Hong Depot

Had lunch there today. Food was fine but service was terrible. Waited about five minutes before we were seated when the restaurant was near empty. Waiter couldn’t tell us if the sparkling wine was dry or sweet, when we asked if he could find out he said «how am I supposed to find out?» and didn’t open the bottle for us when it was put on our table. Had to wave down staff for any service. Ordered the banquet but weren’t given any vegetables as was mentioned on the menu. Asked if kimchi pancakes were gluten free and were told they were and my friend ate one, was later told they contained wheat flour causing my friend to get sick. Won’t be back.

**Warning: This review contains anecdotes and vegetarian propaganda.** :P
This cute little place serves all your favorite Korean foods: BBQ, Bibimbap, dumplings and more! I was pleasantly surprised to find lots of vegan options on the menu. My vegan dumplings were delish and my compadres said the beef (self-​grilled) was good but overpriced. (Hey, yet another reason to go veg: it’s almost always cheaper to dine out!)
There was just one thing that detracted from our dining experience which was admittedly out of the restaurant’s control. And let’s name him Richard. Well, Dick for short.
See Dick curse. Dick made his presence known at the table next to us when he said to the waitress rather loudly and with exactly zero shame: «This is shit. This is not Korean food. You should be ashamed of yourself.» (Insert cringe here.)
See Dick complain. He kept complaining to his dining partner and even went so far as to shout over to our table «Don’t do it. Don’t order.» We casually ignored his commentary.
See Dick belittle. He later went out of his way to approach an older Korean guy who I can only assume was the manager and/​or owner and then when it was time to pay at the register, berated the cashier. I don’t think he was sadistically satiated until he yelled at every single employee in the place.
See Dick contradict himself. The strange part is, despite how allegedly terrible this food was, none of it was sent back and all of his plates were picked clean. Umm…
Moral of the story: DON’T BE A DICK.

I ended up at Hong Depot purely by chance. I was scheduled to attend a birthday dinner at a Korean BBQ joint in the valley with 6 others only to rock up and find that the restaurant was mysteriously closed. After brainstorming options we decided to find something in west end, figuring we would have more luck there of securing a table for seven with no notice.
Hong Depot was more than happy to accommodate us, ushering us inside without too much of a wait. the restaurant was clean, not at all pretentious and not too noisy. The menus were confusing to read, some menus having large black lines through certain menu options, while others did not etc, I also thought the prices were quite high. The chicken I ordered was $ 17.50 for 200 grams of chicken thigh fillet marinated in soy sauce. No rice or seasonal veges included, so I sprung an extra $ 8 for a plate of veges forgoing rice because of the price.
The waitress was prompt in taking our orders and the food came out pretty quickly too, I’d say ten or so minutes later. Unfortunately my dish did not arrive and nobody came to check that everything was alright. We ended up flagging down a waiter and explaining to him that I had not received my meal. He came back five minutes later to inform me that we had indeed received the chicken and proceeded to try and take my sisters bowl of chicken from her. After explaining again that we had ordered more than one bowl, and that I was waiting for mine he wandered off for another ten or so minutes, eventually coming back with my food (a plate of raw chicken) and a mumbled apology. By this stage I was a little miffed as every body else had nearly finished their meals but, what can you do.
The chicken tasted fine, exactly as you would expect a grilled chicken thigh to taste like, though the marinade didn’t really add much to the flavour. While I waited for my food to show up, I picked at some of my boyfriends Spicy Pork Bulgogi and I gotta say, the marinade was awesome. Definitely a dish I would recommend. The sides ordered by the rest of the table were average, nothing to write home about and the Kim Chi wasn’t the greatest either.
With a beer, I ended up paying $ 35 but I wouldn’t say I was satisfied. About half an hour after I got home I was feeling pretty hungry. Considering the wealth of other options Brisbane has in the way of Asian BBQ, Hong Depot just doesn’t cut it it for me. If you’re in West End there’s so many other great options to choose from, I’d prefer to spend the same amount of cash and be satisfied and fulfilled, not hunting for a sandwich half an hour after I get home from dinner.

Solid solid solid. Real briquet fire and great tasting meats. Sides and sauces were also delicious. Oh and not the mention the music. Techno Korean and ballads all in one. Décor is also cool. Certainly will be back.

The West End of Brisbane has a great and Authentic Korean BBQ restaurant, I thought I would give it a go, the Hong Depot, and I was lucky. There’s a not too complicated menu to choose from and a small selection of wine and beer.
From the Entrée list, I choose to try the seafood pancake and it was delicious.. Other options were cold noodle salads and dumplings.
For the Main Event, the BBQ I chose to have the Bulgogi (Spicy seasoned fine sliced beef) and some vegetables, These get dropped onto a mesh grill plate at the table (note: do the vegies first)
It all came with the usual Korean side dishes of Kimchi, fish cake and seaweed noodles.
All in all, along with a bit of wine, it was a thoroughly tasty and enjoyable dinner

I’ve passed this Korean restaurant plenty of times, as it is just across form the West End Market building (the one that houses Coles), but haven’t tried it until now, possibly because of the already numerous Korean places located in the city. I remember noticing this place because they were doing a 10% off your bill on rainy days promo. Amusing.
All of the grilling tables are in a canopied outdoor seating, which can get a bit chilly during the winter, but I suppose you can always toast your hands by the coal pit. When I arrived, I was famished after a good workout, so we ordered the kimchee pancake, which looked unexpectedly thick and crispy — not at all what I expected. It didn’t look like a typical Korean pancake, but it was just as good! It had a nice crunch on the outside, with the perfect amount of filling on the in. The sauce that came with it complemented it quite well — but I’m not quite sure this is authentic. Either way, it was delicious, and I shamelessly ate three pieces! We ordered the beef ribs and the spicy pork for the grill — and while the marinades were tasteful (although the pork was a bit spicy), overall it was a bit pricy for the portion. The meat also tasted like they used a tenderizer, although they may not have — but again, small portions for the price! It was also hard to tell if the meat was cooked cause of the dim lighting…
The sides were also a bit stingy, as well as the rice. There was a little handful of rice for three dollars! Yikes! Other than that, the servi

