Honey Pig, Duluth GA

There is food, and there is food as show. Some people want a quiet plate of tonkatsu. Others want the flash of teppanyaki style cooking. Honey Pig is really in the latter camp in terms of Korean BBQ, very much making the food a show. The inside is attractive, stuffed with pigs of various kinds, a pig with wings suspended from the roof, lots of wood and wait staff all dressed in black.

There is a large grill that centers every table. It has an rounded shape, and a nice handle, to make it easier to pick up after the metal cools down. A hole on one side lets out the grease as the meat grills. There is a temperature control on one side, and by the control, a hemispherical button, which you press to alert staff if you’re not getting enough attention (we didn’t need the button).

The surface on which the meats are cooked. In the upper right is a complimentary carafe of water.

The roof is industrial and there was as much overhead ducting as I’ve seen since my days at Mirak Korean.

We chose three meats, their brisket, their honey pig, and their marinated bulgogi. We didn’t want the fried rice they normally finish with. Our staff started by adding useful collections of sauces and sides, then dropped plenty bean sprouts and kimchi onto the grill.

Dipping sauces. Note the button. In a Korean restaurant, you use that button to call over waiters.

On the left are rice cake sheets (to put veggies and meats in), the middle a very salty dipping sauce, on the right cold kimchi soup, which we sipped to cleanse our palate of stronger meat flavors.

Scallion salad, they call this.

We had a waiter, who cooked the kinchi and the meats, and made sure everyone had what they wanted. Of the meats, we liked the beef the best.

Excellent beef.

Metal chopsticks and a spoon (for rice).

The honey pig wasn’t bad either, a bit less fatty than common pork belly.

Honey pig.

The bulgogi was a little disappointing. We’d probably go with two servings of the beef next time.

The impression I got was a restaurant exceptionally friendly to Korean beginners. There is a lot of show on the table. The well dressed staff were personable and spoke excellent English. It doesn’t have the camp appeal of Iron Age, but neither does it feel like you need to come straight from a karaoke bar with a crowd of same sex friends to get the best out of it either. It’s a better family spot, despite the thump, disco-like, of the Kpop background music. It’s not the meat and seafood bargain that Cho Wan is, but it has a menu with fewer fails, and is easier to navigate.

So go there. If you’ve never done Korean and it scares you a little, especially go there.

Honey Pig
(770) 476-9292
3473 Old Norcross Rd NW
Duluth, GA 30096

Atlanta

 

Moon’s Family Restaurant, Duluth GA

Moon’s Family is a Chloe “find“, full of rich soups, ladies that speak only Korean, and crisp green banchan that would please anyone who hates the recycled stuff. I went recently, because I wanted to try something different. The soon dubu, IMO, is as good as Chloe Morris said it would be; to be considered among the best in town.

Almost no English in their signage.

Crisp, fresh banchan.

Babimbap. At Moon’s, you toss your bowl of steamed rice over the top and mix.

Seafood soon dubu. Thicker than most, more seafood variety than most, and IMO, a richer flavor than many silky tofu soups in town.

I’m not the Korean hound that Chloe is, but I’ve eaten in a few of these places. For those eaters who need people to speak English clearly, you would be better served by Honey Pig, which is in the same mall. I was served off and on by three women, each with different levels of English skills, and one who asked if I wanted a check by making the shape of a check with her hands (my Japanese mother-in-law will trace the outline of a check in the air to indicate that she needs one. Ironically, some rather authentic Japanese restaurants in town don’t get it). Yes, very much a point and choose place.

If you’re a foodie and don’t have good coping skills, go with a friend that does. Soon dubu joints are not hard to navigate and this one has a larger menu than many. You might want to try their grilled mackerel, or their jigaes as well.

Moon’s Family Restaurant
3473 Old Norcross Rd
Duluth, GA 30096
(770) 622-7780

 

Toh Dam Tofu House, Suwanee GA

Two words: Go now. Not because the tofu soup is fantastic. It’s really good, mind you, but they’re giving  the kind of service that will leave you smiling about the whole experience of eating here. Six months from now, it might be more pedestrian, so I’m tapping rapidly on  the ‘go now’ button, for those I can offer a suggestion to.

