G2 Korean BBQ

301 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne 3000
Date visited: 11th January 2013

G2 Korean BBQ has only been open for ten days, and already is extremely popular with CBD dwellers.  AS, MerlinFan and I popped in after 8pm on a Friday night after spotting G2 on our way to Icey Ice Snow Ice yesterday.  Note to self: new restaurant = must check out.

G2 specialises in Korean BBQ as evidenced by the bronze "exhaust pipes" over each table.  They do not have built in grills, but have portable charcoal grills for diners to use on each table.  You can choose your own A la carte BBQ ingredients - they also have entrees, tapas sets, set menus, a non-BBQ menu as well.

Photo taken at 10pm after most patrons left =)

Tables are long, narrow and sit about six people - expect to share if you have a small party.  There was ample space between us and the couple we shared our table with, so no complaints there.  There are also tables upstairs.

On your table is a piece of paper explaining how to enjoy their Korean BBQ and how long to cook various meats for.  Handy.  You also have a tray of 3 condiments nicely labelled for your perusal.

Loved all the sauces.  Even tells you which types of meat they go with.

And of course, there's your thong and scissors.

The staff were all Korean and spoke English well - they were pleasant and full of smiles.  

We started off with pickles.  I'm hopeless when it comes to naming vegetables especially after they have been pickled, so I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Love the one on the left

Aunt S had a bottled iced tea and I had a green tea.

Steaming hot green tea $3

We started off with Tofu Kimchi which was tofu with pan-fried kimchi and pork.  The tofu was more the spongy rather than silky type.  It went well with the kimchi and nicely seasoned pork.

Tofu kimchi $12

We had the Dark bulgogi chicken.  One serve consisted of 180g marinated chicken thigh fillet.  You could choose to have it sweet or spicy - we opted for the former.

One serve Dark bulgogi chicken

Cooking chicken!

The chicken was beautifully marinated, sweet and smoky, crispy yet juicy and tender off the grill.  Delicious.

After we had the chicken, one of the waitresses asked if we were finished with our BBQ - there was a bit of confusion about our food - for some reason they thought we already received our other two dishes, the beef and pork.  We told her that we only had the chicken so far - she went to check and our other two dishes appeared miraculously quick after. 

It wasn't only us, though, the diners beside us had the same problem where the staff were confused about what they already had and what they were still waiting on.  Waiters and waitresses were polite and gracious about it, though.

Next we had the Gal-bi, which was marinated butter beef short rib with special soy sauce. 

Gal-bi $23

This was our favourite dish of the night.  These sweet, smoky, tender beef ribs were awesome!  And one thing I love about beef is how flexible it can be - whereas Aunt S liked hers well done, MerlinFan and I could have ours as raw and wriggling as we wanted.

Next we had our Pork Belly.  You could have it plain, spicy or thinly sliced - we had ours thinly sliced.

Pork Belly

This was our most unremarkable yet most exciting dish of the night.  Why?

Unremarkable only because after our spectacular seasoned beef and chicken dishes, our unmarinated pork naturally seemed to pale in comparison.  And exciting because... well, I'll show you.

Cooking

I admit it was my doing.  I kept turning the fatty pork belly over and over.  Then we noticed the embers of the charcoal illuminating our grill from beneath.

And then... 

We're on FIRE!!!!!

Argghhh!!!!  Our fire had sprung to life, fuelled by the melting fat from the pork belly!  One of the waiters happened to pass by and see it, calling out to the others.

Waitstaff to the rescue

Then came our own MET call team of waiter, waitress and dude from the kitchen to extinguish our fire.  It was so funny how they used cabbage/ lettuce (didn't pay that close attention!) leaves to douse the flames!

Oh well, undeterred we finished our pork belly semi-crackle and moved on.  Couldn't well leave without dessert after seeing the promise of a Deluxe Set with four desserts on it.

Deluxe set $26

So gorgeously presented!

Green tea ice cream

The green tea ice cream came with red bean and wafer.  The green tea flavour was quite subtle, but lovely with the red bean.  We all enjoyed it.

Rose macaron

This was a big rose flavoured macaron with chopped lychees, mascarpone cream and raspberry couli.  It was very reminiscent of the Endless Love from Luxbite.  The macaron was more chewy rather than crispy but had an intense rose flavour that was complemented by the lychees and tangy raspberries.  MerlinFan loved this.  

Baked cheesecake with strawberry and raspberry

The cheesecake was probably my least favourite in the platter.  The cheesecake was slightly dry with a bready-biscuity consistency.

Chocolate pot

The chocolate pot was actually the last dessert we touched - it looked very humble, with its  white cream top simply adorned with two coffee beans.  Were we so wrong.  Underneath the mascarpone cream was a layer of thick chocolate and digging deeper you break into a layer of molten salted caramel.  Sooo good.  We suspected they hid some fizzing pops in there somewhere too - you could feel them popping in your mouth.  LOVE.

Close up with flash so you can see the salted caramel!

Overall, we all left feeling happy and satisfied.  I don't have the breakdown of prices as I ingeniously took photos of the menu but conveniently omitted the side with the prices by accident >:( and also didn't get the tax invoice from them, but it was $101 for our entire meal.  Expect to pay about $15-30 per serve for the a la carte BBQ section.  Staff were friendly and although there was a bit of confusion about orders tonight, they have only been open over a week, so I'd say they're finding their feet and can only get better.  So yes, I like this place so if you visit and order the pork belly please try not to burn down the restaurant because I'd like to come back for the Dark Bulgogi chicken and especially the Gal-bi.




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