The document describes the author's experience visiting a popular Korean BBQ restaurant for the first time. Some key details include: - They had to wait 1.5 hours for a table due to the restaurant's popularity. - Diners sit around a circular grill and cook their own meat, which is brought raw from the kitchen. Various banchan (side dishes) and sauces are also provided. - The author enjoyed many of the banchan, especially the spicy lettuce salad. Sticky rice with brisket sauce was also very flavorful. - Cooking the meat took a long time. The author preferred the brisket sauce for dipping the meat over the spicy sauce

1. Korean BBQ
Arman Tahmazyan
Anthropology 102
Dr. Leanna Wolfe
November 23, 2014

2. In my photo social interaction I decided to go out of my
comfort zone and try something new. Something that
many people have been raving about all the time around
me but I never thought I would actually like. Not the type
of person to try new things but once in a blue moon I
actually decided to go, plus it would be a great photo
interaction for my anthropology project as well.

3. For starters the drive was
very long. Had to drive all
the way to Wilsher on a
Friday night which is always
traffic. But we finally
reached there only to learn
that it was one of the most
popular Korean BBQ
places. We were told to wait
roughly an hour and a half
until we would be seated.
Plenty of people were
waiting and still more kept
coming. Amazing how busy
this place can get.

4. We all finally got a table and sat down. What
I realized upon sitting was a circular grill in
the middle of everyone’s tables including
ours. I guess we had to cook our own meals
here. Only given chop sticks which I had no
idea how to use but they were kind enough
to give me a fork instead. Additionally, we
had the tiny plates and a secondary even
smaller plate which they told me was where
various sauces go into for dipping. Table felt
kind of oily from the grease flying
everywhere during cooking but not matter. I
was very excited to cook my own meal at a
restaurant. We were given three choices in
the menu either A, B, or C. We went with B
because A didn’t seem to have any
marinated meat and C had too many
vegetables that nobody would want to eat. It
was an all you can eat place.

5. Then we were given sides. Nobody
ordered them but I guess they all just
come whether you want it or not. May I
say almost every single one of them
were delicious!! I had no idea what
most of them were or what kind of
sauces they had on them but many
were sweet and spicy and full of flavor.
You could not find this much flavor in
any other cuisine in my opinion. I don’t
normally eat salad but all that lettuce
had a special spicy sauce in it that
made me crave more of it after we
finished. Servers were delighted to
bring more and it was all free of
charge.

6. I have tried and always loved sticky
rice. It always tastes so good and once
they told me they had sticky rice I had
to immediately order some for myself.
Our waitress recommended that we
use the brisket sauce on the side and
pour it into the rice, which would give it
more flavor. I am glad I listened to her,
it ended up turning into the best rice I
had ever tasted. I need to find the
ingredient to make that wonderful
sauce.

7. Finally the meat had come. Didn’t take to long
since they had to just slice up the raw meat
and bring it. The sauces were on the side, one
spicy sauce, one called brisket sauce, one
olive oil and lastly a salt, garlic pepper mix. I
chose the brisket sauce and the spicy sauce. I
understand why these sauces are a must since
most of the meat do not come with nay
seasoning at all and the marinated ones were
only slightly marinated. He began by turning on
the stove and slowly began to put the pieces of
meat on the grill. Then he gave us the tongs
and it was all up to us as how we wanted to
cook the meat.

8. The meat was still cooking, kind of took a
while for it to cook but no matter the sides
kept most of us busy eating until the meat
got cooked to our preferences. These
were the two sauces put into my sauce
containers. The brisket sauce on the left
and the spicy sauce on the right. Spicy
sauce was naturally very spicy and
probably only small amounts of meat
should be allowed to be dipped inside.
The brisket sauce on the other hand was
amazing! It was sweet and tangy I loved
the flavor.

9. The meat was still cooking,
definitely took longer than we had
imagined. What I noticed most of all
which was a deal breaker for me
was the constant Korean music that
play all the time on high volume.
The place was very loud and the
songs kept playing back to back.
Total of two hours there and I was
done with the constant music that I
didn’t understand. I’m sure other
Koreans would understand but
even they were getting annoyed by
constant playback of songs.

10. The meat was finally ready. We each
grabbed whatever meat we could grab
and quickly began to dip them into the
sauces. I’m a fan of spicy food but the
spicy sauce had sort of an odd
aftertaste so I didn’t bother with it after
the first dip but wow was that brisket
sauce just the most amazing sauce I
have ever used on food. It was like any
type of meat would be dipped inside
and it would immediately taste good. I
loved the meat, you can almost tell it
was very fresh from the moment they
brought it.

11. In the end we were all dying from all the food
we ate. We were told if there was any leftover
meat we would be charged for that! So we
soldiered on and ate all of it, which wasn’t the
best idea. But I came to a conclusion, the
brisket sauce is the secret to the amazing meat.
Most of the meat we were served had no added
ingredients on them, no salt or pepper at the
very least. If you ate the meat without any
sauce you wouldn’t be tasting much. The brisket
sauce is what will keep me returning to this
place. It is just that good, me and my friends
even came to a funny conclusion that you can
dip literally anything from food to the silverware
or paper towels on the table in this sauce and it
will taste amazing.