Wang Dae Bak (China Square)

Yay... Finally reach a post which is categorized 'recent finds' in my mental drawers. It was a weekday dinner when hubby wasn't free. J was on leave so I asked the only dinner kaki left, FQ, whether he's free for dinner. He said he was having dinner with his BFF, D, whom I know. Asked me if I mind having dinner with them? I was like, if they don't mind the extra me, who am I to mind anything?

But anyway, we agreed to meet D at Chinatown point, but we hadn't decided on what to eat. I off hand said I haven't tried Wang Dae Bak, which the two of them had recommended me before. So they said, why not? And off we went to Wang Dae Bak.

So Wang Dae Bak is a Korean joint, it serves both cooked food, as well as table BBQ. We opted for table BBQ and in no time, red hot charcoals were set up at our table. Real charcoal BBQ! Cool! And after the grill is set in place, the waiter poured something that is pre-tty unique to this place. Beaten eggs. That's that yellow ring you see around the grill. Egg is FREE-FLOW! I think that's FQ's bias for this place. He loves eggs! The typical korean side dishes were quickly brought to the table, kimchi, cold mashed potatoes, seaweed... etc. We were happily munching while waiting for our orders to arrive, but that wait wasn't very long. Oh well, how long will they need to bring raw food to the table right?

Red hot coals

Ring of egg, and all the side dishes

Meats! The boys said the 'marinated chickens' is good (That's exactly what is written on the menu. It's not typo on my part.). So we ordered 2 portions of the chicken, and one portion of pork belly, and one portion of boneless prime rib. D found the pork too tough for his braces, and he doesn't take beef to begin with. So FQ and I polished off the whole plate of beef and pork between the two of us. I quite like the beef, and agree that the pork is a little on the tough side. The boys were right, the chicken is good. It was well marinated and tender. Despite me being a beef lover, I had to declare the chicken the winner. *Update: On a subsequent visit, I found that the pork shoulder loin is more tender than the pork belly.

Boneless prime rib (top) and pork belly (bottom)

Marinated chickens

Nice thing about Wang Dae Bak is their adjustable UFO-like smoke vent. U can shift it up to give yourself space to maneuverer the food. Then shift it down to maximise it's venting power and reduce heat and smoke on yourselves while the food cooks. Here u can see the half the egg ring gone, due to our continuous digging.

Meat cooking under the UFO smoke vent

The only cooked food we ordered on that occasion was the seafood pancake. I like it! It was crispy, very fragrant, and yet fluffy inside. There's alot of veggies and prawns and whatnot, and the light soy based sauce it was served with complemented it well. This is a "To-Order" dish I will highly recommend. On separate visits, I had tried their dukboki and japchae. Liked both of those dishes. I've also tried their Ginseng chicken soup. Warm and nice. Mmmmm

Seafood pancake

Spicy rice cake

Japchae - stir fried noodles with vegetables

I liked Wong Dae Bak enough to bring people back twice already. Do note that you'll still come out smelling like BBQ despite their UFO vents. Fear not, they provide Febreeze spray at the counter. Lol!! Lynn wasn't very impressed by their food though. Maybe that's because we ordered the platter on that occasion instead of focusing on the chicken. Really, their chicken is the best dish they have. Moreover she was on a super BBQ crave that day. For a BBQ focused meal, there are other places with buffet based BBQ which are much more value for money - IF you're not an egg addict like FQ. But I will be back. If anything, for their seafood pancake.


Wang Dae Bak
22 cross street (China Square Central)

#01-64

Singapore 048421
Tel: 6225 2646

食客 Ssikkek Korean Grill BBQ (Oriental Plaza)

Had seen this Korean BBQ place at Chinatown when my bus went pass before. Noted that This Fashion had finally closed down and seems to be replaced by something more useful. And then I walked pass it once and smelled the grilling meats. So did Lynn on a separate occasion. This aroma prompted us to arrange for a dinner there.

It's a buffet only restaurant. We reached pretty early about 6.30pm, before the crowd started. Our table was set up, and we headed for the buffet table. I picked up a full plate of meat - various parts and marinates of chicken, pork and beef. Also got lots and lots of lettuce. And kimchi. And some kind of braised chicken and fried Korean vermicelli to stave our hunger while our meats cooked.

Lettuce and kimchi

The meats

Meat cooking... woo hoo!!

