I’d like to introduce you all to my little brother Kyle. He’s a little brother/fireman/married/ condo owner/foodie/wearer of plaid. But those are just a couple of little things about him. Most of all he’s my little brother who likes to think I’m his little sister cause were so close in age but we’ll skip over that subject for now. Kyle loves food, he always has, since the days of tomato soup with lots of black pepper, macaroni n cheese in the blue box with just enough milk and hot dogs in tortillas with mustard. (don’t judge us or do)  My little brother and I have made the culinary transformation and since I’ve become a chef, he always texts me with his foodie finds and calls me for recipes if he’s stumped on his day to cook at the firehouse. Kyle is a better than average cook and a more sophisticated than most eater but don’t tell him I told you that.

This is how excited he was when I told him he was gonna be on my blog! LOL
My brother and his wife Viet Linh are avid yelpers and their one year anniversary of being married is on Monday the 30th. (Happy anniversary guys!)

They are always on their Iphone’s looking for the coolest places to eat and bookmarking the rest for later.

So today this is an adventure to Korean BBQ.

I’ve eaten Korean BBQ a few times, I love it but the smell of BBQ on your cloths is something you have to be up for because you will smell like you came out of a burning building as soon as you get out of there, it’s not like your gonna spray a little body splash on yourself and it’ll be gone either you will smell. So fair warning, Kyles a fireman so he smells like fire all the time, it doesn’t bother him and I’m used to working on charcoal or wood burning grills so I’m good too.

The place that we went to is called Fresh Korean BBQ. (their website doesn’t seem to be working here’s their yelp ) The location is this large shopping center on the corner of Sherman Way and White Oak in Van Nuys, CA. The shopping center is comprised of Asian specialty stores such as a karaoke place, market, perfume store, electronics sellers, and all sorts of things tucked away in this large mallish type looking place. Parking is ample. Walking up to Fresh is a bit of a neon experience. The outside of the restaurant is adorn with rainbow colored menu boards, a neon open sign,  and posters asking you to recommend them on yelp. In these hard times you can’t blame a place for trying to get as much publicity as possible. As you walk in the tables are all accompanied by a hood hanging above each table to suck up the smoke as you cook your food. We went there for lunch so it wasn’t very crowded which probably would of been harder to bare if there was so many people cooking at the same time it would be really smoky so I could only imagine how you would smell after that.

We sat down and were greeted by a very sweet older waitress who asked us what we would like to drink and we ordered water and looked over the menu. I was of course intrigued by the shiny chrome grill sitting in front of me. We decided to get the lunch deal with was all you can eat Korean BBQ with 4 choice of meat for 14.99. Marinated Chicken, Pork Belly, Beef Brisket, and Marinaded Sliced Beef. I was a little disappointed that there were no short ribs on that menu but for that price I can understand why.  We were also asked if we’d like soup, rice, salad and they brought about 6 different sides to the table for us to choose from.

Over all I like Korean BBQ cause I can cook my own meat. I know when its done and how long it needs to be cooked. If you don’t know then you run the risk of over cooking or under cooking your chicken so I’d be careful just for the sake of poisoning yourself how you cook things when you go to places like this and that’s not to be mean or anything its just facts.

They give you these sides that are all sorts of delicious pickled Korean goodness. Kim Chi, Picked cucumber, seaweed, fish cake, broccoli, and bean sprouts. I’d say i liked the kim chi, pickled cucumber, and bean sprouts the best. The flavors were very unique and interesting and they compliment the meat well. The meat was pretty good. The brisket i found to be a bit fatty and the chicken a little under seasoned. I never have the highest of expectations for all you can eat type places. Definitely something gets lost in translation but there are enough additions here to over look a few of these things. They give you a side of oil and sauce which helps with cooking and eating. I loved the purple/red rice that comes with the meal. And the Soy Bean Paste stew was really delicious with tofu and this semi-sour refreshing hotness to it. The meat that i would say was the best was the marinaded beef we asked for a second helping. It cooks quickly and has a lot of flavor. I thought that next the pork belly was good which they give you scissors so you can cut the meat (see kyle demonstrating), brisket and then chicken.

So we cooked, sat, ate and joked around and it was a fun lunch. Over all I’d say go for dinner and get the larger 19.99 all you can eat and try the really strange stuff for the full effect but for a fun lunch with my little brother this place was a Korean cultural blast.

I Love you little brother!

Unrivaledkitch
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