K-Pot East Brunswick
Published January 26, 2020
On a Thursday afternoon, I drove my team to K-Pot Korean BBQ in East Brunswick, New Jersey for our monthly team lunch.
K-Pot East Brunswick, though they have four other locations, is located off NJ-18 in the Midstate Mall. It’s a giant shopping mall with furniture stores, restaurants, Starbucks, grocery stores, and more.
K-Pot Korean BQQ & Hot Pot
Through the foyer and into the front doors is the entryway and hostess stand. One woman behind the stand asked if we had a reservation. We did, for 10, looking out across the room. It was a colossal space, reminding me of the footprint of Minado’s Seafood Buffet.
K-Pot’s color palette and modern design reminded me of Gustavino Duomo Firenze. A long bar stretched on the left-hand side of the room with several flat screen TVs playing above it. Thick decorations (that looked like candles) hung in varying lengths and colors above the bar, reminding me of The Great Hall in Hogwarts.
The floors were giant grey squares. The tables were glossy grey, with the room split in two. Booths on either side sat four people.
Image Source: First L. on Yelp
Our team couldn’t be sat together, despite my reservation. The tables were bolted into the floor, given the hot pot equipment. The only other table for groups was reserved for a party of 50. Thus, our team ended up in the booths in the back corner, where we sat near, but not next to one another.
K-Pot Hot Pot & BBQ Menu
Our table was so large and wide we could’ve sat eight people around it. The tables, however, were intentionally large, considering we would be cooking and serving our own meal.
The table was set for four people, each with a hot plate. In the center of the table was the deep-set BBQ grill. Black plates with chopsticks, a ladle, and a small rice bowl were preset at our seats. We were each given a K-Pot menu, which had two paper-laminated pages, double-sided.
Four small bowls were added to our table as we studied the menu. Each bowl contained a cold Korean salad, most of which were too spicy for me to try. I ate the second one, which was a scoop of cold potatoes. It was strange to eat potatoes with my chopsticks, and I wondered if the bland potatoes were to soothe a spiced palate.
How to Order Korean Hot Pot
Hot Pot is every foodie’s dream. It works like this:
Select your base
Choose any/all protein
Pick additional toppings
Order vegetables and noodles
I was studying the soup bases. Most of my team selected the “Szechaun Spicy” soup. If they all selected that one, it must have the best flavor. But I also noted that it had a spicy chili pepper next to it.
“How hot is “hot” here?”
My team laughed, “Too hot for you.”
I knew it was probably killer, so I looked at the non-spicy options. That left me with healthy herbs, tomato soup, or the K-Pot Special Soup.
I didn’t think I wanted to dip my protein in tomato soup, and “healthy herbs” sounded like a vegetarian option, so I selected the K-Pot Special Soup, which I was told, was chicken broth.
Selecting the Hot Pot Protein
As you can see on the bottom of the menu, our lunch offered five different proteins. Pork belly is my favorite, so I knew I would order that. Though my colleague said, “Let’s order the top three.”
“All three?”
“Yeah, you can order as many as you want, it’s all included.”
Get out.
Thus, we each ordered the sliced pork, sliced pork belly, and sliced beef belly.
Selecting the Hot Pot Toppings
The two interior pages broke down the additional toppings, protein, vegetables, and noodles you could add to your soup.
Some of the strangest items on the menu included: pork brain, fish roe ball, tripe, quail egg, fried tofu skin, and lotus root.
While I pondered ordering the brain, I decided not to poison myself by undercooking an item I’ve never had. I’d leave that to the professionals to prepare for me one day.
I selected fish roe ball (because why not), dim sum, gyoza, shrimp dumplings (yes, all the carbs), Udon noodles, shiitake mushrooms, bok choy, watercress, spinach, fresh corn, and seaweed.
Our team received a paper menu with all of these items listed and we wrote how many of us wanted. I probably ate some of the ingredients my colleagues ordered, but for the most part, I stuck with my selections.
Korean BBQ Menu
We also had unlimited selection for the BBQ grill in the middle of our table. I let my colleagues order the protein for these, though I probably should’ve added my preference for seafood. In the end, we ended up ordering spicy beef bulgogi, beef belly, and garlic chicken.
Build-Your-Own Sauce Bar
After handing our paper menu to our waitress, we made our way to the sauce bar.
The long counter held 22 containers of sauces and toppings. The first four slots had chopped scallions, garlic, and other ingredients you could add for additional flavor.
A condiment stand with olive oils, vinegar’s, sesame seeds, and other toppings sat next to the sauce bowls.
I wasn’t sure what to combine for my dipping sauces without tasting each ingredient. I knew I liked soy and oyster sauce, or anything with garlic. I enjoyed peanut sauce, especially on the Szechuan water dumplings from Double Ai.
In the end, I made two bowls. One with chopped garlic, scallions, and a peanut sauce. The other was soy sauce, oyster sauce, and ginger sauce. The second sauce was my favorite — slightly sweet and light. I dipped all of my cooked meat and dumplings in it.
K-Pot Hot Pot
Our metal cauldron of soup was placed on our burner at each of our seats. We each had a remote controller latched to the table, where we could adjust the hot plate temperature. I kept mine at P5, the highest temperature, for most of the meal.