Tohdam is behind the stairs.

Terrific banchan.

They offer interesting extras, such as this mung bean pancake. It was crunchy, with plenty of green vegetable bits.

They serve a good tofu soup.

On a scale from one to 5, I’d rate the silky  tofu soup, banchan, purple (brown) rice, extras, about a 4 out of 5. Service is a 5+ and that’s what I find exciting about this eatery. It’s in a small ‘C’ shaped mall anchored by an Assi market, and is a little out of the way. I had dropped my daughter off at Japanfest and was looking for a place to eat. I ended up catching the Tohdam sign  out  of the corner of my eye.

To note, this  is the third version of this eatery. There have been 3 chef and owner changes. Staff told me they had been open 8 days when we ate. As Chloe noted on Twitter:

@FoodNSnellville It’s the 3rd incarnation. Chef+owners change each time. Gets better every time.

I never did get to the other versions, but this one should be on the tofu soup short list of everyone from Duluth to Buford.

Tohdam Tofu House
1291 Old Peachtree Road
Suwanee, GA 30024
(770) 622-5668

 

Hae Woon Dae, Doraville GA

Inside Hae Woon Dae, there are perhaps 20 years of Atlanta “best of” awards all set out on rich wooden walls, thickly paneled. It doesn’t take long to gain the impression that they’re all earned. Just watch the staff. Watch how they talk to tables. Look at the size and thickness of the meat servings. Look at the “charcoal guy”, coming out to top off those folks cooking food at their tables. Yes, they charcoal broil meats here. There isn’t any of that portable butane torch gear being used here.

Hae Woon Dae’s banchan

LA galbi, thicker than most and richly flavored.

I’ve been in the past, long before I was a food blogger and recalled I liked it. I went back on a day I couldn’t think of a better Korean place close to work. The corner of Buford that Hae Woon Dae is on is not my favorite, especially at night, so I went at lunchtime. It was a pretty late lunch and still there were people peppering the eatery.

The LA galbi I had was as thick as my thumb, unusual in this city where 5 millimeter thick meat is more the norm. Thinner meat cooks faster, you see. But sometimes, to develop flavor can take longer. What I had at my table was worth the wait and the couple extra bucks. There was some chew in the meat, but I’ve not ever found galbi with the consistency of pot roast.

Whatever I might say further about this restaurant would hardly change its decades old reputation. Just count me among the many food fans who raise two thumbs up to this venerable Atlanta institution.

Hae Woon Dae
5805 Buford Highway
Doraville, GA 30340
(770) 451-7957

Atlanta

 

Shabu & Shabu plus Hansel and Gretel, Duluth GA

Shabu & Shabu is a restaurant on the Wall Mart side of the intersection of North Berkeley and Pleasant Hill, an intersection that on the northeast side also has a Super H Mart. It’s a Korean style mini hot pot, and immaculately clean.

In the mini hot pot setup, there is a heater in the table. You take your meats and greens and dip them into broth, and fetch them out yourself. This differs I’ll note from the Japanese style of serving these dishes, where a staffer helps you cook and eat, and as Chloe has pointed out, the broths on these various hot pots are quite different.

Dipping sauce comes in three levels of heat: medium hot, hot, and very hot. My daughter got medium hot and said she’d get a hotter variety next time.

Meats are thin sliced to cook quickly. Use the back sides of your chopsticks to place raw meat into the pot.

Prices for the main dishes are reasonable, and the cleanliness, and the simplicity of ordering there (there is no sauce bar, as there is in Mini Hot Pot 2) make this an ideal place to introduce a mini hot pot to a relative newcomer.

