KkotMareum (Shabushabu Buffet Restaurant)

Score Guide: 1 - Poor / 2 - Okay / 3 - Good / 4 - Great / 5 – Exceptional

Restaurant Name: KkotMareum (꽃마름)

Type of restaurant/food: Buffet and Shabushabu

Region: Sosabeol Useung Medipia Building 3^rd floor, Dongsak-dong 18, Pyeongtaek-City, near Bijeon Middle School and opposite to Daekwang Church (경기 평택시 동삭동 18번지 소사벌우성메디피아 3층, 비전중 근처, 대광교회 맞은편)

Price range: 14,900 (11:00am - 3:00pm, From Monday to Friday)

                19,900 (5:00pm – 10:00pm, From Monday to Friday)

                21,900 (11:00am -10:00pm, From Saturday to Sunday)

Value:  — 3 / 5

Service: — 2 / 5

Cleanliness: — 3 / 5

Atmosphere: — 2 / 5

Overall Score: — 3 / 5 They're good!

About: If the beef were refilled unlimitedly, I would say KkotMareum is exceptional. But a bowl of frozen sliced beef is offered at the start and if you want more you need to pay for additional beef depending on your order. This let me down when I dipped my first piece of beef into the Shabushabu soup. However, Kkot Mareum has its own distinctive attractiveness in that you can wrap your boiled vegetables and beef in Vietnamese rice paper. Plus you can dip it in three different kinds of Thai chili sauces, which makes the taste exotic as well as fresh. KkotMareum's buffet, moreover, has a diverse range of quality dishes. One example is bibimbap (비빔밥). Their bibimbap buffet table offers 8 kinds of Namuls (나물). Namuls are seasoned vegetables, and they are much better at KkotMareum than at typical bibimbap restaurants. 

Getting there: You should get a 7-1 bus in front of McDonalds in downtown Pyeongtaek. You can get off the bus at Bijeon Middle School(비전중학교) and walk following the direction of your bus a bit. Then turn to the right at the corner and walk just one block until you see a big intersection. KkotMareum should be there.

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Cuckoo for Kookoo

There are a few nice buffet restaurants in Pyeongtaek these days, most notably the hugely upgraded Ashley's near New Core Outlet, the VIPs in the Megabox building downtown, and the With Spoon on the highway as you head out of the city toward Pyeongtaek University.

This list recently added an upscale sushi buffet called Kookoo (쿠우쿠우). Situated in the increasingly foodie friendly development in front of Pyeongtaek City Hall, Kookoo offers an enormous variety of sushi, sashimi and rolls plus some non-fishy options like fried chicken and kyushu pork for the picky eaters out there. 

Accompanied by Eat Korea's trusty robot taste tester, the NetBot, Eat Korea got to raid Kookoo their opening week before their prices went up.

What was the verdict? 24 hours later we couldn't help but go back for more! 

As sushi buffets go, Kookoo has really good food. At cheaper ones the fish isn't of that great quality and tend to sit around for a while waiting to be eaten. At Kookoo the food is much better quality and is replaced as fast as it disappears. Plus, it's made right in front of you, and there is a lot of variety. Even one of the chefs asked his mate on the line to snag one of the "delicious" duck-rolls for him while I was reaching for one myself. 

However, on the first day we had a rough encounter with one of the rolls. They all look amazing, and many are. However, our palates shuddered under one roll with shredded imitation crab. The NetBot spat her roll out immediately, displaying the half-chewed remains on an unsightly clump of napkins. I felt the urge to liberate my mouth of the mossy taste myself, but forced it down in spite of the taste. Luckily, my stomach did not decide to override my decision. Note, as gross as that brush with yech was, it didn't stop us from returning the next day! We had an opening week discount to take advantage of, and Kookoo is delicious! ...mostly. 

 On a normal day lunch will set you back 13,900 won and dinner 16,900 won. They are located on the top floor of the same building that houses Hwatong Sam, kitty-corner to the park beside Lotte Mart. 

2014.12.26 | 지도 크게 보기 ©  NAVER Corp.

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