Restaurant: Hanjip
Location: 3829 Main St, Culver City, CA 90232. (323) 720-8804
Date: August 31 & September 15 & 19, 2016
Cuisine: Korean BBQ
Rating: Fabulous value at lunch, good food
Culver City doesn’t have too many great ethnic joints, and we are a bit “far” from KTown here, but there is Hanjip, an upscale KBBQ joint.
The cow says it all.
Hard looking seats and no grills at the otherwise nice outside patio.
Crazy black and white interior.
The menu.
The tables have gas grills.
And like all good Korean joints there are the banchan. Like this cabbage salad.
Chewy squid with black sesame were awesome. I ate two entire bowls (not kidding).
Pickled onions.
Kimchee of course.
And cauliflower.
Plus, the all important potato salad (which I liked a lot).
Macaroni salad.
Onion.
Kimchee fried riche with soft egg. Pretty awesome stuff.
Egg custard with uni and ikura.
Seafood pancake. Nice example of this type with lots of seafood inside.
And a Dolsot Bibimbap bowl which comes with the lunch special. This was my favorite. Nice soft egg and all those goodies. I tend to love this dish.
This was the beef brisket lunch special.
Cooking the brisket.
And cooked. Tasty enough, but not as yummy as with the rice.
Spicy miso for whatever you like.
And chilies.
In September Hanjip started an all you can eat lunch program that has an interesting format. There are 3 tiers ($18, $25, $30ish) with each tier having increasing meat types. They are all good deals, but the best meats are at the higher levels.
Spicy chicken. Not the most exciting.
Garlic chicken.
More brisket.
Cheese fondue. This is an optional item included in the AYCE. It’s pretty awesome to dip the meat in the gooey cheese!
Marinated pork shoulder. By far the best of the 1st tier meats. Tons of flavor.
Pork belly. Also a good one from the basic set. Like bacon!
Garlic pork belly. Even better! (2nd tier)
Garlic beef (2nd tier). Also really flavorful.
Short rib (2nd tier). Awesome and steaky.
Bulgolgi (3rd tier). Really tasty.
Spicy squid (2nd tier). Doesn’t cook as well as the meats.
Veggies (1st tier). Are what they are. Pretty good with the fondue.
I’ll have to come back to Hanjip for dinner (with some wine) and try a wider selection. But what I has was very good. And wow do you get a lot of food for $15-18! A great option for Culver City dwellers.
