Miya

Rating: OK
Meal: Dinner
Price: 3450 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: Mixed veg dish, kimbap, chige soup
English Menu: No
Smoking: Yes

Miya is a Korean restaurant I found a near the Yokosuka Hospital.  It's quite spacious inside, more than the typical little restaurant.  The menu is full of various Korean dishes, but it was overall quite expensive.

They provided a sort of "mandatory" appetizer dish like an izakaya that was just ok.  I ordered a mix of 3 different veg typical of the little Korean dishes that are normally served all around the table.  Of course, these were not free as is typical of Korean restaurants in Japan.  There was kimbap on the menu so I ordered on and also a spicy looking hot soup (chige).  The food was decent enough, but not amazing, and with the high prices I have to knock them down to an Ok overall.

Ichiryu Bekkan

Rating: Excellent
Meal:  Lunch for 3
Price:  4860 yen
Payment:  Cash only
Dishes: 3 orders of Seolleongtang and accompanying dishes
English Menu: No

Smoking: Yes

Ox bone soup

We had to go to the US Embassy in Akasaka last weekend to renew my son's passport.  I was told be 2 of my friends at work (whose taste I trust) that I had to try this Korean restaurant nearby.  Apparently this Korean lady opened up several years back and eventually a bunch of other Korean restaurants opened up in the same area, such that now it gives "Korea-town" (Shinokubo) a run for it's money.

All of the fixins

This particular restaurant specializes in Seolleongtang which is Ox bone soup.  It's a milky white, mild broth with chunks of meat and some clear noodles in it.  Along with the soup, you get a spread of little Korean dishes including several kinds of kimchee and stuff you may not be able to identify but is delicious.  And the requisite small bowl of rice.  All of this was just assumed and brought to us.  The lady in charge speaks excellent English and was delighted by our general delight in the food she brought us.  A bit surprised too, but I guess we weren't the usual clientele.

Wow...it was such a delicious meal.  The best korean we've had in Japan so far!  Very simple really, but all those little dishes really make the meal.  The broth itself isn't spiced at all really, and there was a big container of salt on the table indicating we were to salt it to our preference.  As we finished up some of the little dishes, they were automatically replaced, so you might want to not finish something if you didn't really like it!

I'm so glad we finally found some good Korean food in Japan, though it's a pity we have to go so far downtown to find it!

Champion Yakiniku

Rating: Very good
Meal:  Dinner
Price:  2000 yen
Payment:  Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Bibimpap and bulgogi roll (4pcs)
English Menu: No
Smoking: No

Haneda Airport's International Terminal is one of my favorite airports of all time.  Up above the departure area are several levels of shops and restaurants, and everything is done with Edo-style architecture and flare.  It's all very new of course, but the restaurants are generally quite good and the vibe is very cool.  But hands down, my absolute favorite thing to get at Haneda whenever I have to go is the bulgogi maki (seasoned meat in a sushi roll) at Champion Yakiniku.  It's a very popular item that you can order to go as a meal on the airplane or in the car on the way home, which is how I've had it before.  Last night I had to pick up my wife and son at Haneda, so I went early to actually eat in the restaurant for the first time.






First of all, it's a yakiniku restaurant, and it looks like a really good one.  I wouldn't know for sure as I've never had any yakiniku there.  Instead, I went for the bibimbap dish (bulgogi with other veggies and an egg on rice) and 4pc bulgogi maki.  Both dishes came with the clear wakame (seaweed) soup common in Korean restaurants here.  Usually it's throwaway side dish with very little flavor, but this stuff was different!  It had great flavor and I was really glad I got two little cups of it!  The bibimbap was really good too, and there was an absolutely delicious chili paste at the table to put on top of everything to make it even better.  But still the star is the bulgogi maki, which consists of vegetables, bulgogi meat and other stuff wrapped in a seaweed/rice outside roll.  I think there is a hint of mayo in there too which gives it a great creaminess.  It is liberally covered with sesame seeds on the outside which give it a great extra taste.

One of these days I will eat the yakiniku, but for now, I love this place for the regular Korean food it has, especially that bulgogi roll.  I don't care if it isn't authentic, it's delicious.

Tondeji

Rating: OK
Meal:  Dinner
Price: 1630 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: Spicy beef, kimchi and rice
English Menu: No
Smoking:No

Mmmm...kimbap is always good, shoulda ordered some

Tondeji is a small Korean restaurant that's down a small alley (full of other restaurants BTW).  I had eaten there a couple of times before, but had not yet reviewed it.  It's right across the street from the new Bravo Yokosuka, so prior to having my (starting to become regular) Friday night shisha, I popped in for dinner.

The little tsukemono dishes were good

Tondeji is typical of "japanified" Korean restaurants with the standard dishes (bibimbap, bulgogi) plus some interestingish ones (kimbap, which I usually get, but not this time).  I was not super hungry so I decided to try something new and pointed to something that looked like it had chilies in it.  Sure enough, it was marinated beef with spicy chilies and was tasty enough, if small.  I had to order some kimchi and rice to go with it (they don't seem to do the sets).  Having to order kimchi is irritating to me at a Korean restaurant...it should be a given and free IMO.

This place is ok, and my opinion hasn't changed after this third visit.

Han Il Kwan

Rating: OK
Meal:  Dinner
Price:  1500 yen
Payment:  Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Bibimpap, cold pork trotter, edamame, sesame bean sprouts, kimchi
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: Yes

Han Il Kwan is one of those places I've walked by every day on my way to work for the past year and a half.  The prominent kanji at the top mean "yakiniku" (i.e. cook your own meat) so I haven't been too interested.  But still, the fake food display shows some korean dishes, so I have still maintained some interest.  Tonight, that interest was fulfilled.

