Sit around the grill in the cold winter and enjoy the sounds of sizzling grease. Sliced meat comes with the luscious dipping sauce. Take a big bite and you’ll get jazzed with satisfaction.
We came to the Blue House, a Korean BBQ restaurant in Newington, on a cold night. It faces the supermarket car park with plenty of parking space. The restaurant features indoor and outdoor seating. The indoor restaurant is warm and compact, while the outdoor garden is a suitable place for more diners to gather around.
Many Koreans live in Newington. The Blue House offers authentic Korean barbecue and typical Korean cuisine such as ginseng chicken soup, stir-fried beef Bulgogi, etc. It also serves a range of delicious kimchi and fresh salad, which revives the taste and atmosphere of an old-fashioned traditional Korean barbeque restaurant.
Enjoy the delicious and fun of barbecue
Grilled meat is definitely the highlight of Korean barbeque. In addition to the signature thick pork belly, the whole large piece of wagyu eye fillet, scored wagyu chuck eye rolls, beef thin skirt and marinated beef ribs are also very popular.
A large wagyu eye fillet seared on the hot grill produces tempting colour and fragrance. Cut the fillet into small pieces and dip them in sauce. Then wrap them in lettuce with pepper rings, garlic granules and kimchi before putting them into your wide-open mouth. It seems likes eating a well-balanced grilled hamburger.
It’s very essential to cook the beef thin skirt to the desired temperature. It requires a great deal of concentration before you are lucky to taste the most tender and delicious sliced meat.
The pork skin, which is common in Korean dramas, is also on our table. Spicy sauce-marinated pork skin grilled over charcoal brings back the taste of primitive food, and you can control the heat to determine the texture of the pork skin. The rich collagen turns the pork skin from soft and smooth to crispy and hard. I prefer to char the skin in order to give it a scented and slightly gelatinous taste and a special texture.
The selection of dipping sauce includes Korean chili paste, salt and pepper sesame oil and sweet soy sauce. The fresh cabbage salad bowl is also a great choice, as it includes vinegar sauce, which can perfectly balance the greasy taste of meat in the mouth.
Excellent traditional Korean cuisine at Newington
The starters of the Blue House are well praised. Apart from the traditional spicy cabbage kimchi, the fish cake slice has an ideal sweet and sour taste; green onion kimchi is palatable and refreshing, which gives off an aromatic flavour; corn mashed potatoes are sweet and tasty; and free refills of side dishes at any time are also a main characteristics of Korean cuisine.
Ginseng chicken soup is a good choice in winter, although it usually has the highest consumption during the summer in Korea. Glutinous rice, ginseng, jujubes and other ingredients are stuffed into the chicken’s cavity. Slow-cooked chicken is soft and tender and the broth is thick with a pleasant scent of ginseng. This soup is very nutritious and delectable.
Seafood pancake is served with large portions. Prawns, calamari, cabbages, green peppers, green onions and green shallots can all be tasted in one bite. The flavour is rich and well-layered.
Beef Bulgogi is highly recommended. It is made from fresh beef marinated with Korean pear and other sauces. Stir fry with green shallots and chilli over high heat. Add sliced chives, cooked sesame, fresh enoki mushrooms and pepper rings. It comes out with a mixture of tender beef and strong onion scent. It is advisable that the Beef Bulgogi is served with rice or wrapped in lettuce for direct consumption.
I have always been a loyal customer of all kinds of barbecue restaurants because they can always provide a better ambience and more choices of recipes. Each cut of the meat has its optimal heating temperature and perfect diet to match. Every step made is to create more hands-on interactivity for diners. For these fresh ingredients and the warm ambience at winter nights, don’t miss out on this small Blue House.
