Monday, August 08, 2005

Oh Brother!

Yes, I'm still alive. Family and friends have been extremely vocal letting me know that I've let them down by not keeping up lately. It's not that I haven't had any culinary adventures as of late, rather the new job is keeping me busy. In a good way. The ability to blog at work is now non-existent and the desire to sit in front of a computer in the evening has diminished. Let's see if we can strike a good balance.....

A recent culinary adventure took me to Brothers Korean Restaurant, an authentic Korean BBQ restaurant on Geary Street. We arrived on a Wednesday night around 7:30pm, the doorway crowded with groups waiting for a table. The restaurant has 10 or 12 long tables with barbecue grills in the middle to cook up a meatfest right there at the table. There are 5 or so other tables
in the middle room sans barbecue grills that are often empty while the crowd waits for the do-it-yourself opportunity. We waited an hour for a barbecue table, all the while the sweet, smoky barbecue scents soaked into our hair, our clothes, and teased our stomachs.

We already knew what we wanted when we sat down having read the menu and spoken to the regulars waiting with us. We ordered the marinated beef and shrimp for the grill, and a noodle dish. It took no time at all for the beef and shrimp to come, and the server started our first round by putting some on our smoking grill. The meats come with 8 or 10 sides of different kimchees - pickled cabbage, fish cakes, cucumbers, other vegetables, seaweed, butter lettuce. The marinated beef and kimchees were outstanding, while the shrimp were a little dry and took a little longer to cook on the grill. Beer in hand, we finished off most of the beef, kimchees, and noodles with smiles on our faces and stomachs full. In calculating the cost of our dinner, I had to include the load of laundry that was needed to rid my clothes of the soaked in Korean bbq smells. If you go, go hungry but be prepared to wait and be sure it's close to laundry day.