Dons Bogam — Restaurant in New York

On a recent trip to K-Town, I decided to check out Don Bogam rather than go to one of the usual spots we hit up. We were dining with a couple of people who rarely venture out for Korean BBQ and had heard some pretty good things about the place. The look and feel of the restaurant is definitely a step above some of the BBQ joints nearby. When combined with the prices on the menu, my expectations were a bit higher than they probably should have been.

Don't get me wrong, our dining experience was not terrible. But every dish seemed to have some flaw and there were constant little misses in terms of attention to detail. We started off with two variations of the Pa Jun (Korean Pancakes): One with wild sesame seeds and chives and another more standard version with scallions and green peppers. The sesame seed version felt a little flat taste-wise and both were a little thicker than I normally prefer (some at our table actually liked that better) which made the pancake doughier.

For our main dishes we all split two orders of the Dak Bulgogi (marinated beef) and one order of of the chicken version. Now, bulgogi is one of the reasons I love Korean BBQ so much. Some of my fondest childhood food memories are of grilling bulgogi tableside with my parents. And it might be those same memories that made it difficult to enjoy the rest of the meal.

Traditionally, the cooking technique used to cook bulgogi is more akin to grilling where the meat is placed onto a griddle with open spots where the fire can directly cook the meat. Now this is an important point because that direct-heat grilling allows the meat to develop "personality" and gain all of those nice charry bits of flavor when the marinade infuses itself directly onto the meat. At Don Bogam, the meat was in a bowl with the marinade, rice noodles, and vegetables and placed on top of a heating plate which essentially gave us boiled meat. Flavor-wise it was just OK but what really shocked me was that the broth used with the chicken was WAY more flavorful than the beef one. I've had both chicken and beef at numerous Korean BBQ restaurants and have never found this to be the case. Odd. My last issue with the meal was that the rice served was badly undercooked. Everyone at our table took issue with it.

On the whole, even if I factor in that my expectations may be different than others, Don Bogam was just...well....fine. But when you also add in that their prices are pretty high for Korean BBQ in the area, you could do much...

This place is swanky and definitely Michelin material. I stumbled upon this place by accident with no reservation and I have no regrets, sometimes you gotta just wing it. The staff upon entry was super friendly, they gave me a bag for my wet umbrella and sat us down at a booth away from korean bbq side of place ( we honestly came for regular dining). The decor is beautiful, nice wooden furniture with comfortable booths and high ceilings with mirrors on the wall and dim lighting. They definitely take their wine seriously based on seasonal extensive list and wine bottles all around as if you were in a big cellar. The plates are even cast iron bowls so food stays hot and they give chopsticks with fancy individually new wrapped spoons-for rice its brilliant for covid. I was impressed with their sake options too they were definitely new ones I never seen before. You can also opt for beers as I did with sapporo for lunch. I think their menu is extremely authentic between dumplings, shumai, scallion pancakes to cold noodles and various meat over rice dishes. I tried steamed dumplings with pork and vegetables and they came piping hot and you can tell dough was made from scratch, I just felt it couldve used a little more salt but its healthy option. They also brought us pickled vegetables that were complimentary and I fell in love, it really opens up your palette to all these different flavors, loved the greens and kimchee too. Of course I couldnt resist classic bibimbap options, so we tried a pork one with chives and a ground beef option with scallions and kimchee. I feel each dish had perfect ratio of rice to toppings and it was perfect portion, I didn’t feel sluggish after at all. I also liked how food wasnt too oily and more on spicy side( menu shows you which options are spicy anyway). I did feel pork had too much salt though. The waiter himself wore a mask and kept our table clean and water glass full, he was friendly and frequently checked on us. Overall for two beers, appetizer and entrees it cost us almost $80 which isn’t cheap but I can tell you get amazing quality as everything is fresh. I look forward to coming back here to try bbq and alcohol menu! Only thing that holds me back from five stars is they sat us across bathroom stalls which were sectioned off but not ideal. The bathroom has cool dyson and sink handles connected , but the stalls themselves could be...

Really more 3.5 -

4 for bbq meat 3 for missing? food / service

Food: Prime Meat BBQ Platter - very good meat, simple - no marinade, just use a little of the salt and that sauce on it. I actually liked the 3rd meat best (medium cut rectangle), then the thin sliced, then the prime rib. Jap Chae - good, somewhat smaller portion than I expected Rice cakes - very simple, just rice cakes, fish cake slices and spicy red sauce (slightly spicier than I expected, but to bad); and 1 hard boiled egg.

Slightly less variety of the ban chan apps than I expected, but they were all good.

Service: they were very good about cooking the meat well, we didn't need to do a thing for some reason they kept on giving up only small tea cups of very small lettuces, instead of the usual bamboo tray which usually holds twice as much; we kept on needing to request for more. we didn't get any rice by default, which all other places I find do and I saw the table next to us had rice (not sure if it was because we ordered jap chae and rice cakes so they thought we wouldn't want more carbs?); I didn't realize until the end when I felt like I was missing something. I requested a bowl and it was promptly brought over, and we were not additionally charged which is good, but still curious why we didn't get it at the beginning like expected. we didn't get one of those steamed eggy bowls either (I think my friend said she got it last time, so not sure if it just depends on the day, as I didn't see it on the table next...