Dinner for 2 with copious amounts of Obe beer: £75.00

Korean BBQ is to me – and I know many will disagree – the best BBQ that there ever was.  In fact since it is nigh impossible to get even remotely authentic Southern BBQ in New York City (where I am from) I would have to say that Korean is the closest my hometown has to a local BBQ culture.  I love it and I am amazed that its just not more common here in London.  So anytime I have the chance to trick someone into going out for Korean food with me (this time it was a date) I jump at the chance.

Koba is pretty small so if you’re expecting anything resembling one of the Manhattan/Queens style hangar sized BBQ palaces you’ll be dissapointed.  I’d think the biggest party you could possibly get away with is 8 people comfortably around a table.  Also if you want to sit and stare deeply into someone’s eyes its a bit of a stretch as the tables have to be big enough to accommodate a grill and an extraction hood.  Both myself and my date each smacked our heads into the extraction hood over the table during the meal.

The one major disappointment I have with all Korean restaurants here in London so far is that you have to order and pay for your namool – little dishes of most often pickled things.  In NYC at any Korean restaurant they are complimentary and are often a real highlight as you get a chance to try all sorts of things you might be scared to order off of a menu.  For example I never knew that I loved dry shredded squid until I was served a small dish of it once.

Assorted Kimchi/Pickles

We started with a selection of kimchi which were absolutely fine though quite a bit less spicy than usual.  I think this is a case of dumbing things down for a Western palette.  But they were still spicy enough to get your appetite going.

mmmmm.....Ddukbokki

Next we had Pajun – a pancake with seafood and spring onions (not pictured) which was yummy.  And ddukbokki – rice and fish cakes in spicy sauce – one of my absolute favorites .  I cannot explain my obsession with this particular dish.  Its full of all sorts of strange textures and flavors and I just love love love it.  Their version was pretty good – not nearly the best I’ve had – but pretty good.

Kalbi

The main event is of course the meat and I cannot express to you how delicious the meat is.  I don’t know what it is that Korean chefs do to make it all taste so good but whatever it is it works.  We had a selection starting with Kalbi – marinated beef spare rib.  The marinade is slightly sweet and the beef was incredibly tender.

Next up was daeji bulgogi (not pictured) which is spicy pork – ridiculously good.  And last we had prawns which were not marinated and which were so fresh and sweet that they really didn’t need any sauce at all.

It was a fabulous meal and I am already plotting to go back. I am pretty sure my date liked it too.

Koba
11 Rathbone Street
London W1T 1NA

Dinner with lots of wine: Jenelle and Tom paid! (but expect to pay around £50)

Man I love the name of this restaurant. I’ve giggled every time I walked by it for about a year on my to and from other meals. I giggled again when I was recently invited to attend a birthday dinner there for a person I’d never met.  The birthday girl who turned out be named Yvette, also turned out to be a lot of fun and didn’t mind having a total stranger celebrate with her.

The restaurant itself is decorated in an odd form of minimalism – black walls, bench seats, low lighting.  It all works well though as even though the tables are fairly close together you don’t really notice the other diners.  That or the 2 Manhattans I’d had before dinner at Beach Blanket Babylon made me completely oblivious to the other patrons.

Before I realized that my friends were going to spring for the meal I decided to go for a completely decadent experience starting with smoke salmon with blini and creme fraiche.

Smoked salmon with blini

The salmon was nice – nothing new or earth shattering – just decent smoked salmon.  The creme fraiche was fresh.  The blini however was too big and a wee bit dry.  I think a couple of smaller blini would have been better.  You can see the size of that thing relative to the lemon wedge – it was enormous.  And I’m not quite sure what the green squizzle was in the bottom corner of the plate – there wasn’t enough of it to add any significant flavor to the dish or to moisten the blini so I ignored it.

It was fine but it wasn’t quite the decadence I was after.  Luckily I had a plate of yummy happiness on the way.

Now I am not a big beef eater.  I can probably count the number of times I eat steak in a year on one hand.  When I do eat a steak though I have very high standards and very specific requirements.  I like my steak black and blue.  This means that my steak should have a good deep sear on the outside – all caramelized and delicious – while the center should be uncooked.  When I order a steak and ask for it black and blue and the waiter has no idea what that means – I immediately change my order to nearest vegetarian option.

Ribeye black and blue

The waiter at Bloody French nodded his head approvingly at my request for black and blue so I was confident that I would in fact be enjoying a good properly cooked steak.

From the photo above (where a bite or two has gone missing) you can see that my steak was well seared on the outside (not as black as I had hoped for but still very good) and is pink pink pink on the inside (perfect).  Smothered in peppercorns and butter the steak was just lovely.  The frites were very good as well.  There’s a pot of excellent house made mayonnaise somewhere outside of the frame that was also making me very happy.

My friend Tom also had the steak. He had it cooked medium I think (wuss) and seemed to enjoy it as much as I did.

Next time I crave a steak I will be heading back here.

Bloody French
149 Westbourne Grove
Notting Hill, London
W11 2RS