Since the pandemic started, our family has been finding ways to still enjoy the restaurant experiences we love but at home. We turned our home into a Korean BBQ restaurant, a Fondue restaurant, Bubble waffle/Boba Tea and Authentic Philippine Style Restaurant.
Here are some of the ways we recreated these restaurant experiences:
Having an at-home KBBQ -all you can eat feast is such a fun and easy way to bond with your family and celebrate special occasions. If you haven’t tried KBBQ, it’s a feast that includes several grilled meats and side dishes. Popular KBBQ meat choices used are beef short ribs (kalbi), thinly sliced marinated ribeye (bulgogi) and pork belly (samgyeopsal). Side dishes include fermented cabbage (kimchi), potato salad (gamja saelleodeu), stir fried glass noodles (japchae), spicy cucumber salad (oi muchim).
We ordered two round copper grills from Amazon. You probably only need one grill, however, it is much easier to switch to the second grill versus waiting for the first grill to cool off, wash and reuse. We buy every cooking appliance in Copper because we find it easiest to clean. If you have an Asian supermarket close by (we like 99 ranch or Seafood City), we purchased premade Korean bbq marinades and the beef short ribs. But, you can totally use your own recipe and make your own marinades. This store also had the Korean side dishes (already prepared). So, all we did was marinate the ribs and then grill it.
We absolutely love going to The Melting Pot. The Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant that allows you to cook your own meats and veggies in an elegant atmosphere. Fondue is a dish of hot liquid in which small pieces of food are cooked or dipped. The waiters provide you with several selections of fondue courses.
In preparing our Home Melting Pot fondue set up, I bought two electric fondue pots. You can buy just one fondue pot, but it’s much easier to change fondue courses if you have two. For Fondue Course 1 & 2, I used a recipe from https://youtu.be/juJ8HHjAqaM .
For the Cheddar Cheese Fondue I used:
8 oz of Sharp Cheddar Cheese
½ to 1 can of Domestic Beer
1-2 cloves of freshly chopped garlic
1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons of flour
1 tablespoon of dry mustard powder
The dippers I used:
Broccoli
Carrots
Cauliflower
Green apples
French Bread
For the Mojo Cooking Style Fondue I used:
5 ¼ cups vegetable or chicken broth
¼ cup orange juice (freshly squeezed)
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons of jerk seasoning (I used Mrs. Dash Caribbean Citrus Seasoning)
2 tablespoons of cracked black pepper
2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lime juice (1/2 lime)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
The dippers I used:
Sirloin cubed steak
Chicken cubed
Potatoes
Broccoli
Mushrooms
Carrots