Okdongsik is a new restaurant in the new Renaissance Hotel across from Ala Moana. They specialize in dweji-gomtang which is basically a clear pork broth with thin slices of pork and rice. Chan and I have been waiting to try this place since they opened but wanted to wait until the hoopla died down. The best reason? His credit card recently started covering some dining credits and this restaurant is part of it! They are definitely still busy but you can make reservations on Resy so I highly recommend that.

Diet Coke | $3.00

This is just funny to me because I call everyone bro. People at work? Bro? Chan? Bro? My brothers? Bro. Just felt like fate.

Ok Donggeurangttaeng | $5.00
meaty seafood cake, lightly seasoned with soy sauce

This was good! It has the texture of a fishcake patty – very nicely seasoned and it is pretty meaty. Pretty good price for $5.00. I would get this again!

Lard Donkatsu | $21.00
pork loin cutlet with cabbage salad, pickled pepper, soup and rice
Limited to 40 servings daily

This was just alright. They are doing a good job selling it as limited supply and frying it with lard. Didn’t taste much of a different in the frying method. It is nice and crunchy but the pork inside is a bit dry. It was good, not great. Just realized they have shrimp tempura too, maybe we can try that next time but it might not be available as a stand-alone, looks like it has to be an add-on to this donkatsu. Not sure yet.

Dweji-Gomtang | $18.00
clean and savory pork broth with abundant vegetal aromas. served with rice, sliced pork, geotjeori (kimchi), and gochu-ji.

Star (?) of the show. Was it really? I don’t know. I wasn’t that impressed. It was a nice comforting rice soup dish but is it worth $18.00? It’s a pretty poor showing of pork slices. Too much broth and too big of a bowl makes it hard to eat it too. It was good but once again, not great. Their menu is pretty limited and this is one of the only main entrees so if this not your thing, no come.

Soup Spoon Shot!

Spam Musubi Rating:

Moobongri Soup & Yakiniku is located in the old McCully Buffet location aka the old Camellia Buffet location. Moobongri is a popular restaurant that specializes in soondae, which is a Korean blood sausage dish. This restaurant is fairly new, we came early for lunch on a weekday so we wouldn’t catch a crowd. They did a great job renovating this place, everything was so clean and new looking. The Korean waitresses were very nice which is a bit of a departure for me but I’ll take it lol. As we lunched, more folks came in and the majority of them were Korean so that’s a good sign. They have a pretty big private parking lot which I was able to self-park, not sure what the parking is like at night but lunch time is chill. Let’s get to the food!

Various Seasonings

Their menu has an expansive soup section – I love that they have all these seasonings for your soup at your table! I didn’t have to use any this time but would definitely use them if I didn’t get such a flavorful soup!

Broccoli Banchan

Great side dish, it’s steamed broccoli with goma dressing. How simple is that? Since I have to stuff myself full of more vegetables, I totally bought myself broccoli and the dressing to make at home too. Quick blanch of the broccoli to retain the crunch and just a bit of dressing. Perfect summer cooling dish.

Daikon Kimchee

Nice banchan! You can tell this daikon has been properly fermented. I don’t like it when it’s too fresh or too sour, this was just right!

Kimchee

Can tell this was house made and it was good! Looks sour but it wasn’t too sour at all! I enjoyed it!

Poke

Don’t usually see poke as a banchan but I was very happy to see it. I’m thinking this might be kajiki but I like kajiki so it was good! Seasoning was like a simple sesame oil and salt with red chili flakes. So good. They even offered to refill this which I absolutely said yes to and finished both plates myself lol.

Kimchee Pancake | $13.95

Good pancake! They actually mistakenly gave us Seafood Pancake at first but I had to correct them since my fellow diner did not want the seafood pancake. They weren’t mad and took it back and brought us the new one after. It was delicious!

LA Kalbi & Cold Noodle Lunch Combo Special | $24.95

Not my dish but it was enjoyed heartily! I think they are generous with their portions and even the slices of the meat in the naengmyun was pretty “tick”. And of course they offered to cut up the noodles for her when they served it.

Spicy Soondae Sooup | $17.95

Yes, you read that right. Spicy. I am the spice queen after all *ahem*. When Chan saw the pics, he was saying the soup is only half full. He is correct but actually this bowl was quite big (bigger than the usual bowls they serve soups out of) so it was a lot! And it’s chock full of blood sausage and offal that most folks probably wouldn’t like.

Well, more for me! I like it! It was so delicious! I had enough leftover to eat it for dinner too. Delicious. We both really enjoyed it and plan to return soon!!

Spam Musubi Rating:

Ah yes, another visit to Onkee Korean Grill House. You can see my not so happy previous post here. How did this visit go? Much better thank you. I did not see that waitress all night and our waiter was a cutie pie Korean guy. Win win. I didn’t get a lot of pictures of the meat, sorry! They placed the tray of meat away from the table and the waiter cooked the meats one by one so it felt awkward taking pictures. I’ll just show you the sides and dessert we had!

