I probably sound like a broken record, but after snowboarding on friday, we went and got korean food again. But instead of disappointing august moon, since H/A insisted on korean, I insisted on good korean. That’s how we ended up at Gaya again. I had just gone there for my birthday dinner but yeah, I was happy to go back there agin.
I certainly sound like a broken record with what I ordered… yep, the squid stir fry again. I can’t help myself. It’s my favorite. And it’s so damn good here. Trust me, it’s some of the best of this around.
H/A ordered meat again, but I made him get the galbi, and not the bulgogi. It was tasty, and even had grill marks! Because of the lovely complimentary giant plate of wrappers that they give you (first pic of this post), we tried them all. My favorite is still the original red leaf lettuce, but I tell you what, the cold steamed cabbage was a close second. The seaweed was just a bit too strange, and hard to maneuver. It’s slippery, so it was hard to keep it together as a roll/taco.
While I generally love all the food here, especially the entrees, let’s take some time to discuss the banchan this time. I was just here a few weeks ago when the banchan selection was completely different. Really, aside from the kimchi, which is requisite, everything else was different. In front, a broccoli dish. Barely spicy, barely tasty. Above that, a strange dish that was pretty much just raw onions with some seaweed in it. There was barely little flavor of anything. It just felt like a waste of space. At the top was kimchi, which was just fine. And in the big bowl on the right, I have no idea what this thing is called, and it’s just as difficult to describe it. It’s a cold dish, with a bunch of liquid, with slices of daikon radish and some cabbage. It’s unbelievably refreshing, and I love it, but I couldn’t really explain it. So sorry.
Ok, on top here, something almost like japchae, but not quite. It’s like they had some leftover ingredients for japchae, but not all of them, and they just sort of threw this together. On the right, something very akin to japanese seaweed salad.  Except this seaweed salad had no flavor at all. Can we say blah? And in front, the gaejang, or spicy seasoned raw crab. This was the only other repeat, and yes, still my favorite. I made them give me a refill. And yep, I certainly appreciate them doing so. While the bbq dishes here are pricey (as they are pretty much at any other joint), everything else is quite reasonably priced. I’d be happy to come back here every time after snowboarding!

For my birthday this year, we went to Gaya for dinner. I’m not sure why, but I was just in the mood for korean, so instead of going to 69th street, we decided to drive a bit. I usually do end up picking korean food on my birthday, in the same way that my mom always picks sushi. Some things never change. I’d been to Gaya once before and really enjoyed it. It’s a nice place all the way up in Blue Bell. All their banchan is good, and they throw in a lot of stuff that you may not find at other korean spots.

One thing that’s particularly cool about Gaya is that whenever you eat there, they bring out a giant tray of ssam stuff.  For those of you in the know with the momofuku enterprises, you know there is one called momofuku ssam. They specialize in dishes that are basically wrapped in various things. So here, you get a whole bunch of wrappings… multiple lettuces, multiple cabbages, seaweed, and some hunks of carrot and cucumber for munching. I think every restaurant should do this, all the time.

Behold my favorite banchan – gaejang. It is raw blue crab that has been seasoned with a sweet and spicy sauce. It looks like plain red hot mess, but it is actually hacked quarters and half of crab absolutely drenched with sauce. Now I do not know why I love this so much, but I just do. I could just eat this as a meal. I just feel that the sauce is a perfect complement to the fresh raw crab meat on the inside. The meat is mushy and slimy since it’s raw, and the spicy and sweet just goes with it so well. And all I know is that you can’t get this at many places, and especially just free as part of your meal, so I love Gaya just for this fact.

My mom got the ok dol bibimbap. I didn’t know what this was. When I asked her what that was she said she had no idea! It’s basically dolsot bibimbap, but it is presented in this little wooden contraption. It’s just extra fanciness for bibimbap. It’s good, but nothing great.

Since I’m so obsessed with ojingaboekum, of course that’s what I got. We got that the last time we were here and Iiked it then, so I had to go for it again. What a stark contrast from that crap one I had at August Moon the other week. This ojingaboekum has tons of thick and fresh squid pieces. The onions are cut correctly and are cooked all the way through. And the best part of it is are the udon noodles that come on the side. You mix everything together so that not only can you eat the squid pieces with rice, but you can also eat it with the udon noodles. The sauce is good on rice, but it’s also amazing on udon noodles! Seriously, everything is better with udon noodles and it doesn’t get much better than this for me.

Service here is good. And the food came out amazingly fast. It almost came out too fast. But when I thought about the fact that the squid was probably just stir fried very quickly and the bibimbap ingredients were probably already prepared, it wasn’t that surprising. But it did come out lightning fast, which I always love. It is a bit of a hike, but I’m willing to make that hike!

After snowboarding, the hunger set in and I had to eat. Since we were in conshy, and H/A wanted to eat korean food, we headed out to August Moon. I’ve never properly eaten here at the restaurant. But I’ve been to two events here. Once was a reception for my brother, and another was a proper wedding reception. Both times I remember the food being quite good. But this was a long time ago. This time around, I was severely underwhelmed. Are the catering cooks different than the restaurant cooks? Or maybe the cooks are just different now. The banchan was quite good though. The sprouts and the cucumber kimchi were particular standouts. The daikon kimchi was a bit too gingery, but still good. The good banchan made me think that the food would also be quite good. Oops.

H/A got the bulgogi. It came precooked because it was only one order. If you order at least 2 portions, then you can cook it on your own at the table. This was ok, nothing special. It actually tastes like the bulgogi that you can buy from H Mart that you cook up at home. It certainly didn’t taste like it came from a restaurant.

I wanted to get several things, jjamppong and some of the bibimbaps, amongst others, but since I found them freakishly overpriced, I went with the ojingaboekum. This was, by far, the worst squid stir-fry I’ve ever had at a korean restaurant. It wasn’t because the taste was bad. The sauce was actually quite good. But instead of big slices of thick and fresh squid, it was rings of little squid, like the ones they use in fried calimari, and you could tell that it was frozen. And instead of lots of these squid rings, it was mostly big hunks of onion. Typically, the onion should be thinly sliced instead of these giant crunchy hunks. It was as if I’d ordered onion stir-fry, and they threw in some calimari rings just to add more substance. It was severely disappointing. For a restaurant that charges the prices that it does, I expect fresh and quality ingredients. And I expect a squid stir-fry dish to mainly be made up of the squid. So much potential with the sauce, but they blew it.

Service was just fine. The food took a long time to come out, even though the restaurant was absolutely deserted on this friday night. There was a big party going on in the back, so that must have preoccupied all the cooks. Our server was quite nice though, and was always filling our cups with warm boricha. But as far as korean food is concerned, go elsewhere. Pretty much anywhere near 69th street or in the northeast is going to be better. Heck, the food courts of H Mart and Assi are better!