The most personalized meals ever
One of the attractions of going out for Korean barbecue or hot pot is the ability to completely design your perfect dish — literally from soup to nuts. OBA Korean BBQ & Hot Pot on South Willow Street in Manchester, which opened in mid-December, sets its customers up to make fundamental decisions about their meals, from the ingredients in their dishes to how they are cooked.
According to OBA’s Francesca Cardeo, customers will select ingredients for their meals and cook them themselves at their table. Each table is fitted out with a grill for cooking proteins and recessed heating elements where each customer can cook their hot pot.
“Everyone gets to pick their own hot pot base, which is a soup base,” Cardeo said. “And everything is raw. You cook everything yourself. And so say I pick the tom yum [Thai soup base], it will come out to your table, you turn the button on the heating element and it will bring it to a boil, and then you cook all your meat in it, and then your vegetables. Everyone does it differently. Some of the heating elements are stronger than others, but I will say that last night they brought my hot pot out and it was boiling within two minutes.”
“When I take people’s orders, I see if everyone wants to pick their hot pot first,” Cardeo said, “because I like to get the broth out first and get it going, even though it doesn’t take that long. And then I like to bring them any meat they’ve ordered. And then I do the fish and the extra stuff, followed by the ramen and the vegetables. And then I’ll flip, and then I’ll do the barbecue stuff.”
Cardeo said this style of dining gives groups of people an opportunity to try new foods.
“I had a table earlier of six people and they all chose their own broth and they all tasted each other’s broth. Then they know the next time they come which broth they want.” She said sometimes everyone at a table will want to grill the same meat, then customize their meal afterward. “If it’s a large table, and if someone wants bulgogi [a Korean cut of beef], we’ll ask, ‘Does anyone else want bulgogi? And then I’ll put in the amount of people that I have at the table. Then, when the meat comes out, it will all be on one tray. And then everyone shares it.”
Cardeo’s favorite combination of ingredients would be difficult to order off a menu.
“My favorite for the hot pot is the beef belly,” she said. “Then I get fried tofu. I get shiitake mushrooms, I get rice cakes, and then tofu skin, bean curds, and bok choy. That’s my favorite.”
Even though most customers associate tableside grilling and cooking with beef or pork, there are dozens of protein options to choose from, from different cuts of meat, to Spam, to baby octopus, chicken, shrimp and other, more vegetarian-friendly, options. “We do actually have a lot of vegans, and vegetarians that come in,” Cardeo said, “and they have a ball with the tofu, and stuff and all the vegetables.”
OBA has been designed around the concept of personalization; while the focus is on grilling and hot pot, there are different side dishes to customize with as well.
“We have a hot spot at the buffet with egg rolls, crab legs and all different kinds of hot food,” she said. “And then we have salads, kimchi, seaweed salad, that’s all included, once you pay your base price. So you can either do just hot pot, you can either do just Korean barbecue, you can do both. We don’t do takeout, and we don’t let people take food home, though.”
OBA Korean BBQ & Hot Pot
Where: 371 S. Willow St., Manchester, 932-2168, obakoreanbbqhotpot.com
Hours: seven days a week from noon to 10 p.m., and until 10:30 on Fridays and Saturdays.