I don’t usually go for a massive buffet at lunch, but Jongro Korean BBQ Buffet happened to be steps from a friend’s place, making it an easy choice for a leisurely and inexpensive meal. Their AYCE BBQ, buffet, and salad bar lunch ($29 on weekdays and $32 on weekends for adults) is a great deal, especially since it includes beverages like juice, coffee, or tea.

The buffet is a nice way to pass the time while the grill heats up. The selection is manageable, so you can try a bit of most items without overloading your plate. Not everything listed online is available, but there’s still a solid variety.

On this visit, I tried the chili shrimp. The sauce was well-balanced with a gentle heat, though it leans on the sweeter side. It would be even better if the shrimp were kept under a heat lamp, like the French fries and tempura, instead of sitting in a covered dome where they lose their crispness.

The same issue applies to the fried chicken wings. They had the potential to be crispy, but the dome traps moisture and softens them. Fried food just shouldn’t be covered.

If soggy fried items are a dealbreaker, it’s best to stick with safer options like the tteokbokki, fried rice, or the sliced jokbal, all of which were solid. I even went back for seconds of the “spicy” rice cakes, which stayed impressively springy despite sitting in sauce.

The main draw, of course, is the Korean BBQ, where everything is cooked fresh at the table. Pro tip: go for thinner cuts like brisket and top blade, which cook quickly and evenly. The chicken kalbi thigh, on the other hand, took a while on the not-so-hot grill. The beef finger was decent and cooked faster, especially since it doesn’t need to be fully done. That said, I wish the meats had more flavour on their own. Even the soy-marinated options were fairly mild, and there aren’t many dipping sauces to compensate.

A nice way to finish is with a bowl of udon. I added some steamed beef with bean sprouts, which in hindsight wasn’t the best move as they were dry and chewy.

Dessert options at lunch are minimal, just some sweet fruits and vanilla soft serve. Probably for the best, since we were already full. I definitely didn’t need dinner that night.

Service was attentive, especially for an AYCE spot. Staff came by twice during our visit to change the grill plate, and since we went on a weekday, the spacious dining room never filled up. They were also relaxed about the 1 hour and 45 minute seating limit, letting tables linger a bit longer to chat.

If you’re looking for a budget-friendly AYCE lunch in Toronto, Jongro checks a lot of boxes. Come with good company, stick to the BBQ and safer buffet picks, and you’ll leave full and satisfied.

Gathering around a sizzling hot plate is a great way to catch up with a loved one. There’s a leisurely pace to the meal as you wait for food to cook, nibbling at the banchan as you converse and focus on more than just eating. At Daldongnae, their intimate table layout is ideal for those who’d like a bit of privacy.

You’ll need at least two people to get their table BBQ where diners mix-and-match an order of protein per person (i.e., a minimum of one item per person with at least two servings per table). There’s a nice selection of offerings, we opted for the boneless beef short rib ($29.99 for 7oz), chicken thigh ($21.99 for 7oz), and tiger shrimp ($11.99 for 5 pieces).

The hot plate was presented quickly upon ordering, already adorned with cheese corn, garlic slices, kimchi, and an egg mixture poured tableside. And a hot stone bowl of soybean stew followed, waking up the palette with its savoury mix of vegetables and tofu. It’s so hearty that I’d be satisfied with a large bowl of soup and steamed rice.

As the proteins are presented, the server swipes the surface of the plate with a piece of beef fat (what a great way to use every piece of the ingredient!). He tells us to start with the beef, then move onto the chicken so that there’s enough oil on the grill to prevent the later from sticking. We follow the instructions starting with tender strips of the short rib and then the chicken with the shrimp sprinkled throughout as they take a bit longer to cook.

Daldongnae leaves the ingredients neutral, only the chicken was lightly marinated. So, it’s an ideal place to dine with those who may have ingredient sensitivities or are watching their sugar and sodium intake. As a person who loves flavour, I relied heavily on the onion soy sauce, savoury bean paste, and even the sweet and spicy gochujang sauce in the banchan as condiments.

I recommend getting a start on the hot side dishes early: the kimchi isn’t the greatest once it dries out; the egg was best when it just starts to cook through, still fluffy and soft. Only the corn can stay on longer as the cheese develops a lovely crust.

And don’t worry, you’ll get plenty of vegetables from the banchan that accompanies the BBQ set – spicy cucumbers, marinated bean sprouts, an oddly sweet potato salad, spicy seaweed, and a savoury gelatin. Plus, there are lettuce leaves for creating saam wraps. The best part is that they offer unlimited refills of the side dishes, corn cheese and egg.

Daldongnae even offers a vegan option for those on a plant-based diet. Really, you have no excuse not to invite out that person for the long awaited reunion.

