Yesterday I had the delicious honor of dining with food critic John Kessler at an authentic Korean restaurant.   Han Il Kwan is located on Buford Highway, which is a famous strip of ethnic restaurants here in the metro Atlanta area.  It is best experienced by someone like John Kessler, who knows the best places to eat.  Although I had met John before in a more social setting, I never had the pleasure of his epicurian expertise.  The Blogrollers Lorraine Robertson and Christie Crowder rounded out our perfect table of 4.  The team over at Everywhere arranged our lunch as the first “Eat ‘N Tweet” with Mr. Kessler and our twitter friends (tweeple, I like to call them) joined our lunch by following the hastag #eatntweet.

As soon as we sat down, the adventure began.  Since the rest of us hadn’t eaten Korean BBQ like this before, John ordered for the whole table.  Dish after dish steadily arrived and soon our table was covered with food.  Our waitress was attentive, helpful and funny, but the star of our meal was the food–very delicious!  John went easy on us and ordered interesting dishes, but nothing too wild that we would be wary of trying.   Everything was yummy–except for the tiny, whole dried fish; I was brave enough to taste one and no thank you, I won’t eat that again; that tiny fish had the flavorful punch of a very big (smelly, fishy-tasting) fish.    There were many different dishes, but my favorites were Hae Mul Pa Jun (Korean style seafood pancake), Goon Mand Doo (pot stickers), Gal Bi Gui (marinated short ribs) and Dak Bulgogi (marinated chicken).   Since the meat was grilled right at our table, it was hot and fresh.  Much of the food was spicy–which is good for me as I like spicy–and all of it was flavorful.   I have to bring my family to this restaurant; they love ethnic food and will enjoy the whole experience.   Thanks John for introducing me to a wonderful new way of eating!

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