This spot surprised us the first time we went. They have the 10% service charge, so the NT$439 price becomes NT$483, just under US$15.00 a person. What do you get for that price? Dabaozhu (打爆豬韓式燒肉吃到飽Dǎ bào zhū hán shì shāo ròu chī dào bǎo) is all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ, plenty of meat choices, vegetables, sauces, rice and noodles, some deep-fried items, and your choice of broth for hot pot, along with ice cream to finish everything off. We were surprised you can get so much good food for a very affordable price.

Obviously, you should come hungry. When you sit down, they will ask which type of hot pot base you want. They do have English on the menus, and within the last year they’ve added English to the signs posted for all of the food as well - helpful for knowing what some of the marinades are. If you want to order an alcoholic drink, you’ll need to call the server, but otherwise basically everything past that is DIY.

So you need to grab everything you want to grill or throw into the hot pot. We try to have one or two designated raw plates. They provide plates and bowls for each person. There are smaller plates and sauce dishes along the top shelf above the meat and sauce sections as well.

Starting with the meat, they have multiple cuts available. Fatty and lean beef, marinated chicken tenders and thighs, and quite a few cuts of pork. They also have a house sausage. My family and I have tried the marinated chicken quite a few times; from what I saw online, the Thai sauce chicken tenders might be specific to our branch in Tamsui. The chicken tenders are not my favourite; the marinade doesn’t taste all that… Thai. It’s kind of sweet; I think they may just use some kind of watered down Thai sweet chili sauce. Plus, the grill definitely gets hot, but it’s hard to get the chicken tenders browned on the outside and still be juicy on the inside; there’s probably about a 30-second leeway between done and dry. The chicken thigh, unsurprisingly, is good and stays juicy even if you let it sit for too long. The beef and a lot of the pork are very good all grilled up. No complaints on the meat quality.

The amount of vegetables is also quite impressive. Some ingredients you can tell are there to be put into hot pot, but most work on both the grill and hot pot. We really like grabbing onions and green peppers with some garlic and throwing that on the grill after some meat fat has rendered. Well, I should say my wife and I enjoy that; if my two sons had a say, it would be a 100% meat meal without any vegetables. And since it’s Korean BBQ, you need to grab some kimchi and garlic and combine that with cooked meat. It makes for a wonderful bite of food. Another item that’s quite popular is the cheese and corn container, which we’ve had but don’t get every time; I’d say it sounds better than it tastes.

This restaurant puts down a piece of parchment paper on the grill, which is somewhat helpful; it ensures nothing sticks to the grill. It does, I think, get in the way a bit of heat conduction, but after about 10-15 minutes, the grill is plenty hot to cook everything. The servers also come around occasionally and offer to replace the sheet.

I've never grabbed the fried food myself, but my kids generally have some fries, so I'm sure they're fine. Actually, my wife took a couple of the silver thread rolls this visit. Interestingly, according to AI, “silver wire roll” is a very literal translation, and even better, the Korean is a transliteration from English. It was very plain tasting, with no real flavour to it, just slightly sweet.

So our general process after sitting down is to grab meat. A lot of meat. Beef, pork, maybe some chicken. Get it all on the grill. We’ll throw a few vegetables in the hot pot. Our favourite is the kimchi broth; we haven’t tried many of the others. While it’s really nice you have both barbeque and hot pot, I’d say the main attraction is the barbeque; I wouldn’t necessarily come here specifically for the hot pot. After the meat, we’ll throw on some onions, green peppers, and garlic on the fat. It fries up so nicely. Pair it with some rice, and that is a super filling meal. I also generally get a Cass beer. I almost never buy Cass, but it does pair really nicely with barbequed meat. To finish it off, the ice cream is always a good sweet treat; they have multiple rotating flavours.

When I hear Korean BBQ, I’m already excited. Adding on 吃到飽chī dào bǎo, or all-you-can-eat, is a perfect pairing. And for under NT$500 a person, it’s become one of our favourite restaurants when we don’t feel like cooking dinner.