Today's culinary adventure was All You Can Eat Korean BBQ restaurant Wang Cho in Chino Hills. Wang Cho has 4 menus to choose from according to their website, but if you go on Sunday for lunch, the lunch menu isn't available. All of our selections were instead from the Wang Cho Prince menu ($19.99 per person; $9.99 for children 3-8; Free under 3--2 hour table time limit). Let me just preface this entry by saying that I rarely go to AYCE places because I just don't eat enough to make it "worth" the trip (the notable exception to this is Las Vegas where I crab & prime rib buffets to death), but we were meeting some friends for lunch and it had been awhile since I had eaten Korean BBQ, so why not? (Note: It is almost 7 hours since we ate and I am still full--serious meat coma)
One of the things I love about Korean food in general is banchan. Banchan are the assorted side dishes that come with Korean meals. Here are some pics of Wang Cho's selection of refillable banchan:
Side 1: Pickled daikon, rice paper, glass noodles, more rice paper and kimchee
Side 2: Lightly dressed green salad, bean sprouts, bean curd strips, potato salad
The banchan were fine. We went through a lot of rice paper and some pickled daikon. The kids (a 2-year old & 8 year-old) liked the noodles. I've definitely seen a larger and more diverse selection of banchan, but theirs were fine, flavorful and waiting for us at our table when we were seated (which is always good when eating with young people).
We ordered: marinated boneless beef (x2), pork belly, spicy marinated pork, squid (x2), veggies, California Roll (for my son mostly), spicy tofu stew, and angus brisket. It was nice that there were a few things on the menu for my mostly pescatarian husband and I really liked the meat. The yelp reviews said that the plates would be pretty small, but I actually found the portion sizes to be fine (like I said, I'm not your typical AYCE consumer though), particularly because I didn't want to be charged $5/person for food waste (excessive left-overs). The service was pretty attentive and the grill was changed regularly. Our grill did leak sauce from the bottom, which was weird, but avoidable with a strategically placed napkin under the table.
Anyways, here's the food:
Grilling onions, spicy pork, and marinated boneless beef
Piles and piles of cooked meat (spicy pork, brisket pictured)
If you like AYCE Korean BBQ and live in the Inland Empire, I'd recommend trying Wang Cho and saving the drive further inland to Rowland Heights, Garden Grove or K-Town. It's clean, the meat is well marinated and generally pretty tender. Their Prince menu (which is the low-end option) still has 24 dishes and is a meat-eaters delight. While I'll probably end up staying closer to home for Korean BBQ, it was a nice trek to suburbia for a delicious Sunday of eating.
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