The food court at Century City mall is one of the best. It may have some chains, but it is a long way from the fast food filled food courts of the world. Strangely, there is some turnover in restaurants, but they always seem to be replaced by a similar restaurant with the same name. Case in point: Sorabal, a Korean place, was replaced by Bibigo, a – you guessed it – Korean place. Sure, Bibigo is a different concept from Sorabal, but my point still stands.
You may have heard of bibimbap, which is essentially a Korean rice bowl. Bibigo takes the rice bowl concept to the customization levels of burger places like The Counter. You choose your bowl type (salad, regular rice bowl, hot stone rice bowl), rice (white, black, brown and white, barley and white), meat type thing (bulgogi beef, teriyaki chicken, chicken breast, spicy pork, tofu, shrimp) and finally a sauce (kohot, ssam, sesame, citron soy). Oh, and you can also add a fried egg for a buck, which I think is kinda cheap because the egg is an essential part of these bowls in my mind. The bowls also come with mixed veggies.
I opted for the hot stone bowl, black rice and bulgogi with the kohot sauce (as the name would imply, it was the spicier sauce). Then I took it to the next level by adding an egg and asking for no veggies. Both of these were great choices.
My veggie-free bowl looked great and the egg was just about the only thing that gave it color. The egg, by the way, was perfectly runny and a delicious addition to the bowl. The black rice was a great choice, as was the kohot sauce, which really enhanced the flavor of the whole bowl. The bulgogi beef, though, left a bit to be desired. Not only would I have liked more of it, but it just didn’t taste as good as some bulgogi I’ve had.
Nonetheless, Bibigo is definitely a worthy addition to the Century City food court. It is heads and shoulders above its predecessor and I will probably be back at some point to see what other combinations of Korean riceyness I can concoct.
