Seoul Kal-Bi -- restaurant review --

I love to eat. Not uncontrolled eating. But, eating for the experience of a good eat. Last night, zdog and I were at Seoul Kal-Bi of San Bruno for a friend's birthday. The exterior of the restaurant is unimpressive. A generic KOREAN BBQ sign hangs over a nondescript store front. Only the street number ensured that we are at the right place.

The interior is divided into two spaces. As we walked in, there is a nice buffet counter to the left of the room. Four grill tables, each seats four, with large vent hoods on top, lines the right wall. Past the room divider is a bigger space with more grill tables. Since we had a reservation for 12, our table was ready waiting for us. Fresh lettuce plates, iced water, and kimchi dip were brought out. Two tongs and one scissors per grill. Busboy set up the grill table with heated coal and grill plate. Interesting. I don't think I've ever had Korean BBQ with real coal in front of me. As this is an all-you-can-eat buffet, we get to select the meats, cook the food, and serve ourselves. When you have a large group, this has to be one of the most engaging way to have a meal.


As soon as we settled down, we set about getting the meats for cooking. The selection is not great, but the essentials are present. There are some cooked items: dumpling, noodles, fried fish. There are also cold items: two types of kimchi, western salad greens, potato salad, vinegared cucumber slices, green bean and yellow bean spouts. I had my eyes set on the raw meats--marinated short ribs (kal-bi), boneless skinless chicken thigh meat, thinly sliced pork, squid slices. There were also unmarinated beef strips, mussles, and shrimps. The marinated meats were definitely winners. I am not sure about the grilled shrimp with shell.


Part way through the cooking and eating, we were served bowls of hot tofu soup. Unfortunately I couldn't enjoy the soup because what I really needed was more iced water. The buffet had a few desserts such as canned peaches, pineapple cubes, and sliced oranges. They finished off the meal nicely.

Overall it was great time for all. I'll give it a 3/5.


Seoul Kal-BI
1610 El Camino Real
San Bruno, CA 94066
This restaurant is about three miles north of the Bart/Caltrain/SFO transportation center on the east side of El Camino Real.