Sinabro

Went on a Saturday afternoon at the suggestion of a friend I was visiting in the area. I was surprised it was so slow in there during lunch time, we were 1 of 3 parties that were being served and there appeared to only be 3 or 4 people staffed. Ambience was nice with flowers on the tables and decorative vases holding chopsticks. The host/bartender promptly seated us. His service was decent minus our table needing to awkwardly ask for a copy of the menu back so we could order drinks since he whisked them away as soon as we ordered our entrees under the assumption we only wanted waters. (kinda surprised there wasn’t a separate drink menu on the tables tbh?) Our food came out pretty quickly, but my Stonepot Bibimbap took so long to cool down to an edible temperature that the rest of my party ate most of their food before I could get to mine. I wish the server offered to package mine up to go for me because the bowl was still too hot to hold (and also really heavy) so it was physically difficult to transfer without burning yourself. Of what I was able to eat of my dish in the restaurant I didn’t get too far because of something so spicy in it that my stomach started turning (whatever was to the right of the egg). This was confusing as the menu description listed spicy gochujang as coming on the *side* (which it did, and was delicious but wasn’t spicy?). The egg on top was cooked perfectly and the presentation was colorful. The beef was tender. The complimentary kimchi was a nice touch and heat level, as well. The menu could benefit from little pepper symbols 🌶️ to denote spiciness in dishes. Nice amount of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink options on the menu, our drinks were good. Given the higher price point and lack of gluten-free entree options on the menu (two currently) it might be a while before I’d consider coming back.

My husband and I have been wanting to try this place for awhile, so when we had some visitors from Europe recently we decided to take them here to sample some of the cultural diversity of our city. The lush green velvet seating is gorgeous, but our visitors found the hard wooden booth and plain white walls where we were seated uninspiring for taking photos, which is a big part of the experience for them lol. I’m gluten free, and there was exactly one item in each of the menu categories I could have, so that’s what I ordered. Disappointed that there were so few choices, but I did enjoy the edamame, jap chae, and bibimpap. Our server was helpful in deciding what to order, and we got a selection of items to share, everyone loved the chicken teriyaki and pork dumplings and duk bokki. It was more spice than our visitors were used to, but they liked exploring the new flavors. The plum drop martini was refreshing, but Crisp Dragon was our favorite drink, great tropical flavors. We had to track down our server and ask for more water, it wasn’t refilled throughout the meal. All in all a fun experience and interesting new place to try.