Dr. Sushi & Bbq Portland

They have VERY recently updated their menu to highlight many more Korean dishes, which is fantastic! There was a significant lack of Korean restaurants in Portland until now. I think this was a great move. The location and ambience is great (big thumbs up for having their own parking space on 23rd) and I loved their green tea--delicious and high quality. (I'm an amateur green tea connoisseur.) I am also vegan, which can make going to Korean restaurants a bit challenging since a lot of the cuisine has hidden fish/meat bases, and they were very accommodating. I was recommended the stone pot bibimbap with fried tofu instead of the usual beef and it was PERFECT. It came in a sizzling hot stone bowl with tons of vegetables that kept my bibimbap HOT throughout the entire meal and cooked the rice at the bottom of the bowl to a lovely browned, slightly crispy texture that is known as Noo-Roong-Ji (). It was one of the best bibimbaps I've ever had. If you've only had regular bibimbap, I truly recommend trying the stone bibimbap. It makes a world of a difference. I feel like I'm dining in a different era eating from the traditional stone pots. You cannot compare it to the bibimbap you may have tried at one of the food carts downtown. It is on another level. If you eat meat, you would enjoy the BBQ dishes very much. The galbi (marinated short ribs) or daeji gui (marinated spicy pork) are the most popular. The best thing about Korean BBQ is eating everything instantaneously hot off the grill. I also REALLY like asking for a vegetable only shabu shabu w/o the meat here--one of my favorite Japanese hot pot dishes. It comes with noodles too and can just say yummm... The spicy rice cake dish (dukbokki) was awesome as well. Hot, sweet, and spicy. I only ate the rice cakes in it, but I was very tempted to eat the fish cakes and dumplings as well. If you're a sushi freak, I can tell their sashimi is top quality. My mother enjoyed hers thoroughly.