Da Chang Jin Korea Hot Stone 大长今韩国烤肉 (Beach Road)

Lately on TV, there is this advert for a "korean" bbq buffet + free mala hot pot. Interesting we thought. Hmm.. definitely, this is not an authentic korean restaurant. think it is run by some chinese folks. Regardless, its pretty reasonable... $16.90/pax. We were rather dubious about the quality that we would get. I must say we are pleasantly surprised.

Anyways, they have two branches, 1 in geylang and 1 in beach road. Yesterday evening, my friends and I went to the beach road branch to check it out. It was a relative small store but had a wide variety of selections such as "live crabs, seafood, bibimbap, beef, etc.... They have cooked items, seasoned items for bbq and for steamboat respectively. The seafood was reasonably fresh and big. We enjoyed ourselves with the "live" mud crabs in the steamboat. The claws were huge and juicy :D.

Currently, they have a promotion...
For 4 paxs and below, each 1 is entitled to 1 free drink
For 6 paxs, buy 5 get 1 free

We had our fill and proceeded to cafe de caire to chill after that.

I am a big fan of steamboat and have heard about this Da Chang Jin for some time already. But I am pretty surprised what mentioned here differs from what my colleagues told me.

I went on a Wed (18-Mar-09) with 5 of my other colleagues. They offered 2 steamboats "sets" (i.e. the soup and the bbq). I have been to other steamboats where the meat is not marinated at all. But at Da Chang Jin, there are spices and seasoning ( I only managed to recognise basil leaves and chilli powder) available for you to "marinate" your meat. You can leave out certain spices if you do not like it.

They offer free flow of plain water - served in jugs. You have to take the cups and ice yourself. Of course there are other soft drinks available, but there are additional charges.

The range of food is not very wide, though most of the meat products are available (e.g. mutton, pork, beef, fish, crabs, prawns). But the seafood doesnt look very fresh to me though - it look like kinda "mashed up". You gotta add it with the spices.

Other than that there are ready-made dishes like the BimBimBap (Rice dish with vegs and egg), Cold Noodle, Dumpling etc. I personally like the salad (egg/tomatoes/greens/potatoes) a lot.

Service wise, I think it's pretty alright (or perhaps because we went on a weekday). The service staff were prompt in refilling the soup base and replacing the bbq plate.

By the way, I think alfresco is better than sitting indoors - better air. =|

Cleaninless-wise. I didn't experience slippery floors, but my colleagues warned me beforehand not to enter the toilet,
so I went to the one at Bugis instead. =)

I went to Da Chang Jin in Beach Road on a Friday night a few months ago with a group of 12 friends. I was disappointed that, despite the buy-6-get-1-free promotion advertised on the internet, the lady in charge told me that the promotion was only valid Monday thru Thursday, not even a free can of drink was given. The food was actually ok, but the cleanliness of the food and the utensils were in doubt. 7 out of these 12 people got stomach pain the next day. The most severe one was even sent to the emergency room on the ambulance and was hospitalized for a day. that was really a nightmare. my friend swear to me that he will not be going to da chang jin ever again.

Another thing i want to point out is their pricing. My daughter who was only 10 was charged for adult price. the child price is only for kids who are 120cm and below. come on, my son is 120cm and he is only 7 years old. how can you charge a 7 year old kid with adult price. that is totally ridiculous.