Next door to Shabu & Shabu is the Hansel and Gretel Bakery. It’s a classic EuroKorean bakery, with a mix of Western and Asian sweets. It’s smaller than the Cafe Mozart near Gwinnett Place, and so the selection of bean paste goods isn’t as extensive as that bakery. But certainly it is clean and nice, and they seemed affable, and much easier to deal with than certain (unmentioned) Korean bakeries in the area.

Shabu & Shabu
2605 Pleasant Hill Road, Suite 300
Duluth, GA 30096
(678) 584-1111

Hansel and Gretel Bakery
2605 Pleasant Hill Road, Suite 400
Duluth, GA 30096
(770) 623-5555

 

Dark goat soup at Myung Ga Won

We headed to Myung Ga Won recently, largely in pursuit of spiciness. We were up for Mexican, Chinese, or Korean spicy and Korean won out. Myung Ga Won won in part because banchan just sounded good this day (instant veggies). My wife chose a soon dubu and galbi combo. My daughter went for the babimbap. I decided to try a spicy soup with dark goat meat (see also here) in it.

Dark goat soups and stews go by a number of recipes and names, but Myung Ga Won calls what they serve ‘boyang tang’.

The soup was rich and flavorful, and though the first couple bites of the meat had a hint of earthiness to it not normally found in beef, further bites were more subdued. It was, for the most part, a tender meat, not much different from pot roast, by the end of the meal. Flavors are akin to other spicy Korean soups, though this edition had just a hint of heat, instead of being blazing hot.

The dark seeds in the soup (deulkkae, or perilla seeds, if I’m doing my research correctly) were aromatic and not really peppery. A side containing chile paste, more of these seeds, some ground garlic etc, came with the soup. Also popular this day was a grilled spanish mackerel.

I’m not sure the photograph adequately represents the size of this fish. It was quite large. A number of meals at Shoya Izakaya have led to us really favoring grilled mackerel. The rich oils are a big factor in getting the most out of mackerel – avoid frying mackerel, you destroy the nutrition. Like so many oily foods, it is best when it is right out off the grill and at its hottest.

Compared to, say, salmon, mackerel isn’t as sweet a fish, and not as good a ‘first’ fish.

Myung Ga Won
1960 Day Drive
Duluth, GA 30096
(770) 622-1300

 

Gogi Brothers, Snellville Georgia

Gogi Brothers was mentioned by a reader of my blog some time ago, but life, work changes, and all made it really impossible for me to run around Snellville the way I normally do. My focus was inward, towards the city of Atlanta, not out of it. I never found this restaurant until I made an ill fated run for jerk chicken towards Grayson (I should realize that small, mom and pop Jamaican eateries are invariably closed on Sundays).

It turns out that Gogi Brothers has occupied a building a stone’s throw from the Mellow Mushroom on Highway 78, and so most Snellville residents can find Gogi simply by heading down 78 towards Loganville. It will be on the right if you do. The building is handsome, a pretty brick, and if my memory serves, the building used to be home to a Dickey’s BBQ in the past.

Kimchi as an appetizer. It's not on the menu but you can ask for it.

Now, Gogi is the word for “meat” in Korean, and this restaurant doesn’t easily fit into any single category. Instead, it’s a cross cultural assortment of foods that they serve, everything from Korean influenced dishes, Thai dishes, some Japanese dishes (teppenyaki style dishes, mostly), American and American-Korean favorites — what else is a bulgogi burger — and they also push their hot wings. They serve beer and wine, and this place will deliver as well.

Gogi's babimbap. No stone bowl, and a lot of greens in this version.

Bulgogi

When you cover this much ground, some things are lost. Korean dishes are not served in stone bowls, so the bibimbap here isn’t like what you can find in, say, Assi Plaza. In fact, my favorite Korean dish here goes by the very proletarian name of “spicy pork”. They have “spicy chicken” as well.

Spicy pork.

Staff here is largely Korean, well dressed and mannered, and pretty nice. And what this place loses in authenticity it makes up for in sheer willingness to serve. Snellville is better off with this place than without, as Korean is a bold assertive cuisine, and any inroads they can make into our dining habits are probably good ones.