We waited, heating the broth from a still surface to a rapid boil, before dipping the first meat into it.
As we waited for our broth to boil, we watched as plate after plate arrived to the table. Small circular plates, rectangle plates with rolled meat, cylinders with stalks of fresh greens, a platter of dumplings and tofu. Now I realized why the table was as large as it was. We had every surface covered with ingredients.
We even ordered popcorn chicken as an appetizer. They arrived in plastic baskets lined with parchment paper. The chicken pieces were the size of a nickel, crispy, and drizzled with an indistinguishable red sauce. I shared a basket with my colleague as we waited for our soup to heat. I would give them a 3/10.
Cooking Lunch | Hot Pot
I started with the sliced pork, since it was closest to me. I took one of the paper-thin sliced and dipped it into my boiling broth. Within seconds, the meat cooked to a light grey color. I tried it plain, it was tender and good quality. I repeated the process, dipping two more pieces in each of my sauces, the meat taking on the bold flavors of peanut or soy-ginger.
Eventually, I heaved over the heavy dumpling tray, and popped each of the frozen dumplings into my soup. The broth simmered, cooling quickly. I let the broth boil again, watching until the dumplings floated to the top. I scooped each of them out with my wide ladle, plopping them onto my plate so they could cool.
I added the corn cob, seaweed, bok choy, and mushroom to my soup and let them wilt and soften.
From left to right: Gyoza, shrimp dumpling, fish roe ball
The shrimp dumpling was dense and reminded me of the Thai dumplings from Khao Tip. The Goyza was the best, with a soft wrapper and filling. The fish roe ball was too dense and didn’t have much flavor, though maybe I didn’t cook it long enough?
Cooking Lunch | Korean BBQ
The brightest sliced meat — I had no idea which one it was — was added to the table. I dipped it in my soup and was impressed with its marbling and tenderness.
“That one’s for the BBQ.” my colleague said.
“Ah!” I laughed, handing him the plate to add to the center grill in our table. Nearby the meat was octopus, Bulgogi, and garlic chicken.
My colleague unfurled the pork belly, laying it on the grill to cook. He flipped it a few times, but didn’t seem satisfied with the grill quality. Considering he was from Korea, I took his word for quality Korean BBQ.
I didn’t mind the charred edges of the pork belly, and ate the whole plate nearly by myself. It was fantastic. I preferred the BBQ flavor over the hot pot. I didn’t even consider adding my vegetables to the grill, but I imagined it would be spectacular too!
Our waitress game and swapped our blackened grill cover for a new shiny one. Seeing the difference in color made me wonder if we were still grilling on a previous table’s grill.
My colleague manned the grill for us — swapping out the pork belly for fingers of octopus, strips of chicken, and piles of bulgogi. I felt that our grill really wasn’t the strong, as he spent a while flipping and flipping the meat, before we devoured it, only for him to start all over again.
I ate two serving of dumplings and vegetables, and most of the sliced pork.
A sign behind my head informed us that:
There was a two-hour limit
Any uneaten food would be charged $13.99 per pound
I observed the piles of meat stacked on our plates and remaining dumplings.
“Do you think we’ll finish this?”
“Yeah!” My colleague was confident. Since we didn’t receive our Udon noodles, we had enough room left in our bellies and soup bowls to cook the remaining meat.
We finished all our leafy greens, making tacos and wilting them in our broth. We grilled all our chicken, beef, and bulgogi. The garlic chicken was fantastic, so I ate most of that.
Our team at the other two tables tried to barter their food to us, since we cleared most of our plates. We laughed and said no, accidentally catching our grill on fire and blinking through the smoke that coated our table.
My table restocked their soup bowls, using our team’s uncooked noodles in the broth. They finished off our dumplings as the rest of the team called quits and we paid the bill.
My Recommendations
Overall, my impression of K-Pot Korean BBQ and Hot Pot was a 7/10 for the following:
Decor and Design
A large modern space with clean decor, comfy booth tables, and unique layout with the personal hot pots. The entire concept was exciting and fun to participate in.
Service
4/10: Not fantastic, considering I called two weeks in advance and informed them of our table of 10. We were disappointed that there was no set up that allowed us to sit together. The hostess was super confused about what to do with us, and kept asking if it was okay that we didn’t sit together. Since we had no other option, we said it was fine, but overall it was an awkward encounter. I would recommend that K-Pot have a note somewhere on their website, advising larger parties to expect not to sit together, due to limited accommodations.
The waitress for my table was nice and refilled my water glass twice (you know I’m a fish when it comes to water). But other than that, she didn’t check back on our table, aside from the time that she replaced our grill. I would’ve liked to get the noodles we ordered / have some advisement when we set our grill on fire. Luckily, I was with a group of people who had eaten Korean BBQ and hot pot before, otherwise, I would’ve been sitting there for 30 years not realizing I had to turn on the grill to cook.
Food
K-Pot East Brunswick offers beautiful, high quality proteins. I loved the menu selection and variety of ingredients. The sauce bar is an awesome idea to highlight the fresh ingredients we cooked at our seats.
Have you had Hot Pot or Korean BBQ?
Do you have other New Jersey restaurants I should visit? Tell me about it in the comments below!
