Sparkled Beauty

Last month, I showed you a local incrEDIBLE picnic, today let's go up the hill to check out E-Pin (meaning First Class) Korean Grill House on Barrington Street, as my second Big Day Downtown journey. The restaurant has opened for a while now, being the very first Korean BBQ place in town.

Last week, they introduced a new menu, doubling the amount of items in the All You can Eat category with sushi and more ready-to-eat Korean dishes, and we were there for dinner, Squirt and I.

As much as I love the grill, it takes time for the food to cook, and the newly added items are perfect to fill in the wait time.

First arrived at our table were the starters. Across the top were chilly sauce, garlic, green chilli and soya sauce. We had kimchi, kimchi pancake and edamame to munch on. They were yummy. Lots of salad and munchies to choose from.

We got our grilled going with:
- Portobello mushroom, with ground pork and green onion sprinkled on top - it became really juicy after cooked, really a hit for me
- Bulgogi - a must
- Short ribs - not liking these
- Marinated tofu
- Squid (the 2 white sticks), and
- Sliced sweet potato - really yummy grilled, trust me.

I like the fact that there are vegetables for the grill (not all Korean BBQs offer them) - bell peppers, eggplant, zuchini, etc. The sweet potatoes are my favorite on the grill, one serving was plenty. Well, after the bulgogi of course - we ordered 2 servings of it. There were other meats on the menu, haddock too. To go with the grilled items, you can have steamed or fried rice, or lettuce leaves, soups, etc.

And to kill time, we had our sushi:
- Spicy crab roll
- Green Dragon roll
- Avocado roll, and
- Sweet potato roll.
Plus miso soup and chapchae on the side.

Given the fact that sushi is new to the menu, I still regret to say that the sushi rice was a little too dry to my taste, and as a result, it fell apart a little too easily. The fillings were fresh though. The best one on the plate was the sweet potato roll. The sweet potatoes were soft inside, crunchy outside, perfect "snack". I wanted to try the tempuras and teriyaki too but didn't have enough belly space, lol.

The chapchae was a bit heavy on the onion (and salt) and light on the noodle. Squirt normally likes her chapchae but she left all the onion behind with this one.

And another favorite item on the menu: deserts, chocolate ice cream for Squirt and black sesame ice cream for me (they ran out of green tea ice cream). The chocolate was just what you expected it, but the black sesame was interesting. It was smooth as any ice cream but you can feel the slightly grainy taste on your tongue. Nothing unpleasant though.

Not pictured was another serving of the mint chocolate chip ice cream, lol. We did want to try the menu thoroughly, you know. No need to mention, we left the restaurant stuffed to the gills.

The price: $26.99/ adult, half price for kids for the deluxe menu with roughly 70 items. There were options to have just the All you can eat on the grill, or just the All you can eat sushi, if you prefer.

All in all, the new menu was exciting to try, as we had so much more to choose from. Other than a bit more attention to the sushi rice, the place got things down right. In the food scene of Halifax where All you can Eat BBQ is not the most popular, I enjoy what E-Pin offers. My co-worker already decided to take me there soon to try the food out herself.