Ever since Gogijip shifted its restaurant and combined with a few other Korean restaurants into the Hansik Dining Collective, I have been wanting to visit them again. I decided to pop by during one of the weekends without a reservation, and they were fully booked out
Since they were sharing space under Hansik Collective, we were directed upstairs to the Kko Kko Na Ra space, where we could also order from Gogijib
The space on the 2nd floor was spacious with a very bright and cheery outlook, which suits the original restaurant. The 2nd-floor restaurant was meant for Kko Kko Na Ra, the fried chicken restaurant, so I feel the look is quite a match. The staff will ask if we are here for fried chicken or barbecue, and direct us to seats with the exhaust pipe, since not every table has the pipe to remove the smoke
The side dishes on the 2nd floor of the restaurant differ from those on the 1st floor at Gogijib since the restaurant on the 2nd floor is under Kko Kko Na Ra. I do find the side dishes quite different and refreshing, and the additional side dish bar also provided some common side dishes we see in barbecue restaurants, like the pickled radishes, spicy and sour soup with seaweed, cabbage salads, as well as both fresh and fermented kimchi
I saw that they had Korean sashimi, so I ordered a platter to try out. Unlike the ones I tried in Korea, they had Korean pomfret fillets, which were boneless and priced at SGD 35. Slightly pricey, I had my expectations raised, and it somehow did not meet my expectations. The meat was firm and fresh, but it was not as sweet as the other kinds of Korean fish. Just like cooked pomfret, the meat tends to be more bland and less crunchy, which is the unique texture and taste of Korean sashimi fish. They did provide the vinegar gochujang, which helped to add a layer of flavour to the fish
We ordered pork collar and pork belly, and it took a while to be delivered to our table since they had to bring our order to the 1st floor of the Gogijib restaurant and wait for them to prepare the meat. The cuts of the meat are great with nice marbling on the collar and equal separation of fats and lean meat on the belly. Each order also came with 2 big slabs of oyster mushrooms. We were doing the cooking ourselves, as there were not many staff on the 2nd floor who could do the barbecue for us, and we ended up burning some of the meat
Overall, the environment was nice as it was not as smoky as a full-blown BBQ restaurant. I did, however, wish that someone could help us cook the meat, as it was quite wasteful to burn quality meat. The flavour of the pork was good, and we did order 2nd helpings, and I did like the help yourself side dish bar with the fresh Kimchi and pickled radish
Address: 33 Tras St, #02-01, Singapore 078973
Opening hours: 12 pm to 1 am
Bear Travels . Bear Eats . Bear Cooks 