Taipei City - Honey Pig Restaurant

Honey Pig Restaurant is a new 24hr Korean BBQ place right in the centre of Taipei. Windows wrap around this corner restaurant, allowing you to see other peoples' tables to determine what looks good and what doesn't look to your liking. An even better aspect of Honey Pig? The menu has English on it! For a look at the menu, click on the link >> Honey Pig Menu

On the inside, you're seated on your own table with an extractor fan above each table to whip away that smokey BBQ odour. In the centre of each table there is a hot plate, with which you will shortly be able to BBQ on.

Each table is graced with these small selections of Korean style snacks to compliment your meal. You have two plates of crunchy seaweed, one plate of kimchi (absolutely mandatory for any Korean food excursion) and one plate of a strange candied potato. These were just OK, nothing ground-breaking.

OK, so we went for the pork bulgogi and baby octopus, spicy pork belly, steamed egg and also the fried rice. The pork bulgogi was spicy, but definitely manageable for someone with a moderate spice tolerance. The pork was minced and put into a tomato and chili based sauce. This was probably the star of the meal. The pork bulgogi included 8 baby octopi. Each baby octopus was presented whole, with quite a plain taste, truth be told. But when barbecued they did have a nice crunch and added some texture to the pork mince. 

As for the spicy pork belly, it was simply thin strips of pork belly, in what seemed to be a similar sauce to that of the bulgogi. The pork belly was ok, but it wasn't too dissimilar to what I could buy in the supermarket just down the road. However, being able to BBQ it on the hot plate meant I could get a nice caramelisation on the pork fat.

The steamed egg was nice. It was, as it said in the menu, just steamed egg. It was light, fluffy and it had a good taste. It was seasoned well, and I don't really have any complaints about this. 

The fried rice came around 10minutes after we had actually finished the entire meal. Which was rather strange. It turns out (through spying on other tables) that they had actually just forgotten about our fried rice (consequently spelled fired rice in the menu) until we had to remind them about it. In the end, I would have preferred if they had just not brought it to the table at all. The rice was overcooked, meaning that when it went onto the hot plate it just kind of went into a sticky mush. Within the rice there was a little kimchi, some bean sprouts and also some pepper. The overall taste was tolerable, however, the fact that the rice was overcooked and it arrived after the meal made me think it wasn't worth ordering in the first place.

We came at a busy time, and actually had to line up for around an hour. Maybe, now that it is 24hrs and they have been up and running for a little while, they are into the swing of things and that the service and the quality has improved (somehow). I'm in no rush to return to Honey Pig, but I do like the idea of a 24hr Korean BBQ in the centre of Taipei! 

415號之3, Section 4, Xinyi Road, 信義區台北市110

Xinyi/Keelung Road intersection, Taipei City

Happy Eating!