Charcoal

To start, I must say I like Charcoal, they do serve good quality meat to BBQ with a nice selection of Tapas in their picture menu. However, I don't know starting when, Charcoal has becoming my backup plan if Manzo doesn't work out. Manzo is one of my fav. restaurants. I know many people find it very ordinary, but I guess for nostalgic reasons, it will never move down from my list. I grew up eating it. It's almost like having my comfort food in my comfort zone. But sometimes Manzo requires quite a long wait, or it closes on Mondays, or parking is so difficult, so I'll turn to Charcoal. Close enough. 

Literally, it's physically close to Charcoal. Well, not next door close, but around 5 mins driving distance apart. Charcoal is located on Westminster and No. 3 , at that London Drug's complex on the 2nd floor. I don't remember how I found it, but I've been visiting there for a couple years now. The interior is very simple, doesn't really resemble a Japanese restaurant besides the fact that it has a sushi bar. Charcoal is not normally too busy, no reservations is needed, and there's usually no wait.

One thing I love about Charcoal is they have a picture menu ! I think all restaurants should do this - just present a photo album with all the food photos, who cares what are the names, seriously. It's so simple and easy to order like this #illiterate

 

One good thing here is that you don't have to go all BBQ, you can just order 1 or 2 dishes as you wish. And if you don't want to BBQ it yourself and get your hair all stinky, you can have the kitchen do it for you and get it like a regular dish.

So here we ordered 2 BBQ items : 

Beef Tongue 

Premium Short Ribs

Shoooo yummy. They were both really flavorful, tender, and juicy. I love their BBQ sauce too, a little sweet, but that's what I prefer. We also ordered Mentaiko Yaki Udon. I always order this dish whenever I see it on the menu, whereever I go. Again, I love love love Manzo's mentaiko udon, but Charcoal has a pretty good one too.

I decided to try their rolls that day....ummmm, let's just say it was among one of my bad decisions. Well, maybe I ordered a very wrong roll, because it was wrapped with cucumber instead of seaweed. like seriously ? Cucumber ? I thought it might taste refreshing and I might get enlightened by some new flavor, but yea, no, it was just cucumber. 

In general though, I've never had a bad experience at Charcoal. One funny thing to note, it's owner looks exactly like those Japanese yakuza (gang) member. He's dark, bald, tough, and looks angry. I have this inside joke with my friend that everytime we go, we will pretend to be really scared of him. But Guz from Tandoori Kona is worse. Charcoal boss looks like he'll give you a good beating while covering your head with a garbage bag, Tandoori Kona's boss looks like he'll murder you than throw you into a garbage bag.