We’d first heard about Wagyu House from D’s colleague who had thoroughly enjoyed her time at this all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ restaurant in Croydon. D loves meat, so we made our way there a few weekends later for $30.00 per person.
We’ve had a late breakfast and skipped lunch in anticipation of an early dinner so that we can avoid peak hour. The plan worked: we arrive at 4 pm at a rather quiet restaurant with the added bonus of a free can of soft drink for all customers before 5 pm on weekends.
After paying at the counter, we’re given a table number that we bring across to the seating area in a separate building opposite. After receiving our coals, we head back to the first building to check out the meats on offer.
The restaurant is also a functioning butcher with a wide variety of meats on offer. Indeed, more than we’ve seen at any Korean BBQ restaurant.
With a name called Wagyu House, there’s no shortage of wagyu beef available. There’s seasoned and un-seasoned to suit every taste, as well as beef offal.
Here, we have a rolled up beef steak of sorts, some beef chops and pork neck.
We’re not particularly keen on the bigger pieces of beef, finding the smaller cuts are more tender. The pork neck is tender, though.
There are also thin slices of fatty wagyu beef as well as wagyu beef sausages, beef ribs, and bulgogi beef.
The thin slices of wagyu beef are deliciously moreish – tender and juicy and quick to cook.
The beef ribs are deboned, making for small pieces of tasty meat – meat on the bone is always more delicious.
They even have plastic trays of sealed ‘wagyu and Angus beef’ available. The meat is elevated on a cushion of air created by cling film, so its less generous than it looks.
The wagyu is higher quality with better marbling than the meat in the bowls. The large pieces of meat take forever to cook.
We’re disappointed at the huge pork steak (far right of tray, far left on grill) that’s snuck into the tray and not indicated on the packaging. It’s unseasoned and definitely pork: it cooks to a pale pink, almost white colour.
In terms of seafood, there’s spicy calamari and teriyaki calamari. There’s no shellfish.
We enjoy the teriyaki calamari, but the spicy calamari did not deliver on the heat at all, which is surprising for a Korean restaurant.
There’s plenty of marinated meats including spicy pork and beef and teriyaki pork and lamb.
We’re big fans of teriyaki marinated meats. This here is teriyaki pork and teriyaki lamb.
Both the lamb and the pork cook reasonably quick and are tender and flavoursome. We also enjoy the enoki mushrooms, which cook quickly to a pleasant sweetness.
There’s also a large selection of side dishes, including pineapple, pickled cucumber, corn and egg salad, as well as slices of jalapeno and wedges of lemon. In terms of vegetables, there’s bean sprouts, lotus root, seaweed and pickles. And of course, there’s kimchi and onions.
The hot side dishes are noodles, fried rice, fried dumplings and deep fried vegetables.
We’re not fans of most of the side dishes, though we enjoy the sweetness of the canned pineapple. The lotus root is covered in a sweet honey like sauce, while the noodles lack flavour and don’t have the chewy texture I enjoy from potato noodles.
The offerings in the fridge, however, are more enticing. There are huge chunks of watermelon, grapes, figs, pears for fruit. For vegetables, there are slices of eggplant, sweet potato, potato, capsicum, pumpkin, onion, cabbage and mushrooms. There are also various fruit salads.
D particularly enjoys the fruit salads with apple at Korean restaurants and this one is no exception, although the tomatoes were a bit of a miss. We were surprised by the ‘fanciness’ of having figs on offer and enjoyed the novelty thoroughly..
The watermelon comes in huge chunks, not slices. That’s fine, as we just cut up mouthfuls with a fork.
By the time we leave around 6 pm, the restaurant is packed with long queues outside waiting for tables.
Before I finish up, I should note that the layout of the restaurant is interesting with the meats situated in one building and the side dishes and seating located in another building. The buildings are separated by their carpark. This is the main building where you pay and pick up meats.
This is the side with side dishes and seating.
This is the carpark in between. It’s a bit odd carrying plates of food across the car park but there’s not much traffic as the carpark is closed early on in the night as it becomes full.
There’s a small window from the kitchen where food from their a la carte menu is carried across.
D and I thoroughly enjoyed our time at Wagyu House. Next time, we’ll skip the big pieces of meat and stick with the smaller cuts. At $30.00 per person, the selection of both the meats and side dishes is much wider than we’d encountered elsewhere, with staff replenishing stock throughout the afternoon and evening.
Wagyu House is located at 668-670 Parramatta Rd, Croydon NSW 2132.