Eating Out - Korean

Kathryn's selections: corn, peanuts, egg, cucumber, edamame, bulgogi, and spicy sauce.

Rice Bar (Korean)

To say that Rice Bar is a Korean restaurant is probably doing a disservice to the Korean cuisine. Korean food, generally, offers a wide array of ingredients and cooking methods. Rice Bar, on the other hand, offers two things: sushi and bibimbap. And it looks like most everyone comes for the bibimbap - a sort of salad made of rice or noodles and topped with a number of vegetable or meat options.

Observations

• Rice Bar is pretty convenient for us, only a few blocks from home and work, but somehow we've never really noticed it. This doesn't seem to be a problem for others. It was tough to get a table at lunchtime, and even more folks were getting lunch to go.
• Rice Bar is set up like a Subway or Chipotle. You pick your base layer (rice, noodles, or lettuce), and as you pass along the bar, you can select from the toppings. If customization isn't your thing, there are a few predefined selections as well. We decided to risk it and tried our hand at coming up with the perfect bibimbap.
• We both really, really liked this place. The food was fresh, tasty, and pretty quick. Also, it was incredibly filling. I'll definitely be back for lunch but only when I'm super hungry.

I had the far less colorful bowl of bulgogi, carrots, bean sprouts, crispy onions, radish salad, and egg.