One of the country’s hottest Korean chains opened in the Bay Area

It was hard to hear the story’s punch line over the loud Korean pop music. Last week, I dashed to the Westfield Valley Fair mall to eat at Baekjeong, the super-popular Korean barbecue restaurant from Los Angeles, which opened its first Bay Area outpost Wednesday. On its second day of operation, my friends and I joined the rowdy crowd of eager guests who, like us, had waited two years to be there.   

Baekjeong has officially joined Westfield’s impressive restaurant lineup that features Mastro’s Steakhouse, Din Tai Fung and a three-story Eataly just across the way. The restaurant’s grand opening was delayed after the chain first announced its Bay Area expansion in 2021, but the postponement seemed to only deepen the excitement — if the long lines outside were any indication.

Weekends have already been booked out through September, according to Samuel Kim, Baekjeong’s director of culinary operations. You’ll have better luck snagging a table during the week as long as you don’t mind waiting upward of three hours for a table.

Lunch is a good bet, too.

“Having reservations is something new for Baekjeong,” Kim, who had flown up from Los Angeles, told SFGATE. “Anyone who’s ever experienced Baekjeong in Southern California [knows that] we’re walk-in only. … We’re trying to employ the reservation system because we want to let people plan ahead. But walk-ins are important because we’re in Westfield Valley Fair, and there’s a lot of people that come to the mall to shop.” 

The restaurant holds half of its dining room for walk-ins, he added.

Despite having lived in Los Angeles for three years, I had never been to the Baekjeong locations in Southern California. And though I wasn’t new to Korean barbecue, nothing had prepared me for the sheer entertainment ahead. To get to Baekjeong, guests must climb a flight of stairs to reach the second floor of the massive Korean restaurant. At the top, my party of four headed to the bar for a round of drinks before we were escorted to our table.

Every waiter wore a headset and donned black rubber gloves that matched their all-black uniform. As we entered the dining room, the waiters paused and shouted in Korean, “Hello, welcome to Baekjeong,” in perfect unison.

We joined a couple at an eight-seater that had two long hoods hovering over the hot round grills at each end. A selection of banchan surrounded the grill: classic kimchi, pickled pink radishes and spicy cucumber slices in tiny bowls. Above my head were narrow lights that showcased the Baekjeong name with its signature green, yellow and red logo. The bright lights wove throughout the entire restaurant like grape vines attached to the exposed black ceiling. I almost felt like I was at a nightclub had it not been for the smell of grilled meat embracing the space.  

We perused the menu, which was broken up into sections that featured appetizers, noodles, stews, and the showstopping beef and pork cuts. Our server suggested the Hodong’s Favorites Combo (priced at $76 for a small order or $126 for a larger portion), which came with thinly sliced beef brisket, boneless short rib, pork belly and marinated pork steak. The small combo, enough to feed three to four, also included soybean or spicy kimchi stew. We were told to order the $17 japchae — a vermicelli noodle dish served with beef bulgogi mixed with wood ear mushrooms — from the appetizer menu. 

My friend Justin, an LA native and Baekjeong regular, said we had to order the Lunch Box menu item, priced at $11, which was found in the rice dish section. Unlike many of the other menu items featured, the Lunch Box had no description, but Justin stressed that the dish was one we shouldn’t overlook. The Lunch Box is an ode to Korean school lunches, Kim shared later, and comes with plain rice, a whole fried egg and kimchi that’s served in a flat metal tin.

Like other aspects of Baekjeong, the dish is an event. After the server showed us the contents of the metal tin, he closed it and began to vigorously shake the box before our eyes. His colleague was on standby waiting for his cue, much like a wrestler entering the ring. When it was time, he gently slapped the front of the metal tin a couple of times before smirking with satisfaction. When the lid was removed, the whole fried egg we had seen moments earlier was now broken into pieces and mixed evenly within the rice. We immediately broke out in oohs and ahhs.

“Our version of this lunchbox is not meant to be eaten separately,” Kim said. “We shake it up because we’re always about being interactive. We could have easily shaken it up in the kitchen and then presented it that way, but you lose the guest engagement.”

I couldn’t agree more. The otherwise-simple rice dish was flavorful on its own, with a pop of nori in every bite, but the spectacle itself made the dish stand out. 

Baekjeong takes its meat very seriously — so much so that you can spot a team of skilled butchers carefully working behind a glass wall in the dining room. The butchers wear white coats inside a chilly, temperature-controlled room where they slice pieces of USDA prime beef and premium cuts of pork.

“The butcher room is usually in the center of each of our restaurants,” Kim said. “The restaurant’s name is ‘butcher,’ so the butchers should have a central showcase room in the middle where people can watch. Not many Korean barbecue restaurants do it.”

Baekjeong opened its first U.S. restaurant in Los Angeles in 2012. Since then, the restaurant has grown in popularity and expanded to more locations in Southern California, as well as a location in New York and one in Washington. Kim said that the Bay Area will likely gain more Baekjeong restaurants in the future but stopped short of sharing a specific timeline. 

Back at the grill, our server layered thin slices of brisket over the grates. As the beef cooked and began to take a light brown hue, the server poured a whisked egg mixture into a slot on the side of the grill. The egg fluffed over and resembled a French omelet once it was removed. On the other side of the grill was another slot with bubbly cheese mixed with yellow corn. I reached over to pick up a flat, square rice noodle, which was served among the small banchan dishes earlier, and wrapped it around a tender piece of brisket before taking a bite. It was simply delicious. The meat was perfectly cooked and paired well with the assortment of banchan or could be enjoyed by itself.

We moved along through the cuts of meat until the marinated pork — the last of our series — sizzled over the grill. Don’t be fooled by the small Hodong’s Favorites Combo. That was enough to feed my party of four, and we had arrived famished. Still, if you happen to muster up an appetite for more meat after savoring the four featured in the small combo, you can add individual beef or pork cuts from the a la carte menu. Besides the delectable grilled meats we consumed, my group unanimously loved the spicy kimchi soup that was packed with flavor thanks to the spicy broth and pieces of pork belly. 

After a hefty meal, I finally understood why wait times are so long. It might be largely due to the fact that it took us nearly two hours to wrap up dinner from start to finish, but somehow time flew by. Between the decadent cuts of meat and funky Korean tunes, I found that I didn’t want to leave. But alas, we left Baekjeong feeling pleasantly full and geeking out over trying the Bay Area’s newest pseudo-restaurant club. I can’t wait to go back.  

Baekjeong, 2855 Stevens Creek Blvd., San Jose. Open Monday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; Friday, 11:30 a.m.-midnight; Saturday, 11 a.m.-midnight; Sunday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.