Bibigo: Korean restaurant

Korean Food at Bibigo
Listen to our podcast at http://soundcloud.com/community56/sets/bibigo

There are many restaurants on Broxton Avenue for people to choose. From American burger to ice cream, you can choose whatever you want to eat. Bibigo is a Korean restaurant which provides their customers healthy and fresh cuisine. With comfortable dinning environment and wonderful service, everyone can feel like home.

menu

I’m Maggie. Our group explored the community of restaurant called BIBIGO in Westwood. Next we will introduce this restaurant in the following four aspects----first Bibigo story and history, second Bibigo menu and how to order,   third, Bibigo service and environment, last, our experience there and suggestion for customers.

First of all, let’s begin our BIBIBO story. The brand BIBOGO is a Korean-English portmanteau from Korean bibida, which means to mix, and English ,”to-go”, blending quick service and convenience with a bold new interpretation of Korean culinary tradition. Designed with healthy and fresh concept at the core, and with decidedly standardized and aesthetically enhanced recipe, BIBOGO restaurant has many branches all over the world. Now it has branch restaurants in USA, Korea, China, and Singapore.  But the BIBIGO in UCLA opened in November, last year and is in its starting development.  

outside the Bibigo

Here we can custom-design our own bowl of Bibimbap by choosing our style, rice type, protein topping, and sauce. Our meal can be complemented by a choice of tapas dishes. As the food here is so delicious and creative, BIBIGO is at the forefront of promoting Korean culture abroad, winning hearts and minds through stomach. We can enjoy a healthy and fresh Korean meal of your choice combination with our friends and family in the nature-inspired, contemporary décor in all of Bibigo restaurant locations around the world. It aims to expand its gastronomic outposts to a thousand international locations by year 2015.

Bibigo serves many traditional Korean dishes at extremely reasonable prices. The manager introduced many famous dishes for us. Such as Char-grilled Bulgogi is a traditional Korean BBQ which made from beef. And chicken kimchi fried rice which contains lots of kimchi makes a spicy taste. Still, the most popular dishes is definitely hot stone bibimbap, it may be really confusing at the beginning about its pronunciation. Bibimbap is a Korean word which means mixed rice with assorted vegetables and topping in a sizzling hot stone bowl. When every Bibimbap comes to your table, you can get a hot and also delicious meal.

side dishes

At first, there may be some difficulties in making orders. There are many choices for you to combine a Bibimbap. Thanks to the manager, he taught us how to make choice. First, we have to choose rice from four different kinds of rice which are white, black pearl, brown or barley and white. He also told us that most western costumers like pearl black better which is very different from Asian country. In Korea, Japan or China, people like brown rice better. Then, we have to choose the topping from Bulgogi, chicken, tofu and shrimp. Bulgogi is grilled beef cook by traditional Korean style so you can experience the taste of traditional Korean dish. For people who cannot eat beef, Bibigo also offer you chicken and shrimp which is really flexible. Vegetarian? No problem! Tofu is your best choice for your Bibimbap. The last step is to choose your sauce. Kohot is the most popular one, but may be too spicy for some people. Others are Ssam, Sesame and Citron soy. After all these procedures, all you have to do is to wait for your delicious meal.

Hot stone bibimbap

As my first impression, the restaurant is a clean warm modern and simplicity one. Two parts composes the Bibigo, one is outside the restaurant and the other is inside it. The kitchen divides the restaurant. And it also has a bar counter which you can eat and drink there. There is no waitress at Bibigo. Almost every waiter and cook comes from South Korea. But they all speak English very well .In my opinion the service is quite considerate. They will take the initiative to introduce the menu including the most popular food and the best combination of the dinner. Our waiter is the hall manager, he is a very kind person. He accepted our interview and take a photo with us. But according to the manager,  you can only enjoy the service at the dinner. Because the lunch time is self-servise.   Overall, I had a pleasant experience and afterwards, we got some free fruit samples from one of the stands outside! I won't be surprised when it becomes a chain.

The waiter who served us during the dinner was actually the general manager in that restaurant. With gentle smile, he thoughtfully introduced the distinguishing features and described unique tastes of some popular dishes. Moreover, he also considerately reminded us that some dishes were more or less spicy so that we wouldn’t order something improper for us to eat. Therefore, I suggest that you should pay more attention to whether the food is spicy or not as there’s no specific mark in the menu.

Among the various dishes, what impressed me most was “Hot Stone Bibimbap”. On one hand, it looked considerably delicious. On the other hand, it provided optional ingredients with customers which led people to make a more satisfying choice. In addition, the manager recommended this food as well for its high popularity and its sufficient amount. In this case, my advice is that noodles are likely to be a wise choice if you’re used to having a little.

When it comes to the quality of their food, I prefer to give a high score. To our satisfaction, the mixture of fresh vegetables, beef, black rice and two kinds of sauce was really fantastic dainty. And what’s more, talking and laughing in the lively and comfortable dining atmosphere created by the delicate decoration and warm meal, we had a lot of fun and indeed enjoyed ourselves.

At last but not the least, I strongly recommend that you should have a try here with your friends some day for you’ll never regret your choice.

group photo