No, it’s not a joke, this Korean Food "booth" in the Food Court at Zion Market is really called Happy Meal…..automatically puts a smile on your face doesn’t it?
Happy Meal came recommended by Denver, based on price and portion size, and Cathy, based on the same value criteria, plus She mentioned they used to give out little "toys" when they first opened up. So one evening a few weeks back, I had done some shopping at Zion Market, and my stomach and I decided to have a "Happy Meal". The prices at Happy Meal are very reasonable, and come with a good selection of panchan.
The best was the seasoned squid on the bottom of the photo above. Here’s more.
Overall, a nice, though pretty routine selection.
All this, along with a bowl of fairly bland seaweed soup, comes with your meal. Which in this case was the Bulgogi Box($6.99/lunch, $7.99/dinner).
I had wanted to order the Spicy Pork, but "no pork today…" A pretty large portion of Bulgogi, rice, a green salad with sesame dressing, and 2 mandoo(Korean Dumplings), along with the panchan made for quite a large amount of food for $7.99. The mandoo tasted like packaged frozen stuff, and the salad was pretty much routine. The Bulgogi was quite mild in flavor, and the thin slices of potato and onions mixed in with the beef, almost reminded me of a stir fry. Not great, but well worth the price.
The usual drill at Happy Meal, is to place your order at the counter, pay, and have a seat. The counter person will first bring you your panchan, soup, and drink; than later drop off your main course. This can be a major factor during a busy lunch hour, as I found out on my next visit. Even though it was quite early for lunch (1115am), every table except one(which after ordering and paying I occupied), with plastic number cards on them. Very few customers actually had food in front of them, and I really felt for the Young Lady working the counter, both taking orders and serving each table twice. I shoulda brought a book, it took me 30 minutes to get my food, which started with the usual panchan and soup:
Do you notice something about the panchan? Check out the portion size…..
The Young Lady explained that they accidentally gave me panchan for two, but that was okay since I had to wait so long.
The Japchae(cellophane noodles) tasted really good, everything else was pretty routine, though the radish("Mu") kimchi tasted a bit too sour and off. Still this was quite a bit of food, and I still hadn’t gotten to my main course. Which was the Dolsot BiBimBap($6.99/lunch, $7.99/dinner).
The sizzling Stone Bowl(Dolsot) was brought to my table along with a squeeze bottle of Gochujang, I let the bowl sit for a minute to develop the wonderful crust, and dug in. The toppings were pretty routine, fernbrake, ginger, bean sprouts, minced meat, all topped with the perfect egg. Sorry, not the best photo I’ve ever taken, so let me mix it up for you….
I really enjoy the various textures of the crusted rice, the veggies, and so forth. The flavor wasn’t anything special and none of this is going to stand the culinary world on it’s ear, but you really get what you pay for(In this case $6.99) at Happy Meal. This ain’t no lousy same chicken with a different sauce food court garbage. So after my Happy Meal, with the happy panchan mistake, I was looking for a cool dark place to lie down. Happy, happy, me………
Some Notes: As I mentioned, service may be on the slow side during peak hours. I didn’t notice any difference, except price between lunch and dinner. The food and portion sizes are an excellent value, especially lunch.
Happy Meal
4611 Mercury St
San Diego, CA 92111
Thanks for the recommendation Denver and Cathy!
Now if only all Happy Meals were like this…! 🙂
Hey Kirk:
Two things: You should try the dwenjang chigae and the kimchee chigae. Both are pretty good.
Also, I was recently at the food court in the San Diego Superior Court, and there is an “Asian Fusion” place serving your typical teriyaki chicken bowls, sushi rolls, chinese food…and pho! The pho is not very good, but I think the fact that pho is served at the court house in itself is amazing.
Looks pretty good. I wondered if there was a place where you could just fill up on panchan. Maybe if they keep making their 2-for-1 mistake? Hmm…
Wish I had a cool cafe type place lie that which served cheap, authentic food and with panchan too!!! I think some panchan is better than no panchan! Panchan is like sex… even when its bad, its still pretty good… hmm I can’t even remember which movie that line came from now …
Hey Kirk,
Man, I love those little eateries. I need to put up a review of my favorite Japanese one. It’s really similar to Happy Meal.
“This ain’t no lousy same chicken with a different sauce food court garbage.”
That last comment was awesome. I had a run-in with one of those places during my last trip to Vancouver. I think I let my guard down ’cause I figured there was no such thing as bad Chinese food there. Boy was that a wrong move.
– CP
Yum! I haven’t been to Zion Market for a good long while–now I have a great excuse!
Hi Kathy – You are so right!
Hi JKP – Thanks for the recommendation – I think I’ll save those for the Missus, She enjoys it more than I. Looks like Pho is hitting the mainstream.
Hi Howie – Yes, some days panchan and rice…would be very, very nice!
Hi Rachel – Yes, sometimes I think I take panchan for granted. I should appreciate it more.
Hi CP – I’ll take one of these little eateries, or Asian Food Courts over those mall types any day.
Hi mizducky – Well, I may just see you there!
Kirk,
Excellent review! Spot on.
Wierd that they were out of spicy pork that day. I’d have to agree on the BBQ Beef. I used to order the BBQ Beef regularly, then about 6 months ago, it seemed that they changed their recipe so the beef is pretty bland now, which is why I now order the Spicy Pork.
The pachan has always been generous, especially for a food court type place.
I’ve been going to Happy Meal for lunch time regularly for a couple years and the service is usually pretty good. But yeah, there are times (not many) where it’s packed and the poor lady would be running around. Nice cozy place if you qant a quick Korean fix. MMmmm, i think I’ll make my usual jaunt over there this week.
Hi Denver – I’ll get the Spicy Pork soon, hopefully! Thanks again for the recommendation.
Next to Happy Meal is a little spot called “Tonkatsu.” I ate there today, and the food was pretty good! Crisp (non-soggy) tempura, flavorful tonkatsu whose battered outside adhered to the meat rather than sliding off, and a nice portion size for the price. If you get a chance to go there, I think you might like it.
Hi Fred – Believe it or not, I’ve been there:
/2006/09/20/crispy_tonkatsu/
Ah, quite right. I had forgotten all about that.
FYI, Happy Meal changed ownership and it is now called Happy Family. Different menu now and no spicy pork. I went there about ago and was sooo disappointed (service was slow, panchan was scaled back and the Bulgogi was average). So now I guess I’ll have to go to Crisp Tonkatsu (which was spretty decent).
Hi Denver – I did notice that the place has been painted, and the menu looked different. I’ll update once I have a chance to check it out. Thanks for letting me know!