LIANG BAN JIA KOREAN BBQ
at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi A9, 6 FL
No. 9, Song Shou Road
(02) 2720-1980
MRT: Taipei City Hall
website: skm.com.tw
hours: 11 AM - 9:30 PM
$$
Kid friendliness: high chairs available. just keep hands away from hot grill.
Visit reviewed: 5/18/2009
Liang Ban Jia is a modern looking restaurant offering an extensive menu of Korean bbq meats, seafood, Korean hotpot soups and traditional dishes in Xinyi Mitsukoshi shopping mall, on the same floor as Saboten, a shabu shabu place, a Japanese restaurant and a Chinese restaurant.
I always walked by this place and assumed it would be too expensive, but actually if you have a group of people, you can get a lot of food for an affordable price. My aunt wanted to treat my visiting sister and I to dinner and we ended up getting the combo for 5 people for NT$2500. They have combination sets for 2-5 people which works out to be about NT$400-500 a person, which can also be cheaper than ordering different things ala carte.
Mostly everything was good, but the best parts of the dinner was the beef "galb" (NT$580 ala carte) and the stone bim bim bap. It might have been the biggest stone pot I'd ever seen!
The main beef I had (beef, hee hee) was that we finished a few of our panchans side dishes early and asked for refills. They said that refills cost extra. It kind of sucked that they didn't give more since we had more people.
Because the place was relatively empty, the server was able to cook all the meat for us and was very attentive at serving everyone.
My aunt said when it's busy, the servers have to work between a few tables, and the meat is definitely better when the experts cook it with their expert tongs-manship. There's even lettuce and two dipping sauces for your meat.
The pacing was pretty quick and after going through the seafood pancake, grilled mushroom, pork, beef, more pork, scallops, shrimp and fish, we barely had enough room for the bimbimbap rice and the seafood hotpot.
If I go again, I'd probably try the other options of ginseng chicken or kimchee hotpot since the seafood hotpot was a bit bland.
The seafood pancake was thick and crispy and stuffed with crab, squid and vegetables.
I thought the scallops were a bit dry and the fish and shrimp were just so so. At that point, I was wishing there was more beef kalbi instead, which was the most tender and juicy of all the grilled meats.
Mmm.. the bimbimbap was a nice way to end the meal. The crispy bits of rice and all the mixed in vegetable, egg and sauce.
Liang Ban Jia is perfect for business lunch and a great option for a tasty Korean meal with a group of friends or family. It's not as great a bargain as a place like Happy Korean, but it's roomier and less rowdy than Mindong and walkable for those craving Korean near 101.
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5 comments:
Very interesting panchan here. I haven't seen a restaurant yet that grills fish and scallops for you on the spot! This is very nice.
Did they have a fan to get the smoke on top of the table?
korean food is my absolute FAVORITE food in the whole world, but i can never find good korean food when i'm in taipei! the kimchi always tastes really really weird
EatTravelEat: yes.. here and Mindong both grill for you when they are not super busy. i forgot to mention, i think the fan is in the table because it wasn't smoky at all!
dessertobsessed: yes.. it was hard to find good korean food when i first came back, but i found some favorites!
Hihi,
I love your blog and went to many places that you have recommended.
Just want to feedback about the service of this Korean place.
I tried booking this place last Sat but could not get a reservation. This Saturday, I managed to and was really happy about it. I love Korean food. Unfortunately, we did not get past the bad host service to be seated. When we arrived at 7.30pm, the lady manning the reception, the reservations and the cashier told us that there was no table. She asked us to wait. What was the use of taking a reservation and not honouring it? So we waited outside. After 10 mins, she said we could be seated as they were preparing our table, and she gestured to the left side of the restaurant. While standing at the reception, she flipped open the menu and asked us what we wanted to order. Then she proceeded to gesture impatiently at the differnt pages of the menu and recommend at a very quick pace what was available. After her pitch, she tapped her fingers impatiently on the order form and asked us several times what we wanted. She even threw out multiple choices when we were hesitating. we have not even taken a good look at the menu!!! We felt so pressurised and requested more time to make a decision. Then she was distracted by a customer making a payment and even got into an argument with her. While this was going on, she gave our table away to a family of 4. Why couldn't she seat us first? We inquired if she had given our table away and she gestured to the right side of the restaurant at the family who was just finishing and indicated that would be our table. HUH?! All in all, we waited half an hour from reserved time slot and we had no table.
Our mood was spoilt by the hostess' lack of professionalism and cold hospitality. We don't mind queuing and waiting for good food if the dining experience is good overall. However, if we received bad service, we would not be able to enjoy even the best food in the world.
We walked out and went to Fifi at Eslite Hsin Yi. The service there was exceptional and the warm attention of the waiting staff restored our moods that night.
Fang: hi! thanks so much for taking the time to share your experience. that's annoying you got bad service when you visited.. i didn't know there was a Fifi's at Eslite! What floor is it on?
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