A hankerin' for Meat.

The other night, the hubster came home and asked what I wanted for dinner. I was actually quite hungry and thought and thought and thought and suddenly I told him, I feel like having Korean food. Specifically, this lunch I used to get at the now-closed mom & pop type hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant in Santa Ana called Seoul House.

Their lunch was great. I would always get the combo lunch, which would be fried rice (think Korean fried rice with the thicker, stickier rice mixed with carrots and peas), bbq beef (it was called BBQ beef, but to me it was a little bit bland shredded beef, but went well with the dish) and one slice of char-grilled short ribs. And then she'd throw in three small containers: one of kim chi, one of pickled cucumbers and one of pickled shredded daikon, and a can of Coke. All for $5. I never was able to finish the whole thing. Even at my hungriest.

But too bad they are no longer there, so we decided to go to BCD Tofu House which was just a flew blocks from us. I felt like having kim chi tofu soup. But once inside we sat there and looked at the prices and figured with what we were going to order, the dinner would have been about $30 for the both of us, not including tax and tip. So the hubster said, "For that price, I'd really prefer to go to Shik Do Rak, plus I like their food better."

So I said, Okay. I like going there too, but since I haven't been liking meat as much as I used to, I feel reluctant to go there. Like going to a buffet but not being that hungry - know what I mean? It almost feels like a waste. But by this time, I was feeling quite ravenous. And they were just across the street.

Welcome to Shik Do Rak! I never, ever, ever leave this place feeling hungry - in fact most of the time I am left sitting there thinking... OMG did I really eat that much? But I don't pain for too long.

So basically, this is the type of restaurant where you order the meat and it comes to your table raw so that you can grill it tabletop as you please. And it comes with a ton of little sides to make your meatfest as tasty as possible.

We ended up ordering the All-You-Can-Eat meats, which is $17/person, and chose the beef, the marinated beef and the pork belly. I completely passed on the chicken. Now if that seems excessive, it came out at the same price as ordering a plate of something specific, so why not get a little variety?

The sides that comes with everything include the little 2-part dipping tray of chili on one side, and salt with sesame oil on the other (I love dipping the meats in the sesame oil). To wrap your meats, there are small squares of rice paper sheets (not the kind for spring rolls, more like big rice noodles) and large round thin slices of pickled daikon (love this too). There is a bowl of shredded lettuce, a bowl of traditional napa cabbage kim chi, some fishy doughy thing, cooked bean sprouts, pickled cucumbers, shredded pickled daikon... oh man, what else? And the best thing is, if you run out, they come around with their cart and refill on everything you want.

And the topper is... when you're done, you pick up a little cup of frozen yogurt on your way out. It "cleanses the palette" and you know what? I think it makes you feel less painfully full.

Yum!