As a Korean food lover myself, I feel the urge to try and find any new Korean restaurants with a considerable price range and good food quality. Therefore, today I am going to introduce you to one of my favorite local Korean restaurant in town – Mapo BBQ.

 

There are not many people who know about this restaurant’s existence as the exterior design doesn’t look like a restaurant at all. If you’ve never been to that restaurant, I bet you would drive past it without even realizing.

However, once you do, you will keep wanting to go there. The reason for that is the food there is good; even better than some that I have known. Now, I am going to introduce you to something I frequently eat when I go there in order to let you grasp a clearer understanding about their food.

 

The first main thing that I never forget when I go there is of course, BBQ. Their meat range from many parts of beef and pork, and there is eel meat as well. Due to the tight budget of mine, I always eat only beef brisket point and Samgyeopsal. After you order the meat, the staffs there will give you 2 side dishes and a plate of vegetable for you to eat with the meat. The vegetable includes cucumber, carrot, lettuce, and Korean chili. For the side dishes, there are Kimchi and Onion pickles. They come along with 2 types of sauce as well: Bean paste and Chilli paste; Though I always mix the 2 together.

 

All the ingredients in the restaurant are so fresh that the meat are so juicy when being grilled. For me, I like to make Ssam (Lettuce wrapped with Kimchi and onion pickle with meat and the sauce) so that when you eat, you can grasp all the flavor all at once. After the Ssam enters your mouth, you can feel the ingredient all in your mouth, they blend in together so well that I once even bite my tongue. This is how good that barbecue is, not to talk about the Kimchi. I think it is what elevates the meat into a greater flavor.

Mapo’s Kimchi is the best Kimchi I have ever had, at least in my opinion. That is probably because their it is homemade. Another dish that I would never skip to eat is Kimchi Stew. Because it is so good that even the soup tastes the best of all. It is sour but not too much, and a bit spicy. In the soup, there is Kimchi, meat, and tofu; Just this three ingredients are enough to make you feel like heaven is in your mouth.

 

For the restaurant environment and services, there is nothing I can comment on. The place is like a typical Korean BBQ restaurant you would see in any Korean dramas. Whereas the service is the best among all restaurants I have been. The owner would constantly give me extra free food whenever I go there. When I only order rice, they would give me extra bean paste soup for me to eat.

Then after a while, they even give me extra Pajeon (Korean Pancake) for me to eat. At the end of the meal, they also give me a glass of juice that change accordingly to the owner’s mind. So far I have tasted 2 different kind of juice from them. It is not something in the menu, and I don’t think it is something that is sold in the mart either. It is a special juice just for the customer; they are like alcoholic juice but it doesn’t contain any alcohol.

 

Since the day they offer the juice, which is another reason why I go to that restaurant. By the way, I think the extra food is for the regular customer only, so if you go and don’t receive any extra food, just keep going like I do because I didn’t get any extra food at my first time either.

 

This is it for the restaurant recommendation today. The reason why I like local restaurant is that they treat you special unlike famous food-chain restaurant. Try it yourself and see whether the taste at that restaurant suits you or not.

 

Price range: Vary Accordingly

Location:  Street 95 & Street 330 Sangkat Beoung Keng Kong 3, Khan Chamkamon, Phnom Penh