BiergartenLA - Koreatown — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Came here for Happy Hour. In the first hour the restaurant was pretty bare, but as time progressed, by halftime of Thursday Night Football, this place went to about 60% capacity. This spot is called Biergarten for the large selection of beers of tap, but it's totally Korean inspired food (besides one thing I ordered). It's a darkwood pubby feel in here with a scattering of TV's, but not every table will be able to have one in view. We sat smack in the middle of a room to view the larger tv up the mid.

-=-Kimchee pancake-=- Pretty oily, but that's usually the nature of kimchee pancakes. I probably wouldn't get this again. I typically think of kimchee pancakes as a simple flavor, so maybe there's just too much going on with this one.

-=-Kalbi quesadilla-=- Anything with the word kalbi in the name needs to live up to that meaty standard. For some reason tucked away into all the cheese and tortilla, the kalbi soul gets lost. I may try this again to see if I get a better version of it.

-=-Sweet potato strings-=- It's just one jumbled up big tangled thing of potato. There's sweetness on top in the form of powder sugar, but if that's not your thing then there's atleast some parts of potato there not touched by sweetness. Flavor and goodness in this is sparse, but this dish is good for one thing and that's munching and filler.

-=-German fried rice-=- This was the one dish that was not Korean by any speck. The flavor was not overly complex either. Most of my love for this dish came in the form of...

Parking was not difficult. Biergarten is located on Western Ave. in Ktown and I thought I would have some difficulty finding parking on such a crowded street. Luckily, Biergarten has a small private parking lot with valet parking for $2. I missed it and found street parking a few feet away.

Happy hour here is from 4pm to 7pm. The food options are standard and range from chips to hot wings. My group ordered the fresh potato chips ($4), grilled asparagus with garlic aioli ($6) and the German fried rice with German sausage, sauerkraut, peas and a fried egg on top ($8) from the happy hour menu. We also ordered the the Asian chicken salad ($13) from the dinner menu.

The food didn't take too long to come to our table but like I mentioned above, everything tasted just ok. The chips were freshly fried but they were so greasy! There was literally little grease puddles in the crevices of each chip! The German fried rice was good and is something I would recommend and the gravy made the rice really soft. Finally, the chicken salad was just ok. It was not a bad salad but tasted like a standard Asian-style chicken salad with a peanut-based dressing. I don't think it was worth the...

Came here for Sunday football and had a great time. I arrived at about 1pm with my group and there were about 20 other people at the place. Plenty of good seating still left and there were tons of TVs so you always had a good view. We ordered the drunken Chicken, poutine, and fried pork knuckle. All were good but my favorite was the fatty crispy pork knuckle. Definitely not diet food but it hit the spot. The wait staff was also very accommodating. The sever accidentally dropped a piece of our pork knuckle and automatically offered to get us all a round of beers on the house which I thought was great. We really didn't need the free beers but felt good that the server immediately offered compensation for his very minor mistake. Overall I had a good time. Prices were reasonable even without happy hour. I will be back soon! Oh yeah and there's free wifi! Just ask for...