We were so stuffing ourselves with the pork belly. And some random parts of beef. I couldn't quite remember which is which by the time I got back to the table. Because the meats were just left out at the buffet table, we didn't feel too good about not cooking the beef through. This resulted in many pieces of tough beef. Pork and chicken were doing much better. And I think we were too hungry and just kept putting things on the grill. Ended up accumulating a big plate of cooked food. Because we didn't eat as fast as we cooked, some got cold and became tougher...

Cooked meats

Subsequently a cooked food counter started, and we got ourselves a wrap. Don't ask me what this is doing in a Korean BBQ restaurant. All I can say is its actually quite yummy.

Beef wrap

The buffet also includes free-flow white rice (which we obviously skipped), and two kinds of soup. A seaweed clear soup, as well as a kimchi soup. I really liked the seaweed one and had two bowls. It was very light, and nicely counters the meat overdose I was doing to myself. Forgot to take pictures of those. Later part of the evening, fried rice cakes also appeared on the cooked food section. Since we were getting full, we only took one each to sample. Yummy.

Drinks were free flow, and this area had iced water, an overly sweet lemonade we diluted with water, and a selection of soft drinks. There's also a variety of salads and sides and some fruits available.

Overall I think the spread is pretty good, for the price ($26 ish maybe?). The place did get quite crowded later part, so better to go early if possible. Lynn's comment was that the Kpop songs playing in the background was quite mismatched with the Kpop concerts showing on the TVs. Think a fast song playing while the person on TV obviously looked like he is serenading to a love song....

The food is actually quite nice, but we prefer the Korean BBQ at City Square. Mainly because there's that really nice cold noodles available there, and that the meats there are brought out from the fridge only when you order them. Gives you a fresher, less fly-fed feel. But this one may be more value-for-money to some, since drinks is included. We are fine with iced water so that's not an issue to us. In both cases, you leave the restaurant really really smelling like BBQ... They really need to do something about the ventilation...

Gangnam Garden Korean BBQ (City Square Mall)

After our truffle-blissfulness at Ember, we hunted down truffle salt at the supermarket at Ion Orchard. Since it was pretty pricey for a small container, we decided to share. The plan was for Lynn to bring it home, split half of it into a zip lock bag and pass that to me. And since I had some errands to run at Jalan Besar, we arranged to have dinner at the nearby City Square Mall.

Initially we had wanted to eat something that will go well with the truffle salt that she brought out for me. Aston's queue was quite long, and this branch was particularly small, so we passed. We then thought of Saizeriya, a Japanese-Italian restaurant. Not wanting to limit ourselves, however, we decided to take a walk around to see what else City Square had to offer. Chanced upon Korean BBQ quite by accident. It used to be BBQ Chicken restaurant, and part of the signboard wasn't removed yet. So there I was telling Lynn that BBQ Chicken isn't nice, when she noticed the Korean BBQ signboard at the other end of the restaurant. We also caught a whiff of the smokey BBQ aroma floating out of the restaurant. Upon closer inspection of the menu, we found that it only costs $25.88 for their buffet dinner. Pretty good selection of meats, and with the aroma tempting us, we gave in.

The buffet included a good 70 items you can choose from, drinks not included. Some items require top-ups. We went for a first round of pork belly and chicken chop platter, plus cold noodles with soup and kimchi soup. I actually ordered a bibimbap but that was forgotten. These were served alongside crisp lettuce and 6 appetizers of kimchi, cucumber salad, two kinds of beansprouts, macaroni salad and coleslaw. The cold noodles were springy, and the cold soup very refreshing. Definitely a must-have. The kimchi soup was very diluted and forgettable. The platter was served with some golden mushrooms and shitake mushrooms. The girl did a very meticulous job of cutting all our meats into bite-sized pieces. We took a small spoon of our truffle salt out onto a plate. While the mushrooms tasted fantastic with the salt, the marinate in the meats completely drowned the truffle. So we realized that the truffle salt may be wasted, unless maybe we order more mushrooms. The meats were cut so small that we needed multiple pieces to get a good 'chew' when we wrapped them in the lettuce. Although the platter was supposed to have pork belly and chicken in 3 different marinates, I felt all of them tasted pretty much the same. 

