If there’s one thing the owners of Koen, a new Japanese barbecue and izakaya spot in Blackstone, want you to know, it’s this: Don’t expect an all-you-can-eat buffet.
That’s because Brian and Inez Choi, who opened Koen in July, want to focus their Japanese and Korean spot on quality.
The equipment in the Japanese barbecue side of the restaurant, Inez Choi said, is high-end, and they want both the experience and, in particular, the beef that dominates that side of the menu to match.
During my two visits, one for dinner at a Japanese barbecue table and a second time for lunch on the sushi, ramen and rice bowl side of the dining room, I never longed for a buffet. Our barbecue-it-yourself dinner was quality and fun. It was better than our lunch, though a few Korean bites, inspired by Brian Choi’s South Korean heritage and some made with his family recipes, did satisfy us.
Koen is the Chois’ third restaurant in Nebraska. They run another location of Koen in Lincoln near 27th and Yankee Hill Road, plus Kinja, which serves sushi, near 70th and Pioneers Blvd., also in Lincoln.
The Chois told me that, so far, a lot of Omaha diners have said they aren’t familiar with how Japanese barbecue works, or haven’t tried it before. The Chois are right — Omaha doesn’t have a cook-your-own-barbecue spot quite like this one. The closest I can think of is Hot Pot 88. The main differences are that at Hot Pot 88, which is a Chinese restaurant, you cook your food in broth. At Koen, you cook it straight on a grill, not so different from the steaks you might have grilled this summer on your Weber.
I think Japanese barbecue is a lot of fun, and the servers at Koen do a good job of making sure guests understand the menu and know what to do. Our server walked us through the various selections of meat, seafood and vegetables. Diners can choose from a pre-fabricated plate or an a la carte selection sized to feed anywhere from one to three or four diners.
Matthew and I settled on the Koen Premium, which is priced at $88 but includes an absolutely enormous amount of food: miso soup and a basic salad with Japanese ginger carrot dressing; yaki-shabu bibimbap, Korean fried rice with beef served in a hot clay bowl; lobster and crab rangoon; and shrimp tempura all are included as appetizers.
This could feed three people or maybe four.
The main portion includes several cuts of beef, most marinated or featuring some kind of sauce. The lineup includes teriyaki ribeye, boneless short rib, miso-marinated skirt steak, garlic soy top sirloin and beef belly with umami seasoning, plus broccoli and white mushroom caps. A small piece of beef fat is included to rub over the grill grates so the meat doesn’t stick as it cooks.
We also wanted to try Korean corn cheese, which is priced separately on a list of available sides. The a la carte menu includes additional cuts of beef — the Chois said the menu is beef heavy because, after all, this is Nebraska, and most diners prefer to grill beef over other proteins. That list includes filet, zabuton wagyu, ribeye and kalbi in a Korean marinade. Next time, I’d try a few of those.
I found most of the appetizers to be tasty and well-executed. Tempura shrimp was hot and super crispy. Though crab rangoon has never been a personal favorite, the sweet, fruity sauce with this one was good. I’ve noticed more and more local spots pairing mango or other fruit with crab rangoon, and it’s a trend I like. The Korean bibimbap, tossed with a nice amount of charred, thin-sliced beef, was good, though a touch sticky. Miso soup was surprisingly flavorful with a rich, salty, warming finish.
The corn cheese is good, more basic than the other version I’ve had in Omaha, at Koji, in Countryside Village. Its flavor is unusual, sweet from the corn and savory from the mayonnaise and cheese, and the dish is fun to eat.
Inez Choi said she and Brian thought beef-loving Nebraskans would enjoy Japanese barbecue, and so far, that’s proving correct.
“At first, people got intimidated by the grill, but we worked on educating them and trying to make them comfortable,” she said. “Once they realized it’s not hard, it’s fun, the concept got accepted. In Omaha, people are very adventurous. They’re like, ‘Yeah, let’s do this,’” she said.
