Meokja Meokja - Korean BBQ — Restaurant in Fairfax

Good bye Iron Age, Kogiya, Sō and the rest of Kbbq spots in Northern Virginia. Meojka Meojka starting off extremely strong and will be a solid champion in DMV area.

My first visit to Meokja Meokja for lunch (12pm, Sunday July 8th) Me and my friend went for Combo 2 (Thick-cut Pork belly, Sliced Bulgogi, Thin-sliced Brisket and Marinated Galbi) Combo meals definitely the best way to go because you will get all the complimentary items (Soybean tofu soup, Angry egg aka Steamed egg, Kimchi pancake and Iron cast skillet Corn cheese)

As most people already mentioned, quality of all the meats are above average, clearly. The quality of Brisket was on-point, evenly amount of meat and fat. Fresh, not frozen either. Thick cut pork belly was excellent and taste even more heavenly with corn cheese. Galbi was extremely tender and marinated well but I found it to be slightly too sweet for my liking. Still super tasty though. Bulgogi taste good, standard. Maybe because I usually don't care for bulgogi as much as other meats.

Complimentary sides Steamed egg, my all-time favorite side dish at kbbq. I got spoiled from endless, free refills steamed egg at Iron Age for 2 years, so I found it difficult to see this place only offer one steamed egg from a combo and $5 each for additional ones. But it seems they put extra effort into their Angry egg. The portion is huge, it came out very fluffy almost like egg souffle. The one I got was perfectly cooked, absolutely delicious. Soybean tofu soup was remarkably comforting and slightly spicy. Kimchi pancake, slightly soggy, could've been more crispy for sure but still delicious.

Our server, Erica delivered the best customer service so far compared to any kbbq places I've been to. She was efficient, friendly, fun to talk with and clearly know how to cooked all the meats to the best of their ability. She even cooked me the small amount of end bone meat of galbi. I really appreciate her additional minutes of tedious work. Erica is a keeper, no doubt. :)

Overall, Meojka Meojka reminds me of excellent Kbbq places in LA in terms of quality and two different type of the grills. The amount of food from the combo was just right. I left happy and don't feel like a balloon from overeating AYCE style. I regularly drive 20 minutes to Iron Age all the time but Meojka Meojka will be the kbbq spot to go from now on, plus it's closer distance from...

If I could give this place a 4.5 star I would. I was impressed with the flavors of the meat and the excellent service. It seemed to be well organized so that someone would come by to cook our meat on time and someone would always come by to ask if we needed anything else. The combo selection was different but it worked well for me and two of my gfs. We got the combo 1 for 2 people and then got an order of galbi. Combo 1 was 45 dollars and it was a good portion if meat. We were all stuffed. The meat in the combo was all very good. Comes with a steamed egg and either a kimchi stew or soybean paste stew. We decided on the kimchi stew and it was actually good. There was spam in it which is awesome because us Koreans love spam in our kimchi stew. The galbi I thought could be better which is my reason for not giving the 5 stars. It was recommended to us but I thought it lacked flavor and it was a little tough even though it was cooked to medium. I didnt think it was worth the price. It was priced kind of high for one order, I believe it was 16 or 17 dollars? I wish I had gotten our servers name. He was very very friendly. Pretty sure he was the tallest Korean guy there so ask for him! I have to say the marinade on all the different cuts of pork that were spicy was really good. Especially the one that comes out already cooked with jalapenos and onions. Very tasty. Lots of flavor. The cheese corn was good too and stayed on the grill to keep the cheese from getting hard. Good idea! The place was busy and we did have to wait about 45 minutes but it was well worth it. Lettuce, garlic and jalapenos dont automatically come out so be sure to ask for it and they will bring it to you. I like the idea of the water container so you dont have to constantly ask for water. Very Korean style. Overall a good experience and I would go back. Oh! I almost forgot the best part! Soju is 10 dollars! Yeah!!! That's a VERY...

We had a reservation at 7:45 for 4 on a typical Tuesday. We got there about 20 minutes early hoping to be seated early if they had space. They did not, no problem. We waited in our cars about 10 minutes past our reservation time when we got the text to check in with the host. We checked in and waited another 5-10 minutes inside to be seated.

We ordered the combo #2 and sampled the side dishes while we waited. Our server David K was great and handled all the cooking for us! I’m not sure if rice isn’t normally given by default at Meokja, but we had to mention we wanted rice before they brought it out. They didn’t charge us extra for it. I had read the reviews mentioning the other dishes they were given by default: the angry egg, corn cheese, etc. We were not given any of them nor told that they were an option we could request included with our meal for free. I supposed we could have asked, but they seemed busy and I’m fairly shy. He did refill our salad side dish when we polished it off before our first course arrived.

The 4 meats were pretty good and paired well with the few dipping sauces they provided. I’m not a meat connoisseur so I didn’t notice a quality difference between this restaurant and Sõ in Centerville.

Overall I’d say the food was good, the portions were great, and the staff was friendly. I wouldn’t say it was worth the wait or that I’d recommend it to my friends. For now, we’re sticking with Sõ as our number 1 kbbq place in the area since the meat is about the same and AYCE is cheaper. I did like the side dishes better here at Meokja though.

We paid about $50 per person for the combo #2. Funny enough the check listed the three dishes we weren’t...