Yup, I got a soda again. LOL. This time only asked for one refill but I’m sure if I asked for another one, the young man would have been fine with it!!!

Egg Souffle | $14.00
+Add Corn Cheese | $2.00

Was it good? Not really. I like egg dishes like this to have a nice strong dashi flavor. This didn’t have that, and then you have to pay $2 for that little bit of corn and cheese on top. And since this is served in this hot earthen ware pot, the egg continues to cook (overcook) so I just wasn’t a fan. I would pass next time.

Truffle Potato Pancake | $22.00

Yeah, no. Pass again. The potato is nice and crispy but the sauce is basically mayonnaise, you think think get strong truffle taste due to all those black specks. Nope. Not worth the $22.

Shaved Ice with Red Bean Topping | $18.00

Everyone on the table enjoyed this dish, I don’t know why but I never got into Korean style shaved ice. They do shave the ice super fine, it was nice! I did try it and it was good, if this is your thing, you would love it!

Okay I just realized that two of the dishes I shared were thumbs down for me but the meat is good! Very good. Pricey but good.

Chan’s friend Mai visited Hawaii last week so we got to try Onkee Korean Grill House for the first time! Onkee is super high end as a warning so you won’t be surprised by the prices. They are located in one of those new condos in Ward right by the theaters. The interior and decor was so pretty, very new restaurant so everything is perfect so far.

Banchan – Kimchee

This was good! I thought by looking at it that it wouldn’t be fermented enough, but it was! This is made from regular cabbage versus chinese cabbage.

Banchan – Shredded Daikon

Banchan – Soy Pickled Red Onions

Banchan – Potato Salad

My least favorite kind of potato salad lol. The potatoes are cooked almost al dente, they were kind of hard. Then you add on big chunks of raw carrots and apple slices and I am out of there. No thanks.

Banchan – Seasond Dried Radish Strips

Soysauce Marinated Shrimp | $32.00

This is the dish Chan was looking forward to. Mai enjoyed it too! I really wish I could eat this. Raw shrimp and raw crab call my name but alas, my body doesn’t want to agree. I did try a bit of the shrimp and my mouth said nope. My mouth and throat immediately started getting tingly – I had to put the white flag up and hand the rest over to Chan.

Stir-Fried Squid | $28.00

Good dish! Not as good as Frog House but I think you folks have heard me say Frog House enough. FROG HOUSE! No wok hei, just okay.

Beef Tartare | $32.00

The dish I looked forward to lol. I love beef tartare – manini portion but it tasted really good. Reminds me of the time I was in Korea and went to their Todai and they had this dish on the buffet. Girl, when I tell you I went for broke…I WENT FOR BROKE. Delicious. You mix it up with the shredded cucumber and Korean pear slices! Yum! This is one of the rare times I enjoy fruit in a savory dish.

Combo B | $190.00
Tenderloin, Ribeye, Hanger Steak, Thin Skirt Steak

Expensive but not awful considering it was for 3 people and we were stuffed after this. Nice quality meat, some cuts were better than others (of course) but enjoyable overall.

Very big plus, your waiter/waitress cooks all the meat for you. ANOTHER UPSIDE: I don’t know what kind of ventililation system they have but you will leave your meal not smelling a single bit like smoke. There’s no big hood hovering over your table so I really don’t know how they do it. Must be some way the grill is built but seriously, I couldn’t smell a single scent of Korean BBQ on us from this meal.

Kimchi Stew | $24.00

A little pricey for stew but they do nice chunks of tofu and pork belly in it. Very nice and flavorful soup.

Steamed Rice | $3.00 each

You see that right. We had to pay for rice separately even with all the entrees we ordered. Crazy yeah?

This ends with a bit of a rant and it could have just been an off night for me but this interaction left a sour taste in my mouth. I ordered soda which comes with free refills because I don’t drink alcohol. Well, they serve it in smaller cups so I had to ask for a refill during the meal. Well, as we are nearing the end, with our waters warm – I wanted one last refill to cut into the taste of the meat in my mouth. When the waitress came over, I gave her the cup to ask for the refill and she made a face at me. This is where my childhood trauma may come in but it reminded me of the faces I would get from older Asian women when they were about to say something really mean to me (sorry, that’s just how it is growing up with immigrant relatives) and I got triggered so I gave her a look back but didn’t say anything.

I wonder if she knew then that she pissed me off because for sure the rest of the night I was not even looking at her and my vibe was not good. I just didn’t want to deal with her any longer which is fine since Chan was doing the ordering all night anyway. She certainly didn’t make any face when my dining companions were ordering more beers but I guess it’s all about money. I do wonder if that’s why we got the above slice of cheesecake for free. Whatever. I could be projecting my own emotions at this situation but I usually have a pretty good read on people and it just soured the night for me. In the end, the restaurant was beautiful, the service was good (up until that point) and the food was good. Now, do I think it was worth the price? Ehh…I think I would rather come and check out their lunch specials because you get more bang for your buck. By the way, I’m looking at their menu and they even charge for lettuce to make wraps ($6) and the green onion salad ($9!). This was definitely a splurge of a meal.