Edamame

It's an izakayaish sort of place, and I was promptly served with some steamed, cold edamame.  This was, incidentally, delicious.  At first I was resigning myself to another night of not particularly welcome yakiniku (and something called "beef womb"), but then I turned the page and found comforting bibimpap, and on the next page, the kanji/romaji for something that promised to be pork feet.  Sign me up!

Sesame bean sprouts

They brought out another unasked for treat, sesame oil soaked bean sprouts, which are delish.  The pork feet arrived, cold, gelatinous, and quartered.  I realized this was going to be a messy meal and promptly abandoned all attempts at using my chopsticks and picked up a piece to gnaw on it.  It was pretty plain tasting, if you go in for pig skin, fat and cartilage.  Luckily there was a plate of spicy sauce to dip it in.  It was wonderful!  It took a while to get through all of it, and in the mean time my bibimpap arrived.  I realized this place might be the real deal, so I ordered some kimchi to round things out.  Kimchi in Japan can be sweeter than I personally think it ought to be, but this stuff was nice and tart, very little of the sweetness.  I promptly dumped it all on the bibimpap, which is a vegetables on rice kind of dish.  I did miss the usual egg, but it was still good, with lots of rice.  I think it's meant to be a side dish to the yakiniku, but I don't care, it was good stuff.

Cold pig's trotter

Quite a surprise given the scary looking nature of the place and the location.  I am happy once again to be taken aback by good food in strange places!

Soupr, bibimbap and kimchi

Hanbijae

Rating: OK
Meal:  Lunch for 3
Price:  3400 yen
Payment:  Credit cards accepted
Dishes:  Bibimpap and bulgogi teishoku, kids bibimbap on rice and noodles
English Menu:No
Smoking:No

 I'm impressed with how average all the food at the Lalaport Toyosu mall is turning out.  It all looked so good at first, but so far it's pretty unimpressive.  Not that it's bad...just not great.  Same goes for today's entry, Hanbijae.  It's just another Japanese Korean restaurant, but the lunch menu has lots of different set meals (teishoku) on offer that come to quite a bit of food and a good variety.  My wife loves a bibimpap, so that's what she got, and I went for the bulgogi.  There was no kimbap (korean rolled sushi, but not really like sushi at all) unfortunately, so my son had to pick something off the kids menu and he wasn't too happy with the choices.  Finally he settled on the bibimbap for kids, which he managed to eat most of. 

Bulgogi set

The soups were pretty bland, but I didn't mind them too much using them as a palate cleanser.  I liked the big lettuce leaves with my dish that I could use to wrap up rice and meat and then dip in the various sauces.  Both my wife and I got a small korean savory pancake (which has different names in different places, I'll stick with pancake for now), and it was tasty if small.  My bulgogi was pretty sweet, which is part of the experience but it kind of stuck with me for a while.  My wife had no complaints about her bibimbap.

Kid's bibimpap

Overall, like I said, it was a good amount of food and variety for the money, but nothing really stood out as really good.

Bibimpap set

Harmony

*** Update 3/8/2019 ***

This place has been closed for some time.

********************


Rating: OK
Meal:  Lunch
Price:  900 yen
Payment:  Cash only (probably)
Dish:  Bibimbap Teishoku
English Menu:  No
Smoking:  Didn't look like it


This is a newish restaurant in town.  There was some kind of fish restaurant here before, in fact Google's label and street view still show the old restaurant.  I was out riding my bike looking for something new today and I spotted the somewhat garish sign from across the street.

My opinion of Japanese Korean restaurants is quite low, so bear that in mind when considering my rating above.  What rates an "OK" in Yokosuka is that the food didn't offend me.  For real Korean, I might rate it subpar.  The lunch menu was very simple and easy to follow.  They had 3 or so "teishoku" sets (set lunches with some soup and 3 small dishes).  I played it safe and tried the Bibimbap, which is a good gauge for the basics.  Hard to go wrong with rice topped with lightly wilted vegetables and some ground meat.  There were some good things I liked about it, especially the raw egg yoke provided separately so it didn't get all cooked before I had a chance to eat it.  The seaweed/sesame pickle dish was good, and the kimchee wasn't noticeably sweet (or maybe I'm just getting used to it here!).  The 3rd little dish was some sort of penne noodle thing smeared with a mayonnaise substance.  I took one sniff and about gagged...so no go there, but I've seen this sort of thing before.  I sometimes wonder if they give that stuff to the gaijin thinking it's more "western" fare, but perhaps there are some people who actually like it.  They provided some soy sauce and "spicy" sauce to go with it.  I've learned by now to taste these things first and while the soy sauce passed muster (it had sesame seeds in it, which was a nice touch), the "spicy" sauce was far more sweet than spicy.  About half way through the bowl I decided to see if they had anything "in the back" and asked if there was something "spicier" then the sauce they had given me.  Once they got the gist, the cook gave me a dollop of a red paste from a jar.  This was a little better, but not much.  At least it was not quite so sweet.  It reminded me of a thicker version of the "aji kimchee" (kimchee paste) you can find in the stores here.  Anyway, I knew I had stretched the limits so I finished my meal in peace and departed.

The staff was attentive, the space small but good enough.  There were a few small tables and a bar area (where I sat).  There was an odd odor in the air, but I stopped noticing it soon after entering.  Maybe due to the recent renovation.  I might bring my family there if we are down that direction.