**********Unfortunately, This Restaurant Has Closed Down**********
Recommended by: We’re huge fans of Revel and Joule from the wife/husband team of Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi, but had never been to Trove in Capitol Hill. We were in the mood for some Korean BBQ, so off we went.
Description on the Trove website: Korean barbecue is at the heart of Trove, the ambitious culinary playground Yang and Chirchi opened in 2014. Trove BBQ’s dining room holds tabletop grills on which diners can cook their own deeply flavored meats.
Neighborhood/Type: Capitol Hill
What we ate/drank: Pork Kimchi Dumplings w/mapo sauce, Meat Tower for 2: Beef sirloin with salted black bean cure & pork belly with garlic chili cure. Stoup Pale Ale.
Comments: We knew about Trove since we are fans of Revel and Joule and remembered when it opened, but we were shocked that it was over 4 years ago. Well, we finally made it out here. First of all, Old Village Korean BBQ, this ain’t. We’re in Cap Hill, so of course we’re dealing with a very chic place.
Trove seems to be split in 5 different compartments. You have the truck that is attached to the building that serves parfait from the truck window. Although this section was closed when we visited on a Friday night. The entry leads you to the second compartment, which is a noodle bar with a few seats that are right in the store front on Pike. At first we thought this was the entire restaurant and thought, “Wow, this place is tiny”, but when the host appeared, he took us back to the main bbq area. Although, they don’t have the built in bbq grills into the table at this section, I did see that they had portable grills that they could put next to your table if you wanted bbq.
Before reaching the main dining area, we passed by the third compartment, which is their bar area that’s got a dark romantic vibe to it. The forth compartment is the main dining area which has the tables with the bbq grill built in. This is wear we ate. The fifth compartment is a slightly elevated private room area.
For starters we ordered some drinks and the Pork Kimchi Dumplings w/mapo sauce. One thing I notice about these dumplings is that there was no wasted space between the wrapper and the filling of the dumplings. Normally, there is the filling and then a bunch of space between the wrapper when the filling inside normally shrinks when it’s steamed. Not only are the dumplings on the bigger side, I really feel like you get your moneys worth when the dumpling is all the way full of pork.
As our main course we ordered the Humble Meat Tower that included beef sirloin with salted black bean cure and pork belly with garlic chili cure. This was perfect for two of us, but oh how I wish we had more people so we could have gotten the Baller Tower Plus for 6 people, which include pork collar, beef tri tip, leg of lamb with cumin and Sichuan peppercorn rub and duck with carmelized plum sauce. We’ll definitely have to come back with more people or bigger appetites.
With the Meat Tower comes three dipping sauces-a jalapeno sauce, a seafood sauce and a miso sauce. The Meat Tower is literally a tower of meat. It also comes with leafy veggies so you can wrap your meat and eat ssam style. We did use the lettuce to wrap our cooked meat, but we also ordered rice to eat that way too. So you get your tower of thinly sliced raw meat, they provide some tongs and you place the meat on the grill. Once done you use a pair of scissors they also provide to cut up your meat, put in your lettuce wrap, put a little bit of the sauce on and devour. You can cook the meat at your pace, so you can take breaks in between.
Some might think, “I came all the way to this fancy restaurant in Capitol Hill and I have to pay to cook my own meal?!?” But there is something fun about cooking your own food, especially when you’re out with groups. And like I said, you can eat at your own pace, which is nice. What you’re really paying for is the spices/marinate and quality of the meat that you can’t get anywhere else.
We really enjoyed our meal at Trove, but if we’re being honest, it’s a distant third to Revel and Joule . I know it’s not fair to compare since Trove’s niche is Korean BBQ which is very different from Revel and Joule , but we consider those two to be two of the top 5 in all of Seattle so our expectations were high. All in all, it was fun and tasty and we’d love to come back to see if we could take on the Baller Meat Tower so we can get more of a variety.
Ratings:
Atmosphere: 4.25
Service: 4.25
Food/Drinks: 4.75
Bang for the Buck: 4.60
Overall: 4.50
Locals Only Factor: “Locals Only” grading-We’ll assign a grading as to how “local” a place is.
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- Well known or Touristy. Most locals don’t go there unless they have business dinners or visitors in town.
- Most locals know about it
- Locals “in the know” know about it
- Only those who live close by know about it.
- You’re in on the secret. Don’t tell anybody!
Servers recommendations to visit in the future: Our server mentioned Il Corvo as her favorite lunch time pasta restaurant.
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