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!

I had to head down to nowheresville, MD for work, so I did a little research (of course), and stopped at Restaurant Sabor for dinner. Located in a random strip mall, Sabor boasts a puerto rican chef and a varied menu with latin american and mediterranean flavors. It is a BYOB, and not only does it have an open kitchen (which I love), it also has a community table. It’s a lovely place, a bit on the fancier side, but not snooty.

The complimentary amuse bouche of a venison ragout served over a sweet plantain puree. Man, seeing as how good this was, I knew I was in for a great meal. They also give you complimentary bread. Instead of boring regular flour bread, they give you housemade corn bread. And the best part is that they give you whipped honey butter to eat with it. Oh dear lord, there’s nothing better than corn bread slathered with whipped honey butter!

I love beets, so I got the beet salad. It was hunks of red and golden beets served over grilled chickory, with citrus segments, goat cheese, some greens, and crushed pistachios, in a xerez vinaigrette. This was a lovely salad. The beets were fresh and definitely not from a can! I wasn’t sure if I liked goat cheese, but I soon learned that I don’t like it. It was fine though, I just ate my way around it. I didn’t like the chickory either, so I also left that on the plate. But I fully enjoyed everything else.

For my entree, I wasn’t exactly sure what to get. I thought about the fish options but wasn’t convinced. The champagne sauce for the turbot didn’t strike me and neither did the hazelnut dressing on the trout. They also had a daily special of beef bourgignon but I wasn’t convinced about that either. So eventually, I picked the red wine braised beef ribs. This was a ginormous portion of bone in rib. It was super tender and the meat just fell off the bone with very little effort. I liked this a lot, but it wasn’t the greatest. I felt like it could have used a bit more flavor. The rib was served on top of a potato/parsnip puree seasoned with horseradish. The horseradish was pretty much undetectable. It was ok, but I would have preferred plain mash. The parsnip taste didn’t do it for me. There were also some zesty pickled shallots and the seasonal veggies which were grilled spaghetti squash and brussel sprouts. I enjoyed this other veg very much. All in all, it was a good entree, but not great. It was tons of food too, so there was plenty left over. It was also a bit on the pricey side. I wouldn’t have minded if it was a bit less food, and a bit less dollars.

I was beyond stuffed to even consider dessert, but that was ok because nothing from the dessert menu really screamed out my name. The service was excellent, for the most part. Up until I got my check, everything was great. After my server gave me my check, he pretty much disappeared. It took him way too long to pick it back up. But that was just a minor glitch in an otherwise lovely dinner. So for those of you in this neighborhood, definitely stop by.

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!