The service at the 8st Kitchen was okay, friendly waitress with a thick Korean accent. Our orders came quickly one after another. The small plates that each of us had required multiple changes through out the dinner to make sure the flavours didn't mix from dish to dish.
The first set of dishes served were house appetizers, a rice soup and Korean appetizers (stir fried veges, kimchi, and marinated beef). The soup had a rich rice flavour and a nice crunch from the rice puff flakes sprinkled on the top of the soup. The Korean appetizers (other than the kimchi) were quite unique. I have never had them at any other Korean restaurants. I really enjoyed the marinated beef, it was cold, tender, sweet and mildly spicy. It's definitely something that I would love to recreate at home when I have some scrap pieces of fatty beef.
We ordered another cold dish, the Spicy Noodle Salad. It is not for the weak! Stay away from this dish if you can't handle spicy food very well. I can't really say that I had enjoyed the dish as the spiciness of it was just too overwhelming. The next to come were Crispy Grilled Rice Ball and Braised Beef Short-Rib. The rice ball was not impressive at all. I guess I have a slight biased for them to be brushed with some soy sauce then grilled instead of lightly seasoned with salt instead. The braised beef had gotten a thumbs up from the entire table of 4. It has a very nice broth made from slowly simmered beef ribs, daikons and carrots. It's a dish to have with rice (hence the rice ball order...) and a bowl to drink up all the soup.
As always in a Korean restaurant, you have to order a bulgogi (Korean hotplate). The Grilled Chicken Bulgogi was not at all what I expected. I was expecting a very traditional bulgogi, meat stirred fried with some onions then placed on a hotplate; however, this one came with a dazzling choice of vegetable and sides. The waitress explained to us that we had a choice of vegetables (carrots, cucumbers) and sides (sauteed herbs, fried garlic, and chili paste) to add to the chicken bulgogi to be wrapped in various leafy vegetable (lettuce, spinach, etc). This was new for me at a Korean restaurant and very very delicious surprise!
We also tried the two Korean pancake dishes, the Seafood Scallion Pancake and the Shrimp & Crab Pancake. The seafood pancake was much better than the shrimp & crab pancake. It's also closer to other Korean pancake dishes that I have had before. It's nice and crispy on the outside and filled with seafood goodness on the inside. The shrimp & crab pancakes were not as crispy. I find it slightly soggy, which is probably due to the increase amount of vegetables in them.
Before desserts we also cleaned off a plate of the Stir Fried Glass Noodle. It's not a spicy dish and was very nicely made. I have always liked the glass noodle dish from most Korean restaurants. The fact that it's a peasant food really doesn't take any thing away from my enjoyment of the dish. The seasonal desserts we had were pudding with pumpkin sauce and cinnamon punch, and a ball made of hazelnut and sweet potato with a warm red plum tea. The pudding was much better than the sweet paste ball. But overall, they are very average deserts. The accompanying drinks were not very good taste companions both were very over powering in their taste. This was true especially of the cinnamon punch.
Overall, it was a very enjoyable experience. We pretty much closed the restaurant. It's important to mention that the portions are of small plates. It's more of a Korean "tapas", which made it an ideal place to order many dishes and share among friends and/or family.
8st Kitchen
22 West 8th Street
New York, NY 10011
(212) 477-7755
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