Koreatown: Seafood BBQ at DaeBuDo

 

I’ve eaten Korean BBQ years for now and occasionally a few shrimp and baby octopus have showed up on those meaty menus. Then I heard about all-seafood KBBQ a few years ago. I’ve been into this idea since I love seafood. I recently hit up DaeBuDo on Wilshire in Koreatown.

The most famous seafood grill place in Koreatown is JaeBuDo and DaeBuDo was known for years as JaeBuDo 2. They offer very similar menus with DBD being slightly cheaper.

The grills use charcoal so it could get smokey in there. It may be a third date sort of place unless both of you like smelling like garlic afterwards.

 

We ordered makegeolli as a change from soju. Also spelled makkoli, it’s a sparkling milky-colored rice wine. The mildness went well with seafood.

We ordered Combo A which came with a variety of clams. The menu listed large clams, Manila clams, Mosi clams and pasta neck clams. We also had baby octopus, oysters, mussels, shrimp and a few different scallops dishes.

 

As you wait for your seafood feast, you can tuck into a few side dishes (banchan) including celery and carrots, kimchi, fish and shrimp “ceviche” plus steamed egg, corn cheese and veggie pancake.

 

Oh you bet I ate a lot of kimchi. DBD’s was really good. I did think the raw carrots and celery were a tiny bit weird but was glad to eat the raw veggies with the soybean dip.

 

The “ceviche” is basically a really wet salad with cabbage tossed with fish and shrimp. We also loved the kimchi, steamed egg and corn. I liked the pancake as well. But I knew I shouldn’t fill up on sides when there was seafood to eat!

 

You start with a lot of clams as well as a couple of scallops in the containers. There’s also a tomato and cheese sauce that I suppose you could dip your freshly grilled clams, scallops or mussels into but we chose to use the more traditional Korean sauces including the fermented soybean and chile paste.

My favorites were the big clams and the oysters. I did like how quickly the clams steamed open and we got a fill of those. Our helpful servers came around every now and then and helped us by cutting the large clams and oysters into bite-sized pieces for us.

 

At the end of the meal, you get a pot of noodles in a light clam broth. The broth was amazing, so light and delicate.

 

And then at the very end, they bring out the sweet potatoes that had been gently steaming in their foil wrappers next to the charcoals. Perhaps these were there just a tad too long but my potato was a little tough.

Overall I really liked the meal. The location was modern looking and I didn’t feel like I was sitting next to a charcoal pit all night even though we were. The restaurant must have good ventilation!

 

DaeBuDo

3916 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90010   —  (213) 352-1300

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