Rating: 4 paws out of 5
Spent:.$25 per person
Chain: No
Date Friendly: Yes, If you want to smell like BBQ.
Note: All you can eat

14742 Northern Blvd
Flushing, NY 11354
(718) 358-5959

BBQ is a big favorite for this guy here.  The sweet smell of meat being grilled, combined with the sweetness of the marinade is very intoxicating.  Korean BBQ is a totally unique animal in the BBQ world.  It savoriness is incomparable to any other BBQ in the world.  Since this place is all you can eat, how much will this ferret eat before he just plain throws up.

Picnic Garden is all you can eat, it is a pretty simple set up, just go towards the buffet area and start acquiring the meat.  Usually the buffet is well stocked and plenty of various different meats and sides that are usually served out as banchan.  Banchan is the little side or starter dishes that Korean BBQ places give you before the main event starts.

The banchan here includes many items like seaweed salad, fried and steamed dumplings, korean pancake, and other various seafood.  These side items are pretty much average.  On busier days it is very fresh since it is always rotating out.  This place is pretty popular so you may not have many periods of the day where you will be alone.

Bulgogi are thin slices of beef that has been marinated in a sweet soy sauce.  The marainade is good and you control the cooking, you can control how well done you want.  People come time to time to cut up your meat into bite sized pieces.  The bulgogi here is of decent quality, not to gristly.

Galbi is usually marinated beef short ribs with a sweet garlicky soy sauce.  The bone is intact at the end whole.  This cut is the more traditional type and is the most authentic out of all of them.  This is a favorite cut of many here.  This cut provides good marbling and good thickness in the meat with the ease of eating.

L.A. Galbi is same as Galbi but cut differently.  It is called L.A. for Lateral Axis.  The short rib is cut against the bone, so you will see about 4-5 thin slices of bone.  The marinade will penetrate the meat faster, thus having a more flavorful marinated meat.  Many consider this cut a low end cut of short rib and harder to eat.  Often I prefer this cut just for the flavor but it is harder to eat.

They provide the lettuce, bean paste, and garlic hot pepper to make the traditional lettuce wrap.  This method makes the meat a bit tastier and appear to be more moist.  Highly recommended to at least try once.  If you are lazy you can just eat the meat.  The wait staff here is decent, but you might require to request to have your lettuce and garlic refilled time to time.  It is a after all an all you can eat buffet.

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Rating: 3.5 paws out of 5
Spent: $35 per person
Chain: No
Date Friendly: Yes
Note: Black Angus Beef
13693 37th Avenue
Flushing, NY 11354
(718) 359-1227

Oh Glorious meat, how the Koreans make some wonderful grilled meat.  Today the Hungry Ferret had a big craving for grilled BBQ.  We will see how well the Hungry Ferret searches for the sweet scent and flavor of the wonderful Korean BBQ.

In the Korean tradition we were served lots of appetizers with our BBQ order.  The Kim Chi was quite good and had a really nice tangy flavor.  Along with that we had ordered a Kim Chi Pancake, the pancake was very flavorful and full of spicy goodness.

The grill was fired up and the first up to be grilled was the BBQ Pork Belly (Samgyeopsal Gui).  This dish reminds me a bit of unsmoked bacon.  After the meat was cooked, we dipped the meat in a salt / pepper vinegar.  It was then wrapped in a piece of lettuce with some scallion / lettuce salad.  The meat was thick and had chewyness.  Often when I have had this dish, the meat was too thin.

Next to be grilled was the BBQ Short Ribs (Gal-Bi).  This will be a true test to see if black angus meat was better.  Oh it was very tasty and full of flavor.  The black angus had a nice marbling to it and that marbling transferred to how good the short ribs tasted.  The meat was very tender and juicy.

BBQ Pork Belly (Samgyeopsal Gui)

Kim Chi Pancake

BBQ Short Ribs (Gal-Bi)

Kim Chi

The 6th Annual – Big Apple Barbecue Block Party

New York City, Madison Square Park
June 7-8 2008
Noon to 6:00PM
http://www.bigapplebbq.org/

This has to be one of my favorite events out of the year. Famous BBQ champions come to New York City with their legendary pits to Madison Square Park. Word of warning, it gets very crowded very fast and food WILL run out. Expert Ferret Tip, come early, around 11am or get a fast pass for $100 from their site. The fast pass gets you into the express line and $100 credit for food and merchandise excluding books. Note: There is plenty of different foods, shirts, sauces, and rubs to take home.

Barbecue $8 per Plate • Sides & Desserts $4 per Plate • Beverages $2-$6

If ya slept in too late, still show up for the music, draft beer garden and BBQ merchandise. You might just have to go eat the the Shake Shack in the park. Which is not bad by the way. Oh and for you foodies that can’t make it, you can watch it from the Shake Shack cam.

http://www.shakeshacknyc.com/

Who’s coming, info Via Big apple BBQ site?

Big Bob Gibson
Alabama
http://www.bigbobgibson.com/

17th Street Bar & Grill
Murphysboro, Illinois and Las Vegas, Nevada
http://www.17thstreetbarbecue.com/

Mitchell’s BBQ
North Carolina
No website listed

Ubon
Mississippi
http://ubons.net/

The Salt Lick
Texas
http://www.saltlickbbq.com/

Dinosaur BBQ
New York
http://www.dinosaurbarbque.com/

Black Jack BBQ
South Carolina
http://www.foodforthesouthernsoul.com/

Hill Country
New York
http://www.hillcountryny.com/

Rack and Soul
New York
http://www.rackandsoul.com/

Blue Smoke
New York
http://www.bluesmoke.com/

Rating: 3 paws out of 5
Spent: $25 per person
Chain: No
Date Friendly: Yes
Note: Billy Joel ate here and I think left a good tip.
4119 Kissena Blvd, Flushing, NY 11355
(718) 463-0803

In Korean BBQ Tradition you get lots of appetizers to munch on while waiting for your grill to get prepped for the meat. The Hungry Ferret doesn’t shy away from free tasty appetizers and will wait patiently for a tasty meal.

An order of Prime Beef Short Rib (Gal bi Gui) was sent to the kitchen and we waited for the food to start rolling in. This Korean style cut of meat is basically beef ribs that have been sliced crosswise instead of the traditional American style ribs cut. In this cut you would get slices of bone instead of bone sticks. To get this grilled at the table you have to order two orders of a BBQ dish.

The meat was well marinated and flavorful with the extra sauces that gave you. You normally would wrap a piece lettuce with BBQ meat, bean curd paste, scallion / green onion salad. This combination would make the meat more savory / juicy than usually. The only issue is that they switched from charcoal to table top portable burner. I believe the portable burner was not able to produce a high enough heat to give it the special Korean bbq flavor.

The Kim Chi (spicy pickled cabbage) was very good. The seasoning and spiciness was up to par of a good Korean Kim Chi. The sides very good due to the number of them, there was a something for everybody type of deal.

Korean style mini Vegetable pancakes

Kim Chi – Spicy Pickled Cabbage

Table side grill

Prime Beef Short Rib – Gal bi Gui

Lettuce Wrap we made from the beef

Soft Tofu with Pork in Heated stone Bowl