Korean barbeque, Vandy and Pacific!

i went there this past tuesday and the service and staff were great. i wasn't crazy about the decore. it was pretty bland and unimaginative. the banchan were ok enough, but i did have a couple of issues with the food. i ordered the Kalbi. the dish was simply too sweet and i couldn't even taste the meat. the mackerel was also a disappointment. it was the frozen packaged kind you get in the korean markets. the frozen part doesn't bother me as much as all of the preservatives which are put into those prepackaged seafood packs... it's great to have a korean place in the hood but i wish they would be more conscious of using better ingredients and a little less sugar & MSG.

all the best.

Subject: no!!

please don't use MSG i was looking forward to eating there. but the headache and blurry vision soon to follow isn't worth it.

Subject: nope

i can eat tomato products. as long as it's not soups with msg. i'm also allergic to soy. the article mentioned something about hydrolizyed soy protein and msg.

cheech wrote: doctorj are you really a doctor?

Not the kind that tells you to say "ahh".
I got my NBA in Philadelphia in '76.

jason wrote: i just went to dokebi bar and grill, 199 grand street in williamsburg.
they have the full-on korean BBQ and they also have shabu-shabu!
the BBQ was excellent and the place is beautiful. it's my new favorite spot in town. they scored on a lot of fronts here. the food was great, music was amazing, decore different and nice, and the service was excellent... you don't feel like you're in a korean place till you eat the food which is definately korean.

of the few places serving korean food in brooklyn, dokebi is definately the most serious of the bunch. KUDOS!!!

Sorry if I find this all a little... contrived, but you've got 2 posts on the boards - one pretty well bashing the subject of the thread, one with sickly-sweet praise of a cross-town competitor...

I have to agree with Jason. Dokebi is a pretty cool place. You could imagine hanging out there for hours grilling and drinking beer. I mean, pitchers of beer, that's just a good thing.

Is there anywhere around here that sell pitchers of beer?

Their grills are cool too. They can be covered over if you want to use it as a table.

I like Noona and consider it a great addition to the neighborhood, but Dokebi is probably cooler. If Noona wants to consider grills and pitchers, I'm all for it (and for God's sake, who wouldn't be?)

PH_unbalanced,

I don’t understand your take on “Asian lettering”.

I’m not sure if you have ever seen Korean calligraphy in a museum, but you will not be able to avoid seeing the mysterious “Asian lettering”.

Perhaps we should tell the Metropolitan Museum of Art to purge its collections of Korean masterpieces such as this:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/09/eak/ho_1998.486.1-.34.htm

The “Asian lettering” on the lanterns in NooNa and on the artwork in the Met's Korea Gallery are Chinese characters.

Korea did not have its own writing system (hangul) until the 15th century, before which the literate class used Chinese characters.

Furthermore, the use of Chinese characters in Korea did not stop in the 15th century. Hangul was not even used in official documents until the late 19th century.

Not only have Chinese characters had an influence in Korea in the past, Chinese characters are taught in South Korean public schools today.

I was once told by a friend who came over here from South Korea during junior high school that he had just begun his study of Chinese characters in school when his family moved to the States.

Just to make sure I had not imagined this, I just now checked with a colleague who came over more recently, and he said that due to his field of study he had to learn 3,000 to 4,000 Chinese characters. (This being way above average, Wikipedia says that the average Korean student learns 1,800 Chinese characters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_language#Writing_system )

I’ve also been told that newspapers in South Korea use Chinese characters, at least in headlines. Also that many surname and given names derive from Chinese words, and therefore may be written in Chinese characters as well as hangul.

If few in South Korea seem to be offended to teach Chinese characters in schools, putting them in newspapers and using them for names, what is offensive about having Chinese characters on lanterns in a Korean restaurant?

It’s not that Chinese/Korean/Japanese people and cultures are all the same, but the countries did use the same writing system for centuries. Then Korea adopted hangul, Japan adopted its mixed kanji/kana system, Vietnam went with Roman letters, while China stuck with hanzi.

There are apparently some people in Korea who would like to cleanse Chinese characters from society (incidentally, North Korea has apparently gone 100% hangul). Are you bringing this domestic political dispute to Brooklyn by criticizing a decent restaurant?

I’m not sure whether you either 1) don’t know the history and current state of the Korean writing system, or 2) are bringing a domestic Korean political issue to bear on a great addition to our neighborhood.

I’m guessing it is not #2 because the main complaint of your post seems to be that most non-Asians think Korean/Chinese/Japanese are the same. We don’t, but we do recognize that they influenced each other throughout history, including writing systems.

p.s. I went to NooNa after receiving a fairly decent recommendation from a Korean-American in the nabe. He didn’t mention the lanterns. He did direct us to the spicier dishes, since there did not seem to be too many spicy selections.

As for the BBQ, perhaps NooNa might consider the portable grills? I don’t know how good they are though.

