Yakiniku Don-Day

Best for: Korean
Location: Koreamoku



When Mizuki said she wanted Korean food, I was thrilled and prepared my stomach for spicy chicken wings, 2 scoops of rice, and 4 choices of vegetables. However, I should have known that dinner with Mizuki would never be as simple as ordering a plate from Yummy's Korean BBQ. As we desperately tried to find parking on Keeaumoku, my heart skipped a beat when I saw the sign of the restaurant: "Yakiniku Don-Day." Yakiniku! The last time I had yakiniku was at Yakiniku Seoul last year with my family. For those of you who don't know what yakiniku means, it refers to meat dishes that you grill right at your table. In other words: the epitome of a dining experience.

Yakiniku Don-Day is a lovely, informal restaurant at which guests can sit outside, under four large green umbrellas surrounded by Christmas lights. Moments like these remind me why I love Hawaii: the ability to dine outside at night all year round.

cooking beef tongue perfectly takes concentration and patience

We ordered one drink each: I had the bekseju, a Korean rice wine infused with ginseng, licorice, omija, wolfberry, ginger, and cinnamon; Anthony and Mizuki had a couple of beers. Anthony had ordered the Cass because our waiter told us it was Korea's most popular beer ("It tastes like Coors Lite; no wonder it's so popular"), but, after doing some much needed Korean beer research, I just found out that the beer Mizuki ordered (Hite) is actually the top selling beer there. That liar!

Mizuki and Anthony's Korean beers

my bekseju

We ordered beef tongue, pork belly, and marinated kal bi. The meal came with an assortment of little plates of pickled vegetables. Our waiter laughed at us because we didn't know that we were supposed to grill the long pieces of kim chee. In fact, I'm pretty sure he was laughing at us throughout the night because [surprise, surprise] eventually I got tipsy (hey, my wine had 3x as much alcohol as the beers) and was probably very amusing.

Our bill was about $115, which is reasonable considering how much we ordered. I should do yakiniku more often. There's something so simple, so utterly human about a group of people sitting in a circle, cooking chunks of meat on a cast iron grill. [I guess this means vegetarians aren't human?] In the unlikely chance that I do end up moving to Korea next year, I can definitely get used to eating like this every night.