This past Saturday night, Bert and I decided to go to Buga since he had never been there before. I had only been there twice, with Lotus, Shogun and TC. So...we, along with Ronin and HotFudge were to meet there at 7 pm. Unfortunately, Bert had a work related call and was not able to make it which was ironic because he was the reason we wanted to eat there in the first place. He stayed home to work on the problem on our computer.
In any case, we (sans Bert) made it there on time and had a table reserved for us, courtesy of Shogun. We were seated at a booth with a huge marble-topped table with a grill in the middle. We ordered two orders of beef bulgogi, one order of pork belly, two orders of chapchae noodles, one order of sliced ribeye (Ronin) and one order of spicy pork (HotFudge). All items except for the noodles and pork were cooked on the grill.
Because I did not bring my camera, you'll have to see our food vicariously through this other blog's photos . This guy and his friends got the kalbi (he spells it as 'galbi' which is also correct) and chicken. There's a good picture of the Daeji Bulgogi (spicy pork) dish that HotFudge ordered. When the waitress took her order, she told her, "You know that's spicy". HotFudge said, "I know, that's why I want it". She's had it before many times, but I thought it was cute how the waitress wanted to make sure HotFudge knew what she was getting into.
Bert called us around 7:30 to tell us he wouldn't be making it and asked if I could save some food for him. When I repeated his request to our friends, they laughed and said there wouldn't be ANY food left, so I ordered the spicy pork dish to go. It came with a styrofoam bowl of soup, rice, and about four types of panchan (side dishes), which consisted of spinach leaves with sesame seeds, toasted (and sugared) seaweed, spicy marinated bean sprouts, and kim chee. I dumped TC's leftover chapchae noodles on top of the pork.
I really liked the pork belly. Good choice Lotus! It looked like bacon, but was cut thicker and softer (not crunchy). The dipping sauces that were supposed to accompany this were great: one was quite salty and the other was a red chili sauce. Shogun and I liked the salty sauce better. The panchan we got was varied (acorn gelatin, julienned daikon, crunchy seaweed, soft seaweed, the ubiquitous kim chee, marinated bean sprouts, etc). You can see in that guy's blog (in the photo quadrant) the sliced green radish panchan which was both sweet and hot (think wasabi). I gave mine to Shogun and took his rice wrappers instead so I could use them for my bulgogi. So, their prediction was right. Nearly all of the food, save for HotFudge's spicy pork, because it was a gigantic portion, was gone. We were too stuffed to even contemplate dessert.
Buga was pretty crowded that night so it was good that we had reservations. The crowd was predominantly Korean (or at least Asian), and we were seated next to a big dinner party (two table's worth). I caught snippets of Taglish (Tagalog and English) here and there, so I'm pretty sure those folks were Filipino. They were pretty damn loud. Our service was really attentive. The waitress came by several times to check on us and to turn our meat on the grill, although we did some of the grilling ourselves. It was pretty busy so I was impressed by the waitress' attention to us. I mean,we're all adults and we can handle it right? But maybe she wanted to make sure we didn't burn our food? Good service, I say. In any case, next time we go, we'll have to make sure that Bert is included so he can enjoy the Buga experience as well!
In any case, we (sans Bert) made it there on time and had a table reserved for us, courtesy of Shogun. We were seated at a booth with a huge marble-topped table with a grill in the middle. We ordered two orders of beef bulgogi, one order of pork belly, two orders of chapchae noodles, one order of sliced ribeye (Ronin) and one order of spicy pork (HotFudge). All items except for the noodles and pork were cooked on the grill.
Because I did not bring my camera, you'll have to see our food vicariously through this other blog's photos . This guy and his friends got the kalbi (he spells it as 'galbi' which is also correct) and chicken. There's a good picture of the Daeji Bulgogi (spicy pork) dish that HotFudge ordered. When the waitress took her order, she told her, "You know that's spicy". HotFudge said, "I know, that's why I want it". She's had it before many times, but I thought it was cute how the waitress wanted to make sure HotFudge knew what she was getting into.
Bert called us around 7:30 to tell us he wouldn't be making it and asked if I could save some food for him. When I repeated his request to our friends, they laughed and said there wouldn't be ANY food left, so I ordered the spicy pork dish to go. It came with a styrofoam bowl of soup, rice, and about four types of panchan (side dishes), which consisted of spinach leaves with sesame seeds, toasted (and sugared) seaweed, spicy marinated bean sprouts, and kim chee. I dumped TC's leftover chapchae noodles on top of the pork.
I really liked the pork belly. Good choice Lotus! It looked like bacon, but was cut thicker and softer (not crunchy). The dipping sauces that were supposed to accompany this were great: one was quite salty and the other was a red chili sauce. Shogun and I liked the salty sauce better. The panchan we got was varied (acorn gelatin, julienned daikon, crunchy seaweed, soft seaweed, the ubiquitous kim chee, marinated bean sprouts, etc). You can see in that guy's blog (in the photo quadrant) the sliced green radish panchan which was both sweet and hot (think wasabi). I gave mine to Shogun and took his rice wrappers instead so I could use them for my bulgogi. So, their prediction was right. Nearly all of the food, save for HotFudge's spicy pork, because it was a gigantic portion, was gone. We were too stuffed to even contemplate dessert.
Buga was pretty crowded that night so it was good that we had reservations. The crowd was predominantly Korean (or at least Asian), and we were seated next to a big dinner party (two table's worth). I caught snippets of Taglish (Tagalog and English) here and there, so I'm pretty sure those folks were Filipino. They were pretty damn loud. Our service was really attentive. The waitress came by several times to check on us and to turn our meat on the grill, although we did some of the grilling ourselves. It was pretty busy so I was impressed by the waitress' attention to us. I mean,we're all adults and we can handle it right? But maybe she wanted to make sure we didn't burn our food? Good service, I say. In any case, next time we go, we'll have to make sure that Bert is included so he can enjoy the Buga experience as well!
6 comments:
Yeah, it sucked getting called to work right before dinner. That timing was awful.
But I did enjoy the spicy pork! THANKS! I thought for sure I'd feel it later (if you know what I mean), but it didn't have that effect for some reason.
You'll have to take me there another time. :)
There's another good Korean restaurant that Screg and I just recently tried a couple of weeks ago. It's located on Mira Mesa Blvd off the 15 frwy go right in the square with Denny's. They have garlic, fried chicken and oysters as appetizers on their menu.
The name of the Korean restaurant is Shozen & Manpo and the address is 9906 Mira Mesa Blvd,#A, (858)586-0099
Finally got to eat at Buga last night with Canine and TC. I had the rib-eye. Good stuff. I also had the Hite beer. We were a little surprised when it came to the table as a 40oz, but of course I finished it off. I don't know how you all (with six people) managed to coordinate the many food bowls that were at the table. I think there were 30+ bowls for just the three of us.
It wasn't easy. It was very congested on the table. Stacking bowls on top of one another helped in addition to the waiter removing some of the bowls from the table as well.
hi hofudge!
i think we will try that place soon! thanks for letting us know.
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