Honey Pig Gooldaegee Korean Grill

Dissipating so many Korean BBQ in Vegas and LA, our friend who we stayed with in NOVA suggested we try Honey Pig as our farewell dinner. Walking in, it's very typical of most KBBQs. You either get a family crowd or drunk as f**K crowd. But in Annandale, where do people get drunk? I guess Honey Pig is a good place to start, since they do offer Chum-churum which apparently is more difficult to purchase than going to a Korean market. Alcohol laws are way more stricter on this side of the country! Anyways, the food was ok, nothing really sparked my senses whether by taste, smell, or sight. What I do like about KBBQs are the waitresses and their attentiveness to every diner, but on this particular night our waitress seemed a little ticked off. As usual, I was hungry for the greens and constantly requested our salad to be refilled, which for some reason didn't go well. Whenever we asked for refills or more of something, it  always came with faint grunt, the kind you make when you don't want to please your customers. Service could, would, and should have been more efficient and friendly if we had a different waitress. Food was good but not great, and service FLATLINED! One more thing, the ambiance felt like a garage with marble flooring and metallic walls. They are open 24/7 so A-OK!

Per Ray Oldenburg's "The Great Good Place," human beings must live in a balance of three realms: the home, the workplace, and the inclusively sociable place. Honeypig is my third place.

During college I frequented Il Mee exclusively. It was cheap and it was all you can eat. La dee da. Given Christine K's insistence that Honeypig was better, I decided to try it out, inwardly thinking, neigh, such a place could not exist.

But discerning taste and a seemingly never-endling supply of livingsocial/groupon deals have kept me on this side of Little River Turnpike. The meat is fresher and the flavors are stronger. Spicy pork belly, LA beef rib, bulgogi, and chul pans are your best bets. The seafood pancake and mandu are great also if you want to balance your protein with carbs and fat.

Honeypig is the perfect third place because it works for any crowd and any occasion. Friends, family, coworkers, mortal enemies: go to Honeypig. You got a promotion, you got fired, you're having a baby, you're dead: go to Honeypig. The carnal act of cooking slabs of raw meat and then consuming them savagely seem to be able to elevate any mood and bring any collection of individuals closer together.

Service is generally friendly, with varying degrees of warmth. If you're with a Korean "in the know," random extras like steamed egg and kimchi chigae seem to materialize out of nowhere (all gratis). One time a waitress asked me if I was Korean and after I said Chinese she made a bitter melon face (it looks like it sounds). Now I just sprinkle "ahn yong" and "gam sam ni da" into conversation and when they say anything else I just smile and nod. Even though I could very well be agreeing to trade my firstborn for a plate of hot intestine. *third place problems*

Honeypig's one misstep is that the metallic walls and blaring Korean music do nothing for the ambiance. It's literally a K-Pop concert inside of a tin can. Though I quite like the song where the Korean girl says "I don't need a man, I don't need a man" 100x times and nothing else.

I have been here way too many times to count and at all times of the day haha

This is definitely somewhere you want to bring out of town people. Open 24hrs, a lot of people like to come here after clubbing in DC. They are pretty busy all the time. I have been here for lunch, dinner, and late night...always busy. Dinner time it gets packed and they give out numbers so they call it when it's your turn.

I love the pork belly! It's pretty good, on the fattier side, my favorite. Side dishes are average. I like their bbq because I like the way it is marinated. Kalbi is good too. I would not get the bulgogi because you can just get that from Hmart and cook it yourself. The taste is nothing special here.

It's loud in here and they play the latest kpop singles, which I also like so I keep coming back.

They server soju, beer, and makkoli (rice wine).

If you don't keep ordering though they will try to push you to leave because there's a line. It's not good if you want to linger and chat.