants in KoTown, and none of them match KBBQ for the quality of the meat marinade. Most have better atmosphere, some have better panchan, and there is even better bibimbap. But no one beats KBBQ for marinade or friendly service.

If only they were open later....

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

slow start


Once we decided to give up our place in Koreatown, we started regretting not having blogged the whole experience. I wrote up many of the restaurants we tried on my own blog, but we had lots of adventures that we never wrote about anywhere. With the growth of municipal blogs (like those I put in the sidebar, for a start), moving to a new town seems like a great opportunity to put our money where our Mammon is.

Most of our discoveries so far are taking within the four walls we've just purchased (hel-LO, broken oven!), but we did manage to try Alberto's the other day, a taquería recommended by a neighbor. The fish taco was about standard for around here, the chicken taco was subpar (meat way too salty and a hard taco into the bargain), but the carne adobada was really great. Another thing about Alberto's: Their tacos are twice the size of Juanita's or Taco Nazo's, so don't order three.

I passed a halal restaurant called Shalimar down on Holt the other day... Gotta check it out.