Too Hot To Handle @ Bi Bim Bap

Bi Bim Bap is a bright, colourful and fun Korean restaurant in Soho that specialises in, as the name suggests Bi Bim Bap.

Bi Bim Bap (mixed rice), according to Wikipedia is the national dish of Korea. As all great dishes of the world, it is a simple plate of food.

Basically it’s a bowl of rice topped with vegetables, meat and a red chilli paste and curiously either a raw or fried egg are added on top to finish it off.

It’s a very visual dish as the vegetables are colourful and set harmoniously next to each other and when you are presented with it, a smile will always cross your face. Job one done.

I’m not sure if all places that serve Bi Bim Bap are the same, but at this Soho joint the stone bowl is seriously hot. Nuclear hot. So hot in fact that we could not actually taste the food and even by the end of the meal the stone bowl was still too hot to touch.

Before our scorching food came, we did have a plate of Pork and Vegetable Mandoo. These fried dumplings were disappointing to say the least. The dough was thick and a bit stodgy. Really didn’t enjoy eating them at all. But I did as I was starving.

But we were here for the Bi Bim Bap, but as I said you just could not taste anything of the food, but it all seemed to be well cooked.

For some reason I never had an egg on top of mine, and to be honest I wish I had of, but our regrets we must live with.

So as the name suggests, you are to mix and stir it all together, so with every mouthful you get a taste of everything. Unless in this case when the food is so hot that it burns all your taste buds.

As I’d ordered the spicy pork, I was sad that it wasn’t really spicy at all and had to add a lot of chilli to perk it up a bit.

The beef boolgogi was tender, sorry my taste buds were still non existent when I got to try it, so cannot comment.

One final gripe before I sign off, I can’t believe you have to pay for Kimchi. I always assumed in Korean restaurants it would be put on the table when you sat down. Maybe that is just in Korea.