Honey Pig — Restaurant in Leonia

Many people posts reviews on their favorite and not-so- favorite restaurants for variety of reasons. For me, it's truly for the hope of that particular restaurant to reflect on the per-views of their patrons and improve upon, or simply continue accentuating on their strength. Having said that, we had revisited this frequently visited Honey Pig in Leonia for a particular dish "Soy marinated crabs, which they are know for next to Duck BBQ. So good this dish is, they insisted on selling it only on weekends(Fri., Sat. and Sunday only) fresh as it gets and not to sell left overs after the weekend.(not sure if that's still the policy, and may not have been at this time.) So, this is their trophy item that they stake their reputation on, and what would you do if you know that the item is not at its top quality for an obvious reason such as being "out of season." as that was the case. Most of us know that crabs are not in season during the winter month, especially Feb thru April. And it showed, the dish just didn't have that fresh glow, but was sort of dark, musky shade and we could tell that the crabs were hollow and rather light and shelly to the touch. The taste, the most important factor! Nonethelessly was that of unfamiliar aroma of soyce sauce collecting somewhat unpleasant pungent flavor of hollow contents of legs, claws and yes, even the main body itself. It definitely did not have that mouthwatering and savory crab kick at all but just mouthful of fishy taste, not out of it's shelf life or any thing but definitely not pleasant and not fresh. My wish was that they simply put a sticky note of apology for disappointment that the marinated crabs are out of season and the management did not want to offer subpar menu to it's valued customers just to ring up the register and they will be glad to reintroduce the dish as soon as the crabs are back in season in it's proud quality that our customers deserve. In simple statement, the Marinated crabs would have been better off not being on the menu which dragged down the better of the restaurant and it's reputation. I am willing to give it another chance when the crabs are back in season...

I came by with a group of friends and we were seated in the private party room by the entrance. It wasn't busy when we came by for lunch on a weekend so we were seated immediately. The staff were friendly and very attentive to us for the entire meal.

The meal was served with a ton of banchan side dishes (반찬) which were all delicious. We also got soup and steamed egg, which as staples in Korean BBQ. We honestly could have filled up on just the banchan.

We ordered 2 orders of the raw marinated crab (간장 개장) which was delicious. This dish can be a little polarizing but is an absolute favorite for many Koreans. It's difficult to find this dish in the States so I was happy to see this here. Their version is also very delicious but salty (as is traditional) so make sure to have it with some rice!

We also ordered 10 servings of their duck BBQ which came with fried kimchi. The food was delicious and we even got kimchi fried rice with our leftovers at the end of the meal. Highly recommend the food here as it was all amazing.

Note that they do not sell alcohol here but you can bring your own drinks from outside and request glasses from them. There is...

Number one issue with the restaurant is that they dont even know what one serving is. I asked if they go by grams or number of cuts. But they kept claiming that they just don't do that here without telling my group what was one serving. Ended up ordering 4 servings only to find 3 strips of thick pork belly. The math wasn't mathing. And I paid like 80 dollars for 3 strips of store bought quality pork belly. Just go to hmart or something and cook yourself a nice meal for quarter of the price. Kalbi was pretty good tho. Samgyeopsal is def not worth the price. 된장찌개 was the lowest quality i've seen anywhere also. Bland and not enough substance in it. Also the service was so bad. Why did I have to ask three times to get rice when it should come with the stew? I'm just disappointed overall and I won't be getting kbbq outside my home from now on thanks to...