At Seoul BBQ Korean, you grill your own food at your table.
Kimchi pancakes are a tangy treat.
Sweet potato noodle soup with brisket
At Seoul BBQ Korean, you grill your own food at your table.
Permit me a relevant travel reflection from nearly a decade ago, when I enjoyed a few-day layover in Seoul, South Korea on both ends of a round trip to India. I had been hopping flights continuously for around 24 hours, landing in Seoul weary, but thrilled to be on the ground, with an appetite, for my first visit in-country. Some warm friends of a friend hosted me, and after briefly settling into their flat, I headed out with them for a welcoming meal. They took me to a KBBQ. I was enraptured.
I’m sure the lack of sleep and soju (Korean rice wine) had something to do with that, but there was something more tangible and tactile about grilling our own meal over live fire, the smell of smoke in the air (despite the air vents suspended over each table), and of course, the taste of fantastic Korean food inside its capital city. It’s a dining experience I’ve never forgotten. (Partly because I remember the exact moment when the exhaustion caught up to me near meal’s end and I knew I had to crash soon, in a bed, or it was going to happen on the sidewalk outside.)
11 a.m. to 10 p.m., daily
Suffice to say, I was thrilled upon learning Colorado Springs was finally going to get a KBBQ restaurant like this — different from our array of other fine Korean spots that serve the standard kitchen-cooked meals. Seoul BBQ is an expansion off of Aurora’s nearly two-decade-old Seoul K-BBQ & Hot Pot, also owned by JW Lee, who opened neighboring Promenade Shops at Briargate eatery Menya (ramen and poke) in early 2019. On his website bio, he notes 20-plus years’ industry experience, opening as many restaurants in that timespan.
Enter the hoppin’ busy space off the Promenade’s row of bougie boutiques and you’re greeted at the host stand by a striking, floor-to-ceiling partial wall with a neon sign and portal window framed by white granite (and light plank wood on the dining room-facing side). Asian-themed art prints suspended in wide-framed shadow boxes line the walls neatly at a uniform head height above four-top tables around the room, while shiny silver exhaust vents protrude down over those tables and a central seating section. Visually, it feels mechanical, beyond modern-industrial, which is to say almost futuristic despite this style of eating’s long history in Korea. And just like in Seoul itself, the hoods can’t quite capture all the grill smoke, such that a thin smoke smell lingers in the air, adding to authenticity.
Kimchi pancakes are a tangy treat.
Before we get to the grilling, we order a kimchi pancake appetizer, stylistically bright orange, flecked with zucchini and green onions (a little burned on one edge). You can get these commonly around town, but not that I’ve yet seen with a bottle of Makgeolli to sip on the side. Enter travel reflection No. 2: On my return trip through Seoul, I ventured deep into the street markets one day and relished in a shop specializing in this very pairing. Kimchi pancakes and Makgeolli, which is a milky Korean rice wine (I think of it as a kind of cousin to cloudy Japanese nigori sake) historically made with the watered-down residual mash (composed of rice and a fermentation starter called nuruk) after the more desirable “original alcohol” called wonju naturally separated out from the sediment. It was served only to nobility. So, crudely, this is more of a peasant wine. (There’s an insightful article worth reading for a more in-depth description at tinyurl.com/K-makg.)
What you really need to know about Makgeolli served here, though, is it’s refreshing, mildly carbonated (naturally), a little sweet, and easy-drinking at only 6-percent ABV. One last quick digression: This Makgeolli, Jinro brand in a plastic bottle, is about half the ABV of the traditional Korean blends, which don’t travel internationally well due to a short shelf life and unstable bottles, which can explode under the fermentation off-gas pressure. Additionally, these get pasteurized, which affects the microbacteria (according to another article I read at alcoholprofessor.com) and thereby complexity of flavor, which is why sweetness is the main descriptor of the finish flavor. So, honest, bad news: This isn’t the real drink I enjoyed in Seoul (particularly at a bar one night that specialized in regional Makgeolli’s — that makes travel memory No. 3; I apologize) — but it’s as close as you’re gonna get, still quite enjoyable.
As we’re making our way through the kimchi pancake, a couple small rice bowls and the banchan (more than half a dozen complimentary sides of fermented veggies and the like in small bowls, treated somewhat like condiments) have arrived to fill up most of the remaining space on the table around the central, circular grill sunk into the table so it’s level with plates. We’ve also ordered a fine soju that we’re nursing and a pot of outstanding coconut-pistachio tea, in a rooibos base if I’m not mistaken. Either way, it’s a lovely, faintly nutty, floral sipper. The entrées appear in no time and we scramble to make more space to accommodate two glass rectangular platters of raw meats and a bowl of mul naengmyun, which is dark sweet potato noodles in a “tangy iced beef broth” topped with hard-boiled egg halves, thin slivers of brisket and pickled cucumber and radish. Our server drops squeeze bottles of thinned mustard sauce and white vinegar to squirt in for sharp acidity — that makes the dish. (He’d first doubled-checked that we knew it was a cold soup when we ordered it — methinks he’s perhaps fielded past complaints from surprised diners who didn’t bother to read the description). It’s again something I haven’t seen served locally, that I’m aware of, so I recommend going for it if you’re seeking new tastes.
To the grill we finally go! Our server starts us off by tonging shaved slices of our hermit-gui, beef tongue, across the shiny metal grill with onion, mushroom and yellow bell pepper wheels. It browns quickly due to its thinness, and we use our metal chopsticks (set with custom logo metallic plateware) to grab pieces off and dip in one of a trio of provided house dips: a simple salted sesame oil; a thick, red soybean-chile paste; and a creamy, herby garlic. You can do that directly, or use accompanying lettuce leaves and cilantro stems and citrusy, herbaceous perilla leaves to make handheld wraps, which definitely add fresh crunch and lightness. The tongue itself has thin veins of fat, for flavor and richness, and it’s so palatable that it could be mistaken for a primal cut shaving; an often finicky teenager with us doesn’t shy from it a bit.
Sweet potato noodle soup with brisket
Next up (and lastly, because Seoul BBQ doesn’t do desserts), we sear our hangjungsal, which is pork jowl (cured into guanciale in Italian culture). It’s a coveted cut of swine due to the little amount of it available in the neck region of the pig’s head, and it’s pricey at $35 for 16 ounces; but that’s $10-$15 shy of wagyu rib eye or prime rib options here. The jowl holds a nice, fatty marbling as well and a dense, spongy texture, bleeding oil into the mouth with bites such that it’s unctuous but not too much so. It’s quite a treat. Our server swings by several times to assist on managing the grill (flipping meat pieces that are ready to brown on the other side, when we haven’t yet done so), clear bowls and plates and make sure we have the support we need to do everything right. He says he formerly worked at the Aurora location, so he’s seasoned, and composed during what looks like a perpetual rush of patrons for hours on end.
For my guests, this was a meal unlike any they’d had — aside from the obvious parallel of fondue when it comes to boiling one’s own meats in that setting. They were as thrilled as I was about the whole interactive experience, and clearly sold on the concept, eager to return. But for me, there was the underlying travel nostalgia built into my moment, which elevated it to another level of specialness. I’m so glad KBBQ has finally arrived; thank you Mr. Lee.
Matthew Schniper is the Food and Drink Editor at the Colorado Springs Indy. He began freelancing with the Indy in mid-2004 and joined full-time in early 2006, contributing arts, food, environmental and feature writing.
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