Amateur Restaurant Reviews (Vol. I & II)

I dined at a couple local restaurants this past week and here's my take on how things went.

Vol. I:  Brickhouse BBQ

Cuisine: Bar-B-Que

Appetizers:  $7-$10

Entrées:  $10-$20

Portions:  Generous

Drinks:  There was a fairly expansive selections of tap beers (New Glarus, Lake Louie, Central Waters, Tyranena, Lakefront, Furthermore, etc.), but they offered only one variety of most brands.  I enjoyed a 312 Urban Wheat from Goose Island as well as a Bitter Woman IPA from Tyranena.


Food:  The food seemed formulated and lacked the soul of real smokehouse BBQ.  The menu features classic BBQ fare such as ribs, pork, chicken and brisket (oddly the brisket was served only on the sandwich menu).  There were also fish, burger and salad options.  Side were also traditional, potatoes, cole slaw, beans collard greens and the like, but the menu was clearly missing fried okra.  I had the pulled pork with sides of cole slaw, baked beans and hushpuppies with banana coconut cream pie for dessert.  The pork was decent, but didn't have that melt in your mouth quality of real slow roasted pork shoulder.  The BBQ sauce was a joke, they brought out three little saucers containing a vinegar based sauce, a tomato based sauce and a mustard based sauce.  I actually preferred the mustard sauce, but they were all pedestrian.  Any BBQ joint worth its salt has a signature sauce.  The sides were weak too, the hushpuppies were dry, the "creamy" cole slaw wasn't and the beans were, for some reason, incredibly spicy.  The dessert was also misguided, relying to heavily on sugar for taste and contained unsliced banana quarters, that were almost frozen. 

Rating:  Slightly above poor



Vol. II:  New Seoul Korean Restaurant

Cuisine:  Korean

Entrées:  $4-$22

Portions:  Generous

Drinks:  Soft drinks, bottled beer, wine

Food:  New Seoul features a great collection of soups, bokum and bulgogi.  I had the spicy pork bokum, miso soup and green tea.  The miso soup was warm, rich and tangy, but pretty standard.  The bokum was amazing.  Tender pork and a zesty collection of onions in a spicy red pepper sauce mixed with steamed rice made for heaven on a plate.  Also served as complementary sides were kimchi, daikon radish and cold crinkle cut potato slices in a sweet syrup, all of which were delicious.

Rating:  Highly recommended