We then noticed the Korean family beside us having the Bulgogi platter, and it looked a lot better than the pork belly one. So round two was the Bulgogi platter, plus a plate of fresh pork belly (unmarinated). The girl again started off the initial cooking of the meats, but we found that she failed to separate the thin bulgogi meats properly, so they were clumps of meat that were uncooked in the centre. We had to cut them with the scissors provided to get the centre cooked. Again all the marinates tasted the same. The highlight of the evening was the fresh pork belly. Because it was unmarinated, it was incredibly enhanced by our truffle salt. Every bite was heavenly, we had those blissful pauses. I think the other tables must be wondering what in the world we were eating that we were so thoroughly enjoying. Think pausing everything and closing our eyes to savor the truffle-filled flavor of the pork belly. We went for a second serving of the fresh pork belly. It was THAT good with the salt!

We were contemplating whether to order another cold noodles but decided to keep the stomach space for dessert elsewhere. We also saw the Korean family eating the hot plate bibimbap which looked quite good but we were too full to try. If I'm not wrong, that's available with a $3 top-up.

Appetizers

Green green lettuce

Pork belly and chicken chop platter with mushrooms

Cold noodles with soup

Kimchi soup

Fresh pork belly on the left, bulgogi meats on the right

Frozen pork belly serving #2

I think for the price, the variety is pretty good. The ventilation is limited though, so we did come out smelling of BBQ. For two of us, we were given a four-seater, so we were able to sit at the non-BBQ side of the table to limit smoke in our faces. If there's 3 or 4, 1 or 2 person will have to get face splatters. Their set up is pretty interesting with a hole in the centre of the pan for oil to flow out and collect into a little metal bowl. Makes you feel a little better about not eating that amount of oil. Lol... The marinates were getting a little too sweet towards the end. Next time I'll bring my truffle salt again and just attack the fresh meat. =D

Togi Korean Restaurant

I was introduced to this restaurant at Mosque St by HY when us colleagues were looking for a place to go for a lab dinner. Liked it enough to bring Lynn back, but that was before we started blogging and no pictures were taken. Recently met up some old friends for dinner, and they chose that restaurant without my input. I guess good food speaks for itself.

From what I gathered through A, Togi is opened by a Korean lady boss who married an African-American who speaks fluent Korean. Not that I'll ever find out if its true, I was surprise he even knew this fact. I never dig around information about who open the places I dine at. The other Korean guy who help in running the place is the lady boss's brother.

Togi serves up pretty good Korean food. I love their bibimbap, ginseng chicken soup, fried rice cake, kimchi pancake, kimchi soup etc... The six side dishes are free flow - kimchi, braised potato, fried ikan bilis, some cold noodle thingy, cucumber salad and sauteed chives (I think). All are pretty good. I especially love the kimchi and the potato. This time round we ordered quite a few of my favorites: Chicken bibimbap, ginseng chicken soup and fried rice cake. Additionally we ordered fried dumplings and BBQ pork, which I have yet to try. I also ordered their citron hot tea, which is very similar to the Japanese Yuzu tea. It contains pomelo pieces I think. Very refreshing. I like. Next time I'll go for the cold one though.

The soup is full flavored with ginseng goodness, and a very good portion of chicken. It took a few bowls each for the 4 of us to finish the chicken. Nice thing about Togi is chicken soup top up is free. Of course we went for the top up! Their fried rice cake is pretty spicy, and I really liked the chewy rice cakes. It comes fried with a variety of vegetables, some dumplings, some other chewy thing I can't place, and half a hard boiled egg. The dumplings were normal, and pity the Koreans don't do vinegar with their dumplings the way us Chinese do. The bibimbap is a little different from the usual one where you have to pour some sauce over before you mix. Theirs comes with the sauce already in it, so you just have to mix. I like the flavor of their sauce, and the vegetables variety is pretty good. The BBQ pork is served with lettuce. So you pack the pork in a leaf of lettuce, add whatever you want (such as garlic, miso chilli sauce etc), and eat it 'popiah' style.

The six free flow side dishes

Fried rice cakes

Dumplings

Bibimbap. I forgot to take a photo before mixing.

Ginseng chicken soup

I can't comment on the authenticity of the food here, since my experience with real Korean food revolves around the whole week of BBQ food I had when I was there. If kimchi is any indication, I'll say their food is pretty authentic. Do see a fair number of Koreans here, so it's good enough. I'm missing the bibimbap as we speak... Lynn and others, however, had commented that there's another Korean place at West Coast area that's better. But location-wise, Togi gets the hands up from me.