Let's Meat BBQ

Uni exams have finally finished for me, meaning that my first year of uni is officially over! It feels so good!! (although my leg, which I hurt whilst running to uni for my psychology exam because my train was half an hour late does feel so good......) I haven't been baking much lately so I haven't got much to blog about now, but I'll be making my way through my enormous list of things to make soon so that should be fun :) I have been eating out a lot though and in particular I've been itching to blog about this dining experience.

That's because this was our second experience with group buy vouchers- and yet again, we chose a restaurant that was long drive from home (1.5 hours this time!). We couldn't resist though, because the deal was for a Korean BBQ buffet at Let's Meat for $39- and we love our buffets.

The reviews online are mostly quite negative, and to be honest, I wasn't too sure what to expect when I called up Let's Meat to make a booking for our family of four. The voucher was valid for any day of the week, so naturally we wanted to make a booking for the weekend, when they had their 'Ultimate Buffet' (normally $41) instead of their weekday option of 'Smart Choice Buffet' (normally $32). The person on the phone sounded a little annoyed when I kept asking if there were any vacancies for any weekend (turns out that they're booked out until after December....) but was a little nicer when I finally decided to visit there on a Tuesday night instead.

Pickled Radishes, onion and mashed potato

  

We arrived to find the restaurant quite empty (though the surrounding restaurants were also very quiet) but service was great, and we were quickly taken to a table- though it was a designated 'voucher holders' table. We were given an A4 sheet, stating all the terms and conditions of the voucher including that they charge a service charge for changing the BBQ plate and that there is a limit of 10 dishes per voucher (i.e. 2 people) which I thought were a little unnecessary and off-putting.

Before you all think that this place is terrible, I'll point out that the service throughout the night was excellent. Though there were only two people serving the diners (one of which I'm pretty sure was the owner), they were very friendly and attentive. The owner spent the night walking around from table to table, making sure that everyone was enjoying their meal and chatting about just about anything!

This is what happens when you have a dish limit and have to keep reusing the same dish

The selection of hot foods was quite limited, and it didn't help that the food did not get refilled much during the night. This might have been because we did come a little late, since voucher holders could only come at two specific times (6 and 7:30pm). The foods they had available weren't amazing, but good enough to satisfy our hungry stomachs whilst the meats were cooking.

The stir fried noodles were quite tasty but unfortunately a little dry. The fried rice was a little less exciting but probably the better option- the rice was nicely fluffy and delicious. They also a couple other hot dishes like fried chicken, but by the time we arrived there were only one or two left.

Spring Rolls

The spring rolls were probably the only thing which came out of the kitchen in the time that we dined there, so we quickly grabbed almost all of it (there wasn't much to begin with!). They were delicious though- a nice crispy skin with a soft slightly sweet interior of veggies. Shame they didn't have more!

Kimchi

They had a good selection of cold dishes, including the usual kimchi and pickles (onions and radish). I don't really eat much kimchi, so I have no comments on that, but I liked their potato dish which was marinated in a similar spicy sauce- it was quite a surprise because we didn't realise that it was potato at first! My favourite of all the cold dishes was probably their korean/japanese mashed potato which was incredibly soft and smooth- almost like whipped cream!

The highlight of Let's Meat is definitely much more on the meat (hence the name? lol) than the already cooked foods- and thankfully, the meats did not disappoint! The selection of meats was again, quite limited, but we found that all the choices of meat were ones which we enjoy so it doesn't bother us. Most notable amongst their meats would be their cubes of wagyu (which we only noticed existed after we had finished eating!) and their marinated pork, with a delicious marinade which brought about a slight hint of sweetness- making it taste a little like char sui but without the stickiness, and less sweet. I also loved the ox-tongue slices, which were a little thin for my liking but I think that's how ox tongue is usually served for Korean bbq's.

We were pretty pleased with the meats on offer here, and I'll go so far as saying that of all the Korean BBQ buffets we've had in Sydney (we haven't really been to that many) if meat was the only criteria, this would definitely rank as one of our favourites.

One thing that we found quite annoying was that the BBQ grill had pretty much only 2 settings- so hot that all the food burnt before being cooked or too cold that the meats took forever to cook, which wouldn't have bothered us, except that  there was a 1.5 hour time limit! They also stated that if we wanted to change the temperature of the grill, we should ask the staff, so we spent the night asking the waiter to switch between the hot and cold setting.....luckily he was extremely nice and didn't mind helping us every time!

Jelly

They didn't have much of a 'desserts' selection, but their website doesn't mention any desserts in their Smart Choice buffet anyway so we weren't too dissappointed. Other than some fruits, there were some cute jellies on offer- I don't usually like jelly anyway but I thought it'd be nice to finish with something sweet.

Ice Cream

They also had ice cream in their freezer, and I loved that they froze the ice cream cups as well as the ice cream :) They only had vanilla flavoured ice-cream with a couple of toppings, but it was a nice way to end the night.

Overall, I thought the experience was pretty good, though I think one of the reasons why it wasn't as bad as most other reviews was that I was expecting worse. I might not be back again, but that's more because the food and the price together aren't quite enough for the 1.5 hour trip, but if they had the deal again, I'd definitely buy it!