Friday, 30 August 2013

SSIKKEK Korean Grill BBQ Buffet, Bras Basah, Singapore

SSIKKEK Korean BBQ at Bras Basah





 This restaurant is well hidden on Level 2 at Bras Basah Complex, just above Jack's Place. The entrance looks like this :D in case you can't find it. 

This place gives me a "home" feeling, I feel like this is how Korea locals have their dinner when they are not in those high-end posh restaurant. 
It was not fully air-conditioned, but they placed standing fan around the place to keep it cool. 

Note: The place is not well-ventilated. I can guarantee you will leave the place smelling like a piece of well-cooked meat :P So don't dress too well if you intend to dine here. I bring my clothes there to change after my dinner, but my hair still smells like BBQ pork hehe. 

Personally, I love this place. The food variety wasn't much but they serve really nice Kimchi soup and Seaweed Soup. Nice bowl of rice mixed with Kimchi soup, it just like what I saw on Running Man (popular korea variety) , which makes me drool. Both soups tasted amazing, full of flavor. Hmm. 




Fresh kimchi, lettuce if you like to wrap your meat with it and "others" lol 



Meat counter, fresh and some marinated in different spices. Pork, Beef, Chicken.

Their pork belly is amazing and the bacon was good too. If you like beef, they have quite a few different cut of beef and marinated. I like their mushroom "Jing Zhen Gu" which is amazing to cook in BBQ as it absorb all the remaining beef juice left on the BBQ.

The grease to use before BBQ will be the pork belly itself, put a couple fresh onions with the pork belly during greasing. Now you are ready to start your BBQ, don't forget to try their traditional beanpaste and dips for your BBQ if you like additional flavors. Beside meat and vegetables, they have mussels & prawns as well. 

Cooked food that I recommend will be Kimchi Soup, Seaweed Soup, Korean Rice cake and of course fresh Kimchi. They have Korean ice cream if you fancy dessert after (Not include in buffet) at $5.00 each I think. 

Pork belly really taste amazing, they provide scissor for you to cut them into small pieces after you done cooking :). The service was alright, because they are busy making sure the food is well stock for diners :O.

The boss of this restaurant is a Korean mid 40s man, he's really friendly and funny too. As I was late for around 30 minutes, oops. When I finally get seated after I apologized to my friends, he came over to me with a big smile and says "Your poor friends been waiting for you and they are so hungry! I offered to cook for them, they say to wait for you. So I guess the bill is on you." Hehehe, we have a good laugh and I will I "might". 



Reasonable price, around $27 per pax on weekend dinner. 
Author Notes: 
Compared to my experiences over at Bornga, (Korean restaurant), I prefer SSIKKEK way more. I really enjoyed it and definitely visit again. 

Even though they aren't like Bornga with high rating and celebrity chef, SSIKKEK served authentic Korea traditional dishes. I would rather pay to go SSIKKEK than Bornga. 

After you pay over at the counter, the staff or boss spray Fe-breeze over you :P, so do let them know beforehand if you don't want that. Enjoy folks :D 


SSIKKEK Korean Grill BBQ Buffet
Address: #02-01, Bras Basah Complex. 231 Bain Street.  Tel: 6336 4476. 
Operating Hours: Daily 11:30-14:30 (Lunch) & 17:30-22:00 (Dinner) Price range: Around $27 per pax.

Tuesday, 13 August 2013

Bornga - Korean BBQ Restaurant at Star Vista, Singapore

Bornga, rated as one of the best Korean BBQ restaurant in Singapore,  I love Korean food and they serve authentic Korean traditional dishes, so I decide to try this restaurant.  Experiences we had in this restaurant was bad, but food was good. 




The greens to go along with the BBQ meat, wrap wrap *


Woosamgyup – $22 / 200g

The BBQ begins, cooked by the server.


Sizzling....

We love the pork bellies, well it's good for your skin. Unlike those really fatty parts this is a good cut of pork. They keep the recipe really simple, full of taste from the fresh cut of meat. One fear about having BBQ is you will probably end up smelling like cooked meat after. We ordered a plate of Woosamgyup (above), a Kimchi soup and a Bibimbap to share, we can't wait to leave this restaurant, that is why we didn't take any pictures as we was offended by a employee.

 There is a server, she's not a waitress, her role is taking food out of kitchen to the waitress. The server, who took the dish to our table said "Why order so many things? How you expect to finish?" and server start shaking her head in a really rude way. We kept quiet and the server left after she done her job, my sister and I look at our dining table. With a Kimchi soup, a rice and small place of meat, which is suppose to be combination of a normal meal. 

So I asked the waitress, "do we really ordered a lot?" 
She said "No, actually. Because over here we normally have customer we order more meat instead of other dishes, so probably looks a lot to her (the server) and she's normally not like that towards customer."

Author Note
Truthfully, food was good. Do try if you like good BBQ pork, but my rating for this restaurant will be the lowest. A place where I will never visit again. Dining experience is important in all expects, not just the food itself. Doesn't have to be excellent customer service but making the diners feel comfortable. Because of the bad service, I personally think it's slightly over-price, and reviews was over-rated.

Bornga Korean BBQ Restaurant
Address: #02-24, The Star Vista, 1 Vista Exchange Green. Tel: 6694 4696. 
Operating Hours: 11:30-22:00. Price range: Around $35 per pax