We thought the music was louder than it had to be. Perhaps the point was to drown out the traffic noise outside, but it was still too loud. Otherwise, had a positive experience, and are really happy to see it here.

Talia wrote: PH_unbalanced,

I don’t understand your take on “Asian lettering”.

I’m not sure if you have ever seen Korean calligraphy in a museum, but you will not be able to avoid seeing the mysterious “Asian lettering”.

Perhaps we should tell the Metropolitan Museum of Art to purge its collections of Korean masterpieces such as this:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/09/eak/ho_1998.486.1-.34.htm

The “Asian lettering” on the lanterns in NooNa and on the artwork in the Met's Korea Gallery are Chinese characters.

Korea did not have its own writing system (hangul) until the 15th century, before which the literate class used Chinese characters.

Furthermore, the use of Chinese characters in Korea did not stop in the 15th century. Hangul was not even used in official documents until the late 19th century.

Not only have Chinese characters had an influence in Korea in the past, Chinese characters are taught in South Korean public schools today.

I was once told by a friend who came over here from South Korea during junior high school that he had just begun his study of Chinese characters in school when his family moved to the States.

Just to make sure I had not imagined this, I just now checked with a colleague who came over more recently, and he said that due to his field of study he had to learn 3,000 to 4,000 Chinese characters. (This being way above average, Wikipedia says that the average Korean student learns 1,800 Chinese characters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_language#Writing_system )

I’ve also been told that newspapers in South Korea use Chinese characters, at least in headlines. Also that many surname and given names derive from Chinese words, and therefore may be written in Chinese characters as well as hangul.

If few in South Korea seem to be offended to teach Chinese characters in schools, putting them in newspapers and using them for names, what is offensive about having Chinese characters on lanterns in a Korean restaurant?

It’s not that Chinese/Korean/Japanese people and cultures are all the same, but the countries did use the same writing system for centuries. Then Korea adopted hangul, Japan adopted its mixed kanji/kana system, Vietnam went with Roman letters, while China stuck with hanzi.

There are apparently some people in Korea who would like to cleanse Chinese characters from society (incidentally, North Korea has apparently gone 100% hangul). Are you bringing this domestic political dispute to Brooklyn by criticizing a decent restaurant?

I’m not sure whether you either 1) don’t know the history and current state of the Korean writing system, or 2) are bringing a domestic Korean political issue to bear on a great addition to our neighborhood.

I’m guessing it is not #2 because the main complaint of your post seems to be that most non-Asians think Korean/Chinese/Japanese are the same. We don’t, but we do recognize that they influenced each other throughout history, including writing systems.

(snap)

Carnivore wrote:
8) The mandoo guk was pretty tasty, with a nice light but meaty flavor, although my wife probably wouldn't have ordered something that mild if she knew they'd be out of kimchi, which is kind of a necessary foil to that dish.

isn't this one of the "reason for the giant bowl of salt" dishes? (wait, is this the mandoo and rice cake in bland broth dish?) cause that's what my ex said. then again, he dissed my fave kimchee, so ... reasons for him being my ex, etc. 8) 8) 8)

New York has a little blurb about Noo Na:

http://nymag.com/restaurants/openings/21976/index.html

Medusa wrote: Please someone who went tonight, please post a review!

I looked in the other day and was a little sad to see no BBQ tables. I had just been to the Korean restaurant in Williamsburg (Dokebi) that does have them and they seemed really cool. You could cover them up if you weren't doing any grilling. The ability to grill seemed like it would make it a nice date place since, if you ran out of things to say you could just concentrate on your grilling.

So I really want to know about this new place. I thought the price of $10 for bibimbop (that by which I judge all Korean) was a bit high, although it's the same price as at Dokeni. It's just $7.95 at Sushi Okdol on Myrtle.

hey, could you tell me more about sushi okdol? i didn't know they had korean food there? do they have the bibimbahp in hot stone?

Does anyone know whether they deliver? They dumped a bunch of menus in my building lobby a couple of weeks ago, but the menus don't say whether they do. However, it seems to me it would be odd to drop paper menus in apartment buildings if you don't deliver. Hmm.

i've had two great lunches there recently, no sign of the opening troubles others reported earlier.

word of advice if you go on wintry days, though -- it is COLD by the glass doors.

Hey just went back to Noo na for dinner, it was amazing, and yes the Lamps have Korean Caligraphy!!!So Asian guy, i supose you don't know your own culture!!

Subject: Re: Noo Na

PH_unbalanced wrote: I was, however, put off by a few things:

1. The Korean bbq gets cooked in the kitchen rather than at the table. The whole point of Korean bbq is to cook it at the table with your dinner mates. At Korean restaurants in Koreatown, they will cook your bbq in the kitchen if you only order one serving (you usually need to order two servings at least to cook it at your table), so that's understandable. But I think Noo Na should give us the option of cooking our own two servings of bbq at the table.

I hate cooking at the table. In Koreatown I always let the kitchen do the work. The meat comes out better and I don't smell like the grill when I'm finished.