Monday 25 March 2013

ChangGo

70 Little La Trobe St
Melbourne, VIC

I eat like a man. Yes I do love fresh salads and daintily made desserts, but most of the time you’ll find me scoffing at the people in a restaurant sipping soup for lunch, whilst ordering myself a burger and wishing I had room for the steak.  And it’s been a while since I’ve had a heavy meat-centric meal, so off I went with Ethan to ChangGo for some delicious, delicious Korean BBQ.




By day, ChangGo’s big wooden doors are closed and there’s no indication at all that it’s a restaurant. But by night they’re thrown wide open, delicious smells wafting out of the cavernous entrance. The cave-like entrance is suiting too; upon entering you’re greeted with wooden booths and bronzed smoke vents that are reminiscent of branches, all against a lovely backdrop of autumn trees.





ChangGo is a Korean restaurant and BBQ but their real drawcard is their Palsaik BBQ Set, which includes a whopping 8 flavours of pork belly. But for some reason, when I’m craving a protein hit, I always end up with the bovine. Ethan agreed, so we regretfully left the piggy for another day in favour of the Beef Combo ($48.8).




We started out with banchan, which came with the usual suspects of Kimchi, Pickled Vegetables, and Pickled Daikon, as well as slightly dressed scallions to eat later with the beef. They were ok but all leaning a bit too much towards the sweet side for my liking.


Marinated Flank Beef

Premium Beef Rib

Topside Beef


The beef combo came with three serves of meat – Topside Beef, Marinated Flank Beef, and a third beef of our choice, which on that night was Premium Beef Rib. To be honest none of them stood out to me; they were all faintly sweet and tender enough, but there was nothing too amazing or too awful to warrant a special mention. The charred, beefy taste however did assuage the protein craving that I’ve been having.


Soybean Paste Stew


Alongside everything else came two serves of rice and a pot of Soybean Paste Stew. Like most Korean soups, it’s a lot less vicious than it looks. But there was a little bit of heat that slowly built as we made our way towards the bottom of the pot, finding all manner of seafood – crab, prawn, calamari, mussels – in the process.

ChangGo didn’t amaze me but it’s a decent little spot for Korean BBQ, albeit a bit pricey compared to other places around town, and their 8 types of pork belly will definitely have me coming back. It does get very busy though, with queues by 6pm and a booking system that doesn’t quite work on account of the disconnected number that’s listed as their contact. But rock up early enough and you could be up for a night of smoking beefy goodness.

Rating: 12.5/20 – smoking beefy goodness.

ChangGo on Urbanspoon

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