Thumbs up - Austin Bbgo...Thumbs down - Korea Garden

This post is about something lovely, but it must begin with a diss. Skip Korea Garden. They are dirty, stinkin’ liars who have to rely on past tales of the ‘sushi train’ to lure diners. after hearing that the train had been out of order, I called to verify that we’d be able to indulge in the silliest of sushi services. was told “yes, come on down, yes, it’s open on weeknights, yes, it’ll be going till 10pm but we are open now so come on over…” only to arrive and see the conveyor belt is now a shelf for knick knacks and hear the only woman working there deny that she’d been the one who misinformed me on the telephone. it’s not like we live up north, we drove 20+ minutes for that sushi experience. just on principle, we ended up eating somewhere else.
*rant over*

after debating on trying somewhere new, we settled for Austin Bbgo, the yummy place with the whacked out name (did they misread BBQ and didn't realize it until after their massive sign was made? is it an indecipherable effort to bolster their take-out business?). ambiance is non-existent in the strip mall spot, but it’s BYOB and consistently turns out some of the best Korean food I’ve had. they recently got a new menu (which has better English explanations) and new signage.

we ordered and quickly gobbled up some mandu dumplings while deciding on the max amount of food we could possibly hold. we selected 2 dishes, knowing the banchan would be plentiful.


on this night the little dishes were piled with kimchi, cucumber kimchi, spicy fish cake strips, jellyfish salad and mild egg custard (the only plate we didn’t lick clean. it was a texture thing for me, andy was down though.) our bibimbap was a plentiful mix of fluffy starch and crunchy veggies, of tame fried egg and spicy red pepper sauce. Textbook and delicious.

the kimchi pajeon was loaded with the fermented cabbage, pork chunks and green onions. it was thick enough to retain it’s spongy center while crisping up oh-so-nicely on the outside. I was really excited the next day to see that it re-heated better than I’d expected.

Austin Bbgo is not a first date kinda spot…more like an 'I know you’re down for a great food adventure even if there’s nothing to look at but each other’ kinda place. the people are friendly enough. but definitely go for the food.

6808 North Lamar Blvd # B-110