Chadol House

Rating: Very good
Meal: Dinner for 3
Price:  96000 won
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: 1 thinly sliced beef platter, 1 korean beef sirloin cut up, 1 korean beef sirloin large portion, spicy cold noodles, hot miso soup with beef
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

After our less than satisfying recent yakiniku experience in Japan (a common trend) we decided to have our last meal in Seoul at a nearby Korean BBQ (yakiniku) restaurant called Chadol House.  It is literally the closest BBQ spot to the base while walking towards Itaewon, and very easy to get to.  It had pretty high reviews online and seemed a good place to try the "real thing".

Real charcoal grill

It was quite nice, sort of "date spot" feeling if you will.  The area is super trendy with lots of fancy bars and restaurants going up everywhere...a little too hip for us typically.  But the restaurant was welcoming, and the menu nice and simple.  There were about 5 different meat choices, all beef, and we opted for some thinly sliced beef, and two cuts of thick Korean beef sirloin.  It was our last meal and we had cash to burn, so we ordered more expensively and extensively than we typically would.  I had to try some of the soups too, so I got a cold and hot option.  At one point I contemplated getting us some rice too, but the waiter suggested we wait and see what with all the soups coming.  I did order one rice for my son though.

Thin sliced beef and banchan

The thin sliced beef was my son's favorite, and it came frozen in little curled up tubes so you could set it easily on the charcoal grill pot and then it would naturally unfreeze and lay down flat.  Of course we didn't realize this exactly at first and by the time we did the rest had all started to thaw and they were a pain to cook after that.  But being thin, they cook fast, and if you want some extra crisp you can leave it on a little longer.

Thick cut beef, banchan and hot soup

The sirloin cuts were deliciously fatty.  The precut versions were our favorite, because if you get the uncut bigger version you have to use some scissors to cut it up before or after and that's kind of a pain.

But the meat was really just part of the show...the main event was everything else in my opinion.  There were 3 or four different banchan dishes, several types of kimchi, some bean sprouts, lettuce leaves, etc... and when we finished one of the kimchi dishes they immediately refilled it and kept topping everything up.  The soups were both very tasty, with the noodle dish being that very thin, long noodle type that some people choke on, so they cut it up using scissors before we ate it, which I was grateful for.  It was pretty spicy, but not overly so.  The hot soup was delicious as well.

Overall we were all in agreement that it was a night and day difference in comparison to yakiniku in Japan.  Korea does it best, hands down!