Bulgogi Bento from Korean BBQ & Sushi Restaurant - $8.95

3 Liberty Plaza, Newark, DE - (302) 455-9100

Here's a lunch special from the only Korean restaurant I know of in Newark. Bulgogi is thinly sliced prime rib eye that's marinated in some special Korean sauce. It has a slightly sweet taste to it, Usually, if you eat in, they provide you the raw meat and then you grill it yourself at the table.

The rest of the stuff they give you is part of what I think is called banchan? It's just an assortment of little side dishes. I think this place always give you a fried shrimp, two sushi pieces, a scoop of rice, and kimchi. For those of you who don't know, kimchi is the reddish stuff in the 2nd picture - essentially, it's pickled cabbage.

The rest is random - I think this was the first time they gave me cantaloupe, and I usually get the sesame-oiled broccoli and those sweetened potatoes (not sweet potatoes, but sweetened).

Dolsot Bibim Bap from So Gong Dong Tofu House - $9.00??

3307 West Bryn Mawr Avenue, Chicago, IL - (773)539-8377

I think Dolsot Bibim Bap loosely translates to something like "hot stone bowl of mixed rice." You can also order a plain Bibim Bap which is the same thing but doesn't come in the heated stone bowl.

If you look at the picture closely, you can see steam coming off the rice. The stone bowl is piping hot when it arrives and you can hear the rice cackling from the heat. Eventually, this will sort of burn the rice slightly and add a slightly crispy texture to the dish.

The little dish on the left is chili paste and is usually added into the rice bowl and you mix around all the contents within the bowl which included a raw egg (that cooks from the heat of the bowl), lettuce, beef, bean sprouts and some other vegetables I can't seem to recall right now.

The other little plates are what is called banchan. Banchan is basically a collection of side dishes that come with your meal. This is standard for most Korean entrees, I believe. In our case, we received what looks like four varieties of kimchi, a fish, and some sesame oil concoction. Suffice it to say, this was a pretty crappy banchan relative to other Korean places I've been to (I'm used to more variety than just different kinds of kimchi).

As for the dish itself, it was good, but not great. I liked the touch of crispiness from the rice burning against the stone bowl but the flavor wasn't doing anything for me. Maybe I was expecting too much because my sister prepared me by saying it's her favorite Korean dish, but even she wasn't awed by its taste. Either way, I wasn't impressed enough to make a return trip to this restaurant.