Guhng (The Palace)
19 McKillop Street, Melbourne
03 9041 2192

We were heading towards Red Spice Road one day when we saw this gorgeous multilevel Korean BBQ restaurant, fittingly named “Guhng (The Palace)”.  We decided then and there that next time we will try this place and I made a booking for the following month.

Upon arriving at the restaurant they told us that we didn’t have a booking (which I was annoyed about) but they will try to fit us in.  Sadly trying to fit us in means we get to sit on the top level, where there are no exhaust fan to suck all the air up and away from our clothes.  We had to have the windows open on a very cold night then ask them to crank up the heaters to feel a slight bit of warmth.

Enough whinging though because what happened next was an onslaught of dishes.  We ordered a 4 person menu and for $120 we got a ton of food that was prepared and cooked for us at the table.

First we got the small appetitsers of pickled carrot (in pink), kimchi, cooked onions and coleslaw.  We were hungry and ate most of those before the food arrived.  It was alright, the kimchi wasn’t spicy enough.

Then a very strong Korean man put a bunch of hot coals on our table and off we go.

Our set menu consist of scotch fillet, some sort of steak, beef brisket and beef ribs, which are all nicely marinated and very very tender.

I would say though this set meal is definitely more for a beef lover than anything and I would have loved to try their chicken and seafood, which sadly was not on their 2 person or 4 person menu

While some of our meat are cooking we also got pan fried dumplings.  I think they are vegetarian dumplings because I can’t taste a trace of meat in them at all.  The dumpling skin is a bit dry and felt as if it came out of a packet instead of freshly made, which is a bit disappointing.  The dipping sauce was quite nice though, and had a vinegary, soy and seasame combo.

We also had a choice of kimchi or soy bean hot pot and thank goodness we chose the kimchi one because from my research on other blogs the soy bean hot pot tasted like chinese medicine.

The kimchi hotpot is quite small but it has a nice, slightly seafoody flavour to it.  I wouldn’t say it’s one of the best hot pots I’ve eaten, but it wasn’t bad.

Our set menu comes with 4 desserts but looking at the “dessert” menu it’s got icecream, something rice flour, cold noodles and pumpkin soup?!?!?!  Alternatively we can get two of the “deluxe” new desserts, which we eventually decided to have.

Not too sure why green tea/ seasame icecream is considered a “deluxe” dessert, but I suppose it’s preddy big.  The green tea icecream was wrapped in a chocolate nests with scraps of dark chocolate at the bottom and a little bit of red bean on the side.  I love the red bean and green tea combo and this one is no exception, although my Caucasian friends stayed well away from red beans-yay more for me

The other deluxe dessert is the plum/blackberry panna cotta… we chose the blackberry pannacotta.  Remember when Matt Preston said “A pannacotta should wobble like a rubenesque woman wearing 5 inch heels”?  Well this rubenesque woman might have gone on to Biggest Loser because the pannacotta we had was firm… more like a pudding than a pannacotta.  The frozen berries on top does not do it any favours either and I gave up after 2 bites.

Overall, let’s just say at the Guhng, BBQ meats are their forte… but for the price we paid $30 pp (we also have an entertainment book discount so it’s about $100 all up with 2 glasses of wine) it was not bad.

Would I come back?  Mmm maybe next year if they are still on the Entertainment Book.  5.5/10