【Ann Arbor, MI】食★ Seoul Garden ◘

[Overview]
Restaurant Name: Seoul Garden
http://aaseoulgarden.com/
Cuisine Type: Korean & Japanese
Price Level: $$$$$
Quantity (Dinner): Large
Date of Visit: Saturday. May 25th, 2013
Time of Visit: Dinner time
Address: 3125 Boardwalk Dr, Ann Arbor, MI 48108
Number: (734) 997-2120
Hours of Operation: Mon-Thurs (11:30am-10pm), Fri (11:30am-10:30pm), Sat (12pm-10:30pm), Sun (12pm-10pm)
Others: ☞Lunch Hours: Mon-Fri (11:30am-2:30pm)
             ☞Bonus Card Program upon request. 3% rebate on purchase per visit.
             ☞Vegetarian dishes. Spicy dishes. Japanese and Korean liquors.
Recommend Items: Korean BBQ

Close to the end of May and at the same day that I came back from Europe, I took a visit to Seoul Garden with Mr. M. Though this restaurant is close to the Briarwood Shopping Center, it is somehow difficult to find because it's not very visible. However, we still managed to get here. I've heard lots of good things about this restaurant and was very hungry at the moment, so I was really excited to try this place. I found the picture in below on their website. It somehow looks nice. But in actuality I don't think it looks as fancy as it seems from outside haha.

Outside Look

They have plenty of parking space for free so parking shouldn't be a problem. After we walked in, we were led to the side that has BBQ grill tables. The restaurant inside looks pretty standard. Like most of the Japanese restaurant. The decoration is also very simple. Everyone is dressing really casual. You can tell right when you go in that it's a good place for group gatherings, especially for a group of 4. P.S.(Because we are cooking BBQ ourselves, there is smoke all over. Not that it's terrible. It smells bad but not that bad when compared with other Korean BBQ place. But I definitely don't recommend anyone to come here if you have any special event right after. Cause after you eat here for an hour or two, you DO smell bad.)

 

Inside look (with BBQ grill tables)

The menu selection is huge. They not only have Korean BBQ and typical Korean dishes but also variety of Japanese food, such as, sushi and sashimi. We didn't take a long time to decide because we really wanted to have Korean BBQ. The Hotpot does look interesting and we are looking forward to try it on our next visit. We ordered the Korean BBQ for two. It's not on the menu that is online but I remember that they have options for two and four people. It was between $40-$50 (party of two). Other regular Korean BBQ items seem to be cheaper, but we were very satisfy with our order.

Partial online menu (Korean BBQ section)

The menu in the above seems to be a carry out menu. I think the menu at the restaurant might be slightly different and comes with even more options. Our food came pretty quickly and first we were served with soup and salad. It comes with the two people meal set so there wasn't any additional charge. The soup was miso soup and the salad was with Japanese-style dressing (和風醬). They were just standard, like all the other Japanese restaurants in the U.S.

Miso soup & Japanese-style salad

After that we had Gyoza. It was our appetizer and we were able to pick from two other different options. Gyoza is just fried dumplings. It tasted not bad. At least Mr. M really enjoyed it. 

Gyoza (fried dumplings)

Like all the other Korean restaurants, they provided many side dishes. Those side dishes usually are free and in most cases you can request for more without additional charges. But to be honest I never requested for more because I was always feeling full and didn't have any space. Seoul Garden has a really great selection for side dishes. We had fish cake (甜不辣), kimchi, broccoli, something with mushroom, tofu, and something tasted like mashed potato. In general, those side dishes are pretty delicious. We especially liked the fish cake and tofu. 

Left: fishcake (甜不辣); Right: Kimchi

Left: broccoli; Right: Mushroom

Tofu

To be honest, up till this point, I was getting full... Our main meal came with a huge bowl of salad (yeah salad again. I'm not sure why but it tasted different from the one that they served at the beginning), lettuce wrap, two bowls of rice, and two different kinds of beef, chicken, shrimp, sweet potato, and mushroom for BBQ grill. They waitress helped us setting up and put cooking materials on the grill pot for the first time. After that we were supposed to cook ourselves. This is actually the only thing that I didn't enjoy as much haha :P Because Mr. M is not very familiar with Korean BBQ, he didn't know how to cook it. I had to cook most of the time so I felt somewhat busy and didn't have time to rest and eat. The food was really good. We enjoyed our meal. The portion is a little too much so we had to take out quite a bit. 

Korean BBQ-ing

Some raw food to be cooked, lettuce wrap (top), and a huge bowl of salad

Yummy Korean BBQ food!

In conclusion, as for service, the waitress was alright. She was being slow to give us water and neither gave us boxes nor packed for us. We had to ask for boxes ourselves. Maybe people don't usually take leftover back for this kind of dishes, but we had quite a lot leftover so we didn't want to waste it all. Our waitress was pretty fast at collecting bill-a good thing. I would definitely come back and try other types of food. Hope our dining experiences can give readers a little bit more insight about this restaurant. If you are interested in getting some authentic Korean BBQ and dine in a higher end Korean restaurant, Seoul Garden could be your next choice. Bon appetit! ^_^


Thanks for reading! -Mira*