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| - I'm a little perplexed at this "3 stars average rating" nonsense. Honey Pig is clearly better than that.
It's been quite some time since I've done Korean BBQ in Vegas, but there's no way a meat eater can resist a friend's invitation to feast. We arrived around 6pm on a Friday night and beat the dinner rush handily. Our chairs were placed fairly close to each other on purpose, as we would learn later.
It was fairly obvious from the a la carte pricing that AYCE ($24.95 all-you-can-eat dinner, supposedly a 2 hour limit, but we didn't reach it) would be the way to go for variety's sake. Late night diners should be aware that although this restaurant is open 24/7, AYCE is only available until 10pm. While they only allow a maximum of one portion of kalbi (beef short ribs) and one portion of beef sirloin with AYCE, the other options (bulgogi, pork belly, spicy pork belly, spicy squid, spicy chicken) are truly unlimited as long as you don't over-order.
Before the first round, they brought out banchan (the ubiquitous sides in Korean cuisine), which consist of bean sprouts, mini seafood pancakes, pickled veggies, and spicy cucumbers. The table space is essentially a circular ring that surrounds the circular grill, so the banchan were placed between the two of us. They also provided three dipping sauces (my simplistic summary: one salty, one sweet, and one spicy) and bowls of white rice.
For the actual first round, they threw kimchi and bean sprouts onto the grill along with bulgogi, then pork belly after the bulgogi had finished. They staged this on the opposite side of the circular ring so that they didn't get in our way. I wouldn't say that they totally follow through on the cooking process, but they will come back to turn the meat. Still, it feels like you can chopstick your way through it at any time and pull beef early to your liking, and that's a good thing. You should know that the outer edge of the grill will cook things more slowly, so relocate food there to avoid overcooking.
Anyway, the bulgogi and pork belly were both good, although I personally preferred the somewhat fatty pork belly. The sweet dipping sauce worked best with both, but I played around for variety's sake.
We wanted the kalbi and the beef sirloin for the second round, and they obliged. Both were actually marinated, and both stay pretty tender as long as you don't leave them on the grill for far too long. Yeah, we may have succumbed to this oversight. At least the properly cooked pieces tasted great!
Lastly, we had spicy chicken and also convinced them to mix it into an order of fried rice (+$2.95 per person). This fried rice is exciting because they cook it on the grill to pick up the meaty residues of the preceding deliciousness. It was certainly delicious overall. I'll admit that the spicy chicken and the leftover kimchi were a bit intense for me at first, but they were easier to handle once they'd cooled from hot to merely warm. Synergistic heat effects, you know. Anyway, they did allow us to box the leftovers of the fried rice (containing some chicken at this point) to go, and having food for the next day feels like more value than even taking the time to stuff yourself that night.
Nothing was totally mindblowing, but everything tasted very good, so why not 5 stars? Well, this is a bit nitpicky, but I'm disappointed with the limit on two types of especially delicious meat. It's understandable since some people can go absolutely H.A.M. on the food, but most places don't have that limit. Then again, my somewhat distant memories give me the impression that most AYCE places offer lower-quality meats. There is a second issue, however, in the lack of attention to giving more banchan. No server offered to bring more banchan, and one server outright said OK to more seafood pancakes, but never brought seconds.
I'll have to eat around more to make a more informed comparison, but I'm very comfortable giving Honey Pig 4 stars and decrying the ridiculous underrating by the "average Yelper."
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