Parks BBQ

The notion of “all-you-can-eat” is quite the anomaly for me – on the one hand, it sounds awesome, what’s not to like? But, taking a deeper dive in, most all-you-can-eat establishments scrimp on quality and load you up with fillers. So, in an effort to find one of the best Korean BBQ joints LA has to offer, we decided to forgo the gluttonous cornucopia that is all-you-can-eat, and elevate our choice towards quality over quantity.

For us, Park's BBQ on Vermont was the best option for this criteria. With its hard-edged contemporary design, black walls and sleek stainless-steel hoods above the grills, Parks felt urban and modern, not a bit dodgy like many BBQ joints in the area.



The prices at Park's are higher than most, but what sets it apart is the quality of the beef, which is prime. We decided to order the Prime Ggot Sal, Seasoned Gal-Bi, and Bulgogi for five of us. Along with the rock shrimp and green onion pancake and 3 large Hite beers. For those put off by the cost, a good thing to remember are all the little dishes (pan chan) that come with the meal. Ours consisted of sesame noodles, kimchi, bean paste, raw garlic and jalapeños, spicy blue crab, mashed yams with raisins, potato salad, seaweed, sesame broccoli, crunchy chili zucchini, thinly sliced pickled radishes and rice noodle wrappers. We immediately started nibbling on everything as the trays of meat were revealed to our table.





Our waitress helped by spreading the meat over the hot coals in the middle of the table and stopped by from time to time to see how things were going, moving the meat toward the cooler edges of the grill as it cooked, cutting it into smaller pieces with a giant pair of scissors. The seafood pancake arrived at this point, deliciously crispy studded with shrimp and green onions and a hot pepper sauce for dipping. This was yummy, a crunchy Frisbee-sized disk of delicious-ness.



So, back to the reason we were here in the first place, the meat. We snatched up pieces of prime beef adding dabs of kimchi and bean paste, bits of jalapeño, wrapping them in rice noodles and dipping into various sauces – the combo of flavors are rich and earthy, juicy, charred….a delicious little bundle of complexity. We really could tell the difference in the quality of the product, the prime beef caramelized over the grill was real treat in all three preparations.



Even with the industrial stainless-steel hoods above the grills sucking up the smoke, we still left Parks with the smell of decadent prime beef in our clothes and hair, but after a meal like that I couldn’t have cared in the least.

The Day’s Damage = Prime Ggot Sal $33 + Seasoned Gal-Bi $32 + Bulgogi $24 + Pancake $17 + (3) Hites $21 + tax/tip = $160

Item 29 : Check