Well, I’ve had a look over the other reviews, and I’m going to rock the boat a bit here.
First up, it does have a nice ambience, and all the waitresses were lovely. It looks a little weird with all the exhaust fans hanging down, but I guess that adds to the quirkiness.
We had a range of different meals, some ordering the starters/​tapas along with mains and sides.
I went with a main and side. My streamed rice side was brought out with the starters, so by the time the mains were delivered it had turned into a cold, hard lump of rice.
You cook the meat yourself over a little brazier inside your table. The heat was lovely on a chilly night, and the exhaust fans are used to create more heat apparently.
Well, the meat was delicious and well cooked, if I do say so myself. Would have gone down a lot better if my side had not gone cold.
I guess I could, or should, have ordered a starter, because I came away hungrier than when I went in. That said, for the $ 24 I paid, someone somewhere else could have cooked the meal for me, and I would have come away satisfied.
I wouldn’t pan the place, and I guess it might be a nice novelty to take a date to, but I suspect I would need to spend upwards of $ 60 to walk away satisfied, and for that money you can do so much better.

With PSY a.k.a Gangnam Style fever sweeping Australia it was only fitting that this internet sensation’s frighteningly catchy song played as I enjoyed my first Korean Bibimbap experience. Yes, clearly I’ve been living under a rock. So, with the Gangnam Style over and back to a more dulcet K-​Pop overture, I settled in to have the Hong Depot menu explained before settling on a chicken with black rice Bibimbap. You can choose what meat (chicken, beef, pork or a tofu vegetarian option) and rice (white, black or a combo of barley and white) goes into your meal. It was delivered to me before I could practice my Gangnam Style routine.
And side-​note. I don’t believe breakfast should be standard same old, same old. Sushi is, for example, entirely appropriate breakfast fare. Now I can happily add Bibimbap to this list. It’s delicious meat with hearty black rice combined with fresh vegetables and topped with an egg is the perfect solution to another boring hum-​drum breakfast of toast or cereal. But, I digress, it was lunchtime and I was in a love-​at-​first-​taste haze. For $ 11.90 I was spoilt to a ridiculously quick take-​away lunch option that was not only healthy but filling. If these guys serve breakfast, I’m there.
Now if I could just figure out how to type and spell Bibimbap without being tricked each time…

I went to Hong Depot for lunch and had a bulgogi lunch special for around $ 9. I arrived to the restaurant to the amazing aroma of garlic and sesame, which was a very good sign!
The meat was fresh and flavoursome, some of the best bulgogi I’ve had in a Korean restaurant in Brisbane so far. I was also delighted that you can eat as much kimchi as you like!
Apart from the food, Hong Depot’s just a nice place to chill out — I used the free wi-​fi to get some work done on my laptop, listened to super cool K pop playing through the stereo and admired the pop art print from Ikea that was hanging in the bathroom! The handmade signs around the place are adorable and the staff were friendly. I’ll have to come back for dinner to get the full Korean BBQ experience, plus sample the booze — the raspberry wine advertised on the wall looked pretty good!

I’ve been intrigued by this place ever since I saw the spiraled extraction fans hanging from the ceiling. Despite that being the first thing I noticed the first thing I’ve ever bought there is coffee. My maiden voyage to the espresso counter that fronts onto the street was a failure. I’d stopped by at about 3pm and the girl who came to ‘serve’ me made it known that she was not able to operate the espresso machine, and that unfortunately the barista was on a break… for the next few hours.
I’m glad I tried again a couple of weeks later though, otherwise I wouldn’t have found what’s quite possibly the CHEAPEST QUALITY TAKEAWAY COFFEE IN TOWN! It was only $ 2.50 for a small cup, and the barista told me that during weekdays from 7−11am they have a happy hour special when it’s only $ 2. Sweet!
She also let me know that in January 2011 they will start doing some breakfast options for dine-​in and takeaway, such as Korean toast. Apparently it’s a combination of toast (duh), cabbage, egg and ham. I’m intrigued.

Hong Depot is a relatively new restaurant to open up just a little outside West End. It’s easy to spot along Melbourne Street, as the building itself is quite eye-​catching. I wish I had they design vocabulary to explain why it draws your attention, it may have something to do with the open-​air dining area with these bizarre brass exhaust instruments hanging over each table. Either way, the restaurant somehow draws you in.
The menu at the Hong Depot is a little limited and expensive, however the food itself was simply delicious. Having never tried Korean BBQ I was quite impressed by the flavors, which seemed to take a lot from both Western and Asian cuisine. A big shout-​out needs to be made to the wagu beef, which was simply to die for. A wide selection of entrees are available and I recommended that diners share their meals here, as it really is amazing being able to try so many different types of foods in a single meal.
The service at Hong Depot was so sweet. The waiters seemed really enthusiastic about the food and the restaurant and were willing to discuss their preference and explain the cooking methods. In fact, one waiter instructed our table on how to create these funky little sticky rice balls. He created a really great atmosphere at our table and built a rapport with all of us. Long story short, he laughed at my jokes and that’s the quickest way to get into my good books. Ultimately, the superb waiters and their bubbly enthusiasm improved the entire experience.