With its smoky, succulent meat and DIY-style cooking, the recently opened Korean BBQ chain Baekjeong (beck-jung) offers a wide variety of Korean main and side dishes that are world-renowned. Although it does not taste as good as its Californian counterparts, the Baekjeong in Lynwood still encapsulates a satisfactory Korean BBQ with a few discrepancies.

Obviously, as with all new openings of famous chains, there are long lines well surpassing an hour-long wait. However, even with the long lines and many customers, the waiters are nice, helpful, and quick with their service. The environment inside of Baekjeong gave a modern, yet fun, vibe with its new appliances and furniture, as well as a loud, talkative setting with K-pop background music. The place was clearly well maintained with servers thoroughly cleaning up tables and any messes on the floor thoroughly throughout my time there, but sometimes the servers looked completely unprepared which is understandable with the restaurant’s recent opening.

The few major disparities that Baekjeong holds are its meat and side dishes. Although the restaurant gave a hearty portion of meat and unlimited side dishes, the taste was not nearly as good as I had hoped. As a Korean myself, the best way to know whether a restaurant would be good is the taste and selection of their banchan (Korean term for side dishes). If the banchan is not up to my standards, then it usually so happens that the main dishes are not as good either, which is what occurred when tasting the main choice select of beef. The beef and the marinating sauce did not taste as high quality as other BBQ places and definitely did not match its higher cost either.

Overall, the environment was lovely; however, Baekjeong seemed to be missing the classic Korean culture and unique, sweet Korean taste that I was hoping for, thus lowering my opinion on it. Considering its relatively high cost, the food at Baekjeong was below my expectations. To me, it is more of an average 3.5-star restaurant tailored more for people who are not as familiar with Korean culture and cuisine.