Donwoori

Korean BBQ is heaps of fun.  If you are one half of a couple where you regularly lament "but my partner eats nothing but meat and bread", I promise you that Korean BBQ is the way to break that cycle.  Who can resist all that smoky, Maillard-reaction deliciousness occurring before your very eyes and most importantly, nostrils?  And so it's rice, not bread.  Meh, who cares!!

Donwoori is the newest in the string of Korean BBQ joints in West Melbourne, although when I say newest, it's been there for about four or five years.  It's quite tiny inside, with handsome young men doing a delicate dance with enormous pots of white-hot charcoal.  I love all the wood here, like at Wooga right nearby - it gives it such a cosy feeling.

The cosiness gives a convivial atmosphere, helped by the delightful young Korean waiters.  Grab a Hite Korean beer and maybe some soju, sake-like Korean rice wine.  I think it tastes like metho but Mr Baklover loves it!  Traditionally in Korea it is rude to pour your own drink, so your dining partner should pour yours, making sure they place their alternate hand on the forearm of the pouring arm.  The closer to the elbow you place this hand, the greater the status of the person you are pouring for.  There are a whole lot of other customs about who drinks first, who lights whose cigarette and so on.

You can pick and choose your meats but the banquet sets are easiest.  Little bowls of kim chi and other pickled side dishes arrive first for beery nibbling.  Often you will get lettuce to wrap your grilled meat in, but here we got an emerald bowl of shredded spring onion with sweet bean sauce.  I think it was for eating with the meat but we ate most of it beforehand, it was so yummy!

Butterflied beef rib, unfurled like a pennant.  The banquet ($39 for two) also had topside beef (no pic, too busy gorging) and...

...marinated flank steak.  The meat sizzles away merrily over the hot charcoal and depending on the establishment, will be turned and taken off for you.  I find it hard to wait though!  There are sauces for dipping, a sweetened bean sauce and sesame oil with garlic, and tender short grain rice.

Also part of our set was this soybean paste stew, which was gorgeous, like a warm hug from the inside.  It had juicy tofu and seductively soft cubes of potato and zucchini as well as petals of cooked beef, all in a smooth soybean broth.

Seafood pancake, $12

Looooved this Korean pancake.  Sometimes called Korean pizza, they are crispy, usually thin pancakes filled with all manner of tender seafood and just-cooked veg.

I really enjoyed Donwoori, although IIRC I think the meat was a little tastier at Wooga next door.  (Also much love for Hwaro in the city which I will write about one day.)  Donwoori is a firm favourite of Melbourne bloggers Agnes and Thanh.  Get that stick-in-the-mud partner down there and get stuck in.

Donwoori

276 Victoria Street, West Melbourne



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