The Chois have visited a Nebraska cattle ranch, and do get some of their beef from local producers through Greater Omaha Packing, which specializes in Midwest beef.
Matthew and I enjoyed the lineup we tried. One thing that’s nice about grilling your own dinner is that you can cook it to any temperature you like: I cooked most of mine to a nice medium rare, while Matthew left his on the grill a touch longer to reach medium. The marinades and sauces on each cut had different finishes and flavors; particularly good were the short ribs and the miso-marinated skirt steak. A salty note on the teriyaki ribeye worked well with that fattier cut, and we did get a hint of garlic from the garlic soy sirloin.
All in all, it was both more food than we could have possibly finished. It is expensive, but I think the value proposition is good considering the portion size.
Another day, I met a girlfriend for lunch at Koen, and we sat on the side of the dining room without the grill tables. The dining room feels high-end, with pops of bright green and hot orange, lots of greenery and faux trees throughout the space and interesting light fixtures. Inez Choi, who is from Bali, Indonesia, said the space and colors are inspired by her favorite flower, the tropical bird of paradise.
We sampled from the main menu, including sushi, ramen and a different version of bibimbap, the Korean rice bowl.
“Whoever names these rolls has a sense of humor,” my friend pointed out, and she’s right: there’s a “hot mess” roll, a “sex on the beach” roll and a “wasabi mami” roll, which made us chuckle. Inez Choi told me later she names them all, plus some of the cocktails, too.
The rolls were mostly basic, fresh and good but not breaking many rules. A yellowtail roll was good, with a flavorful citrus sauce, as was a California roll stuffed to the brim with crab.
The one creative exception was a hot roll we picked off the appetizer menu, the flaming tiger. It comes served on fire inside a foil tent. The diners are meant to let it smoke for a few minutes, then open the foil and dig in. It’s packed with ingredients: shrimp tempura, cream cheese, spicy crab mix, avocado, cooked shrimp and torched Japanese mayo togarashi, furikake, sweet soy and sriracha.
My friend really liked its smoky, charcoaled finish with layers of cool and warm flavors, though she did think it was a bit too heavy on the cream cheese. I didn’t, but realize it might appeal to others, and it definitely packs a presentation punch.
I did enjoy the dolsot bibimbap, a Korean rice bowl served in a hot stone pot called a dolsot. This time, the rice had better texture, and the beef bulgogi had plenty of flavor. A spicy red sauce comes on the side, and I used about half of it on my bowl. It’s great mixed with the yolk of a soft-cooked egg. This is one I’d definitely recommend, and would order again.
A bowl of miso ramen was probably the biggest disappointment. It didn’t have the layers of flavor and deep umami we both generally expect from a good bowl of ramen, and though it had plenty of ingredients, the flavor, for both of us, fell flat.
We tried both cocktails and a mocktail off the vast drink list during our two visits. I liked a straightforward Japanese old-fashioned, made with Japanese whiskey. I also liked an alcohol-free Cosmopolitan, called the “Cos-no-politan,” that came served in a tall coupe glass and even without alcohol had a layered, spicy finish.
I asked the Chois how it has been going with the ongoing construction in the Blackstone neighborhood. They said they meant to open their restaurant a year ago, but delays mean that they instead opened in the height of the work on Farnam Street, which is right outside their door.
“We’re not giving up,” Inez Choi said.
She said the restaurant has a door on both the Farnam Street side and the Harney Street side (I used both). She said they encourage diners to park in the Blackstone parking garage, which is just two blocks from their Harney Street entrance. I did that the day I visited for lunch, and with the first two hours free in the garage, paid nothing.
Koen is bringing something totally different to Blackstone. I think the Japanese barbecue spot, in particular, will be popular with diners, and if you haven’t tried it before, you should. It’s certainly trendy, at least in Omaha, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to envision Nebraskans embracing quality meat and the fun experience for the long term.
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