Sam Hawk

Where: Sam Hawk Korean Restaurant, 660 N Freedom Blvd, Provo

Who Went: Chelsey and Owen

Number of Visits: 1

What We Ordered: Beef Bulgogi and Jop Chae

What It Cost: $23.00


What We Thought:

I just have to start out this post with a huge disclaimer -- of all types of foods, I really do not know that much about Asian foods. I have been hesitant to write about any because people who know what really is good and authentic will just make fun of me and realize I'm totally clueless with many ethnic foods.

But even though I don't necessarily know what is authentic or true to the country, I still think I have a pretty good idea of what tastes good, what good service looks like, and what a pleasant restaurant experience is. Plus I checked with some of my Korean friends to see what they thought, so I have a little more credibility!

We were seated rather quickly and got our food pretty fast. Before bringing out our entreés, our server brought out two giant glasses of water (seriously large, I was expecting super spicy food!) and six different little side dishes and 2 pots of sticky rice. It was a little overwhelming for us first-time Korean food eaters, and we didn't really know how to eat each item...but it still tasted good! Apparently Sam Hawk is one of the few places that makes their own kimchi, which is pretty cool, and basically I just tried lots of different combinations until I decided what tasted good!

The first thing I thought when I received my beef bulgogi was -- "Wow, that is a lot of meat!!" I was impressed with the size of the entreé, and loved the flavor. The meat was pretty tender, flavorful, and steaming hot! It was served with romaine lettuce on the side, presumable so you can make a little lettuce wrap kind of like this:

But after getting food poisoning from the lettuce wraps at the Rainforest Café on our honeymoon, I've had a mental/physical block against lettuce wraps, so I pretty much just ate the meat straight up. Yeah, I'm carnivorous that way...And the dish was super good in that way!

Owen got the noodle dish, Jop Chae. These noodles are commonly nicknamed "Glass Noodles," were translucent, and were unlike anything we've ever tasted, texture-wise. They were smooth and fun to bite into, and tossed with a great medley of vegetables. The noodle dish was very filling, and we loved the unique flavors and consistency.


What You Should Do: Give it a try! We originally were trying to go to dinner at a Mexican place called Chunga's that night, but it's apparently closed, so I remembered a recommendation from our restaurant survey (click link or see on sidebar of page) and decided to give it a try! We were pleasantly surprised, and left the restaurant satisfied and excited to try more Korean food. As small as Provo is, there are tons of great opportunities to try food from other cultures, and we would definitely recommend this restaurant.

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