Decline of the Apropos Breakfast - Korean BBQ!

I usually dislike sweet things for breakie, preferring the savory, so I jumped at the chance to meet Fox, LAGourmet, Mr. Taste of Thai, and My Doppelganger (mumsy came too) at Sa Rit Gol at 10:15 am Sunday morning.

The standard for me is Soot Bull Jeep but as Vivacious Gourmet E says, "Emphasis on the soot!" Yeah, it does get a little smokey and it's often very crowded. The last Korean BBQ place that I went to was Honey Pig on 8th near Taylor's and the manager had given away our table so we had to wait an additional 40 minutes. Plus the pork was really disappointing (with the exception of the spicy ribs.) So I'm looking for a new Korean bubbaque experience that hopefully I'll enjoy.

Sa Rit Gol is known for it's great panchan (side dishes) and they lived up to their reputation on Sunday morn. We received a fabulous watercress salad, a squash salad, bean sprout salad, kimchee, an unspicy chopped morning glory (?) kimchee, and the de rigueur potato salad.

For the bbq we order beef "breast" or "deckle" (I have no idea which cut that is but Fox said it was really good - and it was - the waitress grilled it with onions and mushrooms), the short rib with coarse salt and fresh garlic, bulgogi, and spicy pork. We also ordered a mung bean pancake with pork and pickled vegetables that was out of this world. The dipping sauce for the pancake which was a soy sauce, sesame seed, and green onion went really well with the deckle. The other sauces included a chili garlic sauce which was not overly spicy but was very good with the meats and a vinegar based sauce with macerated jalapenos and garlic.

The last several times that I've had Korean bbq I've had the rice noodle squares instead of rice but this time we all got bowls of rice. With one of the dishes we received a very interesting stew that had a very pronounced beef base yet had a little fish stock in it too. It was very thick and had tofu and vegetables in it and you can just imagine eating it on a cold winter night when you are feeling under the weather; but when it's a hundred degrees outside it was a little rich.

Right when we sat down the waitresses brought us two large pitchers of iced barley tea which was perfect since it was so hot outside (at the end of the meal they brought us small bowls of a iced honey tea which was a great digestivo.)