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2014-12-18
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Shin Mapo BBQ Restaurant aka Maepogalmaegi or simply in Korean 마포갈매기 is one of the most popular Korean BBQ chain restaurant in Korea. With over 430 branches in Korea, Shin Mapo is literally around every corner. Hailing from its world wide successful establishment of over 50 restaurants in the world inc. China and Thailand, Shin Mapo finally stepped foot on the gourmet city Hong Kong.Shin Mapo BBQ Restaurant has a commerical outlook but you can see they tries to create a rustic look with brown br
Shin Mapo BBQ Restaurant has a commerical outlook but you can see they tries to create a rustic look with brown bricks lining up the walls and grey industrial style floor. The brown bricks looks too clean and neat which I found it make a bad contrary to the overall setup.
As what I had in Korea, I prefer to have the grill egg before the BBQ started. In Shin Mapo BBQ Restaurant, they serve a complimentary round of grill egg with kimchi. If you want more, you can request with a small supplement.
It took around 10 minutes for the egg to get cooked, which was MUCH faster than my horrible egg grilling experience in Seorae. The kimchi spiced up the egg mixture and made the egg very flavourful in taste. Remember not to cook it for too long, so you can have a runny smooth spoon!
Beef/ Pork BBQ Set - HKD678 for 3-4 peopleWe tried a Beef/ Pork BBQ Set presented on a 3 layered stand reminiscent of an afternoon tea cake stand. Interesting enough, we found the portion can easily filled 2 people but definitely not for 3 people.
On the top plate, you can find quite a lot of vegetables but one each for sausage and shrimp which is rather stingy for a 3 persons set. I am particularly fond of the Johnsonville sausage, which has cheese filling inside.Second plate consists of Pork Belly and Pork Neck. The pork neck was very inconsistent in texture where some pieces were awesomely juicy and tender with fat oil swirling on the tongue. some however was overly chewy and hard like stone. The pork belly was tender but overall tasted rather ordinary to me.
Third plate comes the highest valued part of the pork, the Skirt Meat which is a specially cut between the pig's diaphragm and liver. The skirt meat at Shin Mapo are sourced locally, not directly from Korea which I got a bit disappointed. We suspected the skirt meat would be chewy as it is near to the diaphragm, and as suspected, the meat was utterly chewy (in a good way) with good flavour.
Hanbing Injeolmi Red Bean Snow Ice - HKD88 for 2Judging from the drooling look, I guess you could have guessed the shaved ice is the most anticipated items of the night! The shaved iced was fluffy and mellow which instantly melted in your mouth which then delivered a creamy, milky flavour on your tongue! The grounded nut powder, mochi and red bean paste were great pairs to the shaved ice. As we dig deeper, we found more mochi at the bottom of the bowl! What a pleasant surprise =)!
Dining at Shin Mapo BBQ Restaurant, one can expect the chain BBQ restaurant quality in Korea, safe but not exceptional. I do reckon however that Shin Mapo BBQ restaurant definitely performs better than 'local' Korean BBQ restaurants in terms of authenticity, passion and the quality of BBQ items. Keep it a try before the queue forms up.Post