This Little Piggy went to the market and the market appears to be in Bloor West. The owners of Thornhill’s Piggy recently opened a second location downtown offering a condensed menu of Korean favourites. When Meet-Up group Eat N’ Mingle organized a dinner to the restaurant, Rey made it sound so delicious I had to try it out. The actual cost for the meet-up was $35 per person; regular prices are included below for reference.

Following traditions, a selection of banchan (side dishes) containing pickled vegetable and fermented kimchi arrives before the meal begins. Prior to the onslaught of meat and carbohydrates, I rather like the custom of eating vegetables first. After all, the salads help to negate the effects of pork belly, right? Aside from the flavourful sangchu geotjeori, a leafy salad dressed in a spicy vinaigrette, the restaurant also serves a mild iceburg topped with a creamy sesame dressing.

Their mixed BBQ combination ($41.95) contains pork belly, Korean-style beef and garlic pork. Personally, I prefer the meat marinated so you don’t need to rely on the garlic oil or bean paste condiments for flavour. Moreover, as the marinade’s sugars cook, they give off such a lovely aroma and leaves a lovely caramelized crust on the meat.

Luckily, Little Piggy’s beef was well infused with flavour: the restaurant uses fruits in their house-made sauces instead of just sugar. On the pork there’s a thick garlic and green onion paste that you can certainly smell as the meat cooks.

The restaurant uses a portable cooking plate, brought to the table only if Korean BBQ is ordered, helping to save space. However, the downfall of it not being built into the table is that while food cooks the juices and oil splash over the edge (sometimes giving you a sting on the arm). You’ll want to ensure drinks are nowhere near the cooking vessel unless you want an oily film on top.

In terms of starches, our meal had the typical favourites:

• Japchae ($8.95): chewy glass noodles tossed in a sweet soy seasoning and slivered vegetables. The dish was decent and had we not inhaled it to start could have complimented the cooked meat nicely.

• Tteokbokki ($7.95 additional $2.95 for the fish cake): sticky rice cakes smothered in a sweet gochujang sauce with onions and fish cakes. The sauce was too sugary for my taste – even a neighbouring table described theirs as sweet Ragu sauce. To be fair, ours still had a hit of the fiery kick from the red chili paste, it was simply overpowered by the sweetness. Additionally, we all agreed the tteokbokki needed more rice cakes – with a table of four we each only consumed about two rice cakes compared to the mountain of other ingredients on top.

I’d go for the UFO fried rice ($12.95) instead. Served in a hot cast-iron plate, the fried rice is surrounded by a thin steamed egg. The egg is good by itself or once mixed around into the rice and left for a while, starts to develop a lovely crust on the bottom. The saltiness from pieces of beef and bacon (?) and the crispy potato slivers on top makes for one interesting and tasty dish.

Something I’ve seen all over Instagram is their cheerful cocktails – the sweet fruit punch-like grapefruit soju ($7.95) arriving in a smiling cup that admittedly is infectious.

Additionally, another well photographed signature dish is the Oink Oink soft-serve ice cream ($2.95 for the dessert size) – don’t worry, despite the name there’s no pork in the dessert – a vanilla soft-serve topped with honeycomb. Although it makes for a great picture, the actual product isn’t the tastiest given the ice cream’s cold temperature causes the comb’s wax to harden. In the end, after trying the honey, you’re left with a chewy ball of wax to spit out.

My advice to the owners is to reformulate the dessert. If you’re going to title something “oink oink” why not actually add something pig related to it? A really thin piece of candied un-smoked bacon could pair better with cold soft-serve. After all, if this Little Piggy’s going to the market, it might as well bring something special.

Overall mark - 7 out of 10

• Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
• 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
• 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
• 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
• 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
• 10 - absolute perfection!

• Kobi Korean BBQ
• Sariwon

• Various banchan of spicy napa cabbage kimchi, turnip kimchi, pickled cucumbers, a sad portion of sesame oil laced green beans, and peanuts.
• A bowl of steamed egg (seen in the cover photo). As always so delicious that I could have easily consumed the whole thing myself.
• A bowl of spicy bean tofu soup placed in the middle of the cast iron plate so that it’s kept hot and bubbling the entire time.
• Leafs of romaine lettuce, a napa and green onion slaw, thinly sliced raw red onions, slices of raw jalapeno, and garlic to wrap the BBQ meats into.

• Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
• 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
• 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
• 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
• 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
• 10 - absolute perfection!

• Kookminhakgyo
• Sariwon

Photo courtesy of Jes Lin

• Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
• 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
• 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
• 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
• 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
• 10 - absolute perfection!

• Sariwon
• Krazy Corean