The place was smaller than expected (didn't help that my group and I passed by another Korean restaurant in the same plaza that was at least three times bigger), but it had a serene aura all on its own, partly due to the decor they had:
I don't think I ate that much that day, which didn't help with the waiting time. It wasn't so long that I wanted to flip the table, but it was long enough to cause me some discomfort.
I find that half the time I'm at a Korean restaurant, I order a Bulgogi dish, because that's my "safe" dish. It's not spicy, it's not fried, and it's not overly salty either (at least, not supposed to be). The other half... let's just say that I don't eat Korean food often enough, as I can probably count the times on two hands. Either way, I didn't want anything spicy that night, but I wanted something different also. I decided to try their Butter Chicken Gibble...
It's a sizzling dish of chicken pieces with various vegetables (green pepper, red pepper, onion and cucumbers) topped with sesame seeds, tossed in with butter. This was purely a viand dish, so I ordered a separate egg on rice to accompany it.
The rice also came with a salad, which was nice.
It's funny, what I liked best was actually the egg on rice. It was on point! It had a good amount of rice that didn't overwhelm the egg, which I appreciated a lot. Sometimes (with some food places), I find that they just give you a whole heap of rice and a significantly smaller amount of viands; it just makes you think, "how dafuq do you expect me to finish this?!" Then again, I could be a little biased...I love being able to crack an egg open onto rice and eat the combination together, even at home.
I thoroughly enjoyed the salad as well. Some of the contents were unfamiliar to me in terms of texture or taste, but it didn't matter when the mayonnaise sauce on top was delicious :P
As for the main dish itself, it was a little lacklustre. I loved the inviting aroma the butter gave off from the dish, and how the food wasn't over saturated with a butter taste or consistency. I liked how there was just a hint of butter to remind you why this was called a butter dish. That was about it though...
I'll admit that some of the less than pleasant impression was due to my own mistake — I didn't know what the side mixing sauce (?) was made of, and I suspect that was the culprit of making certain pieces taste wayyy saltier than it was supposed to be. However, that doesn't excuse the fact that the majority of the chicken pieces I tasted had a rubbery/chewy texture, something that felt unnatural. It also hindered the taste a little, because it felt like the buttery aroma was not fully absorbed in the meat. I found most of the aroma in the vegetables, and I was thankful I had the egg on rice to redeem the meal.
As this was a pub and restaurant fusion, my boyfriend perked up at the thought of fried chicken, so he shared a combo with our other friends.
He got me to try a piece. I liked it, but it wasn't the most amazing fried chicken I've ever had in my life. To be fair, I'm no fried chicken snob, though I do feel like I've encountered this taste before, just in a different form. Having gone to Hong Kong style restaurants with my parents multiple times, the taste of the fried chicken at K-Pocha reminded me of when I used to order fried chicken wings in my younger days.
Overall, I wasn't wowed, but it wasn't entirely a cringeworthy experience either.
And I could've sworn I saw one of the waiters working at Seoul House before... lol.
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