Gogi Brothers
2624 Cindy Lane
Snellville, GA 30078
(770) 837-2201

 

Don Quixote, Duluth GA

It looks like a Hispanic restaurant, or would if most of the street sign were not in Korean. The imagery inside is pretty, outline drawings of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, long and thin. But the food served are Korean staples, things like soon dubu and galbi. The tables are immaculate and service is good. The menu is dual language, and for those of you who don’t know the cuisine, it might be hunt and peck to get something you like. This time I chose spicy octopus, a personal favorite.

Banchan

Nothing in the place is expensive, nothing will break your bank. It’s a lot of Korean basics and plenty of banchan to the table. Not fantastic food but decent enough. There are days that’s more than enough.

Don Quixote
3751 Satellite Blvd
Duluth, GA 30096
(678) 584-1129

Notes: Chloe has an excellent review of this restaurant.

 

Sun and Moon Cafe, Duluth GA

Outside, from a distance, Sun and Moon Cafe looks a lot like a coffee shop, and inside, with the rich use of thatched wood, comes off a bit like a tiki bar or the inside of a piece of rattan furniture. The clientele are mixed: a lot of very young men and women, and some older folks. The best comparison, ironically, is Iron Age, and while I’d be happy taking my San Francisco in-laws to Iron Age, I’d not take my father there. My father would be comfortable in Sun and Moon Cafe.

This is, for those of us not fluent in Korean, largely a Korean BBQ joint, all you can eat. They serve pork belly and beef brisket, pork thick sliced. They have a nice assortment of banchan, come out with plenty of a lettuce salad early on, and about half way through the meal, will drop a pot of boiling soup into your lap. You can get rice (Korean brown rice, a mix of rice and a bean) if you ask for it.

Service is very good in the beginning, lax towards the end. They expect you to use the “waiter” button, provided on each table if you need service later. They will cut  up and stir your meats, and the meal comes with plenty of garlic and kimchi on the iron plate.

If  you drink alcohol, the all you can eat is $9.99, $14.99 otherwise. Consequently, it gets louder the deeper into the night it gets. By the time we left, it was getting loud for us, but perhaps we weren’t as hungry then.

Sun and Moon Cafe
3555 Gwinnett Place Dr
Duluth, GA 30096
(678)-417-6755

Both Sean and Gene have excellent reviews of Sun and Moon Cafe, highly recommended.

 

Kang Seo, Suwanee GA

It’s near Umaido, with a Korean only name and an icon of a cow just to the left of the name. I knew of it because Chloe had reviewed it, but we found it mostly by trial and error after taking family to Discover Mills. A short jaunt up the road and we were there.

Korean eateries have become a safe haven when I’m not sure where I can eat. Koreans have an emphasis on meats, spices, and vegetables in the form of banchan. Rice is generally separated from the rest of the meal. The cuisine allow me to control my carbs, and thus lets the rest of the family eat what they please. Usually between the soups, the barbecue, and soon dubu, we usually can find our comfort zone.

Brown rice, Korean style

The comfort zone this night was in the spicy grilled octopus, which was really good. The yuk gae jang was reliable: plenty of meat, just enough spice, the leeks safe and tasty. The Kang Seo version of tofu soup was one my wife favored and my daughter stuck with the safety of short ribs, or galbi.

Service was, I felt, quite good, if a bit more plain spoken than polished. That’s fine. The waitress spoke up when we were about to order too much food and probably saved us a good ten to fifteen dollars by doing so. There is a button on the table to ask for service (which we essentially never used) and the silverware is all metal. I’m under the impression that’s a bit like the fine silverware in a typical Southern household.

I enjoyed my time here. So did my family. They serve some fancier dishes here, but given their price, we’re not likely to explore them. They seem to be in the same family as Japanese nabemono, intended for groups. It would  take a group, I think, to explore that kind of eating.

Kang Seo
2790 Lawrenceville Suwanee Road
Suwanee, GA 30024
(770) 932-7753