I think every owner of an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ place has the same look of horror when a group of college-aged boys walk in the front door. Fortunately, I'm not a college-aged boy.
I have a love-hate relationship with Korean BBQ. While it's a fun experience and relatively healthy (or at least it can be), because I don't eat much beef or pork, I rarely get my money's worth and walk out wearing eau de grilled meat. Top notes of smoke, middle notes of grease, and base notes of pure protein. And trust me, the scent lasts.
Oegadgib is a smaller Korean restaurant situated tucked away on a more quiet road in Annandale. While the main drawing factor is their all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ and shabu-shabu, the menu also offers things like soondubu, jeongol, and bibimbap. I'm planning on going back for the jeongol sometime, but for this visit, BBQ it was!
Banchan
One of my favorite things about Korean food are the banchan. We were given some lettuce seasoned with red pepper flakes, salt, sugar, and sesame oil (BF loved this - he never eats green things but fought me for it), pickled daikon, seasoned cucumber, beansprouts, kimchi, potato salad, steamed egg, and dwenjang jjigae.
Steamed egg
Dwenjang jjigae
For $18.99 a person, Oegadgib offers all-you-can-eat chicken, beef brisket, pork belly, beef tenderloin, and rice. BF loves the brisket and pork belly, so he got several rounds of it. I mostly stuck to the chicken. The meat quality was quite standard, but I do wish that for the price, they offered a bigger variety.
I really liked that Oegadgib offered thinly sliced picked daikon to wrap the meat in. A few pieces of lettuce, some meat, and a bit of kimchi makes for an absolute flavor bomb. It's a bit of a chopstick maneuver, but try it out!
While Oegadgib does satisfy a craving for meat, for the price I wasn't all too impressed with the Korean BBQ selection. On the upside though, all the ingredients are fresh, food is simple and to the point, wait isn't too long, and service was wonderful. All-in-all, still a solid restaurant and I enjoyed my experience. I think I will go back to try a few other things on the menu.
Oegadgib
7331 Little River Turnpike
Annandale, VA 22003
