KIM GA MEON OK (김가면옥) — Restaurant in Palisades Park

I love self-service restaurants. I like shuttling my own food from a counter because it means I can eat at my own pace. I especially love not having to worry about calculating a tip at the end of the meal. At Kim Ga Meon Ok, they've upped the self-serve model. You place your order at a counter and wait until your number appears in the electronic display above the kitchen. In the meantime, you're free to collect your water (hot or cold), silverware, and - best of all - unlimited servings of savory beef broth that arguably make the wait well worth it.

I ordered the hot stone bibimbap - mixed rice with some meat and veggies - which created a respectable layer of burnt rice along the sides as it sat in the screaming hot pot. Another person in our party ordered the jeyuk dolsot bibimbap, which we thought would be another bibimbap dish with spicy pork as the protein; instead, it turned out to be just meat and rice in a hot stone pot. Each of our entrees came on a tray with some kimchi and soup on the side. The soup apparently changes regularly - this time, it was a seaweed soup.

The last thing we ordered was a seafood pancake. It was much smaller than we expected, and I was prepared to disappointedly dock them a star for the smaller sized portion, but I was surprised. This pancake might be smaller, but it's PACKED with seafood, so much that there were shrimp and squid pieces tumbling out with every bite. The service, too, surprised us. Even though we hadn't said a word, they apologized for the smaller-than-usual serving and gave us another seafood pancake. For free. Free food always makes me happy, but food that's free AND this good? I was sold solid.

One last thing to consider is parking. There's no two ways about it - it's rough. There are a few street parking spots available in the adjacent streets, but once those are taken, you'll be circling 'round the blocks quite a bit. We ourselves ended up playing our chances with the nearby Shop Rite parking lot and felt hugely relieved our car wasn't towed upon our return. I felt it was worth the gamble since we ended up enjoying our meal quite a bit, but you can decide whether it's...

Holy Chow! This place is AWESOME. My wife, daughter and I just devoured a fantastic meal. We had Korean seafood pancake 해물파전 Not too salty. Perfect. My daughter had the pork meat 제육볶음, which is a favorite, a little hot (not spicy) but temperature hot. My wife had the돌솥 비빔밥 which was fantastic. But the take down, no questions asked winner is Tonkatsu 돈가스. First, two huge slabs of tonkatsu, extra thick, crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside, wonderful cabbage salad with traditional thousand island dressing. But here is the kicker…the vodka/curry sauce (yes Italian and Indian combo sauce) was FIRE. I MEAN FIRE. So a little background, I am trying to avoid carbs, and today was my cheat meal. I took two bites of the tonkatsu with the vodka / curry sauce. I realized that that the tonkatsu and the pancake were going to make me full. I decided to skip the rice because I needed to conserve stomach space to finish the tonkatsu. My daughter and wife helped me finish both of the huge slabs of tonkatsu. Needless to say, we brought my wife and daughter’s meal in a doggie bag. The interior decor was modern and pleasant. You must prepay for your meal 선불. NO TIPPING. NO TIPPING. Parking is a little tough and the bathroom would have been an A+ if a storage shelves were not in the men’s room. But gotta say, all is great if you get the Tonkatsu with vodka/curry sauce....

Went to check out this new restaurant near King Sauna. When we walked in we were confused when the owner asked us what we wanted to order at the front desk. We told him we wanted to stay and eat, not order "to go." We were seated but we then realized that here they have you order first, pay, then get seated.

The owner said it's "self serve" but they brought us all our utensils, the side dishes and bottled spring water. The food took longer than we expected, probably because they just opened 8 days ago.

Everyone was asking about their cold noodles but they told us that the noodle machine had not arrived yet so that was not available yet. We ordered some other items instead. The seafood pancake was huge and thicc! It had a nice crispy crust and soft inside with plenty of octopus. We couldn't finish and ended up taking the rest home. The donkatsu was ok. It was flatter and harder than what I am used to. The little side pasta salad and cabbage that came with it was better imo. The LA kalbi was flavorful but kind of chewy. I liked the hot stone pot bibimbap but we had to wait while we tried to get someone to give us some red pepper sauce because they forgot.

We want to go back when they work out the kinks and when they do have the 냉면 available. Give this restaurant a visit! Prices are 20% cheaper for the month of October and you don't have to...