Village Square Cafe

Village Square Cafe is a popular brunch place in Washington state and has multiple locations across the state. It opens early in the morning and remains fully occupied until it closes in the early afternoon. The restaurant offers variety of breakfast meals such as sandwiches, omelet, and French toast. As we were visiting Seattle this weekend, our friend suggested to have brunch together at Village Square Cafe and catch up.


We got to Village Square Cafe Redmond location by 9:15AM and there was already a line at the front of the restaurant. We put our name down and was told the wait is about 25 minutes, which was not bad. At the front of the restaurant, there was a breakfast bar with about 15 seats. This allowed people to just sit down whenever a seat is available.

Once we sat down at our table, the waitress brought cups of coffee for us. We ordered egg Benedict, French toast, omelet, and veggie sandwich.

The Egg Benedict came with 3 pieces of house made pancakes. The egg yolk was silky smooth with amazing spice on top of it. The Veggie Sandwich came with fruit platter that had strawberry and banana. The omelet came with toast which we could choose to be white or brown. We were also given jams and butter for the toast. The omelet had ham, onion, and pepper in it. The omelet was cooked perfectly and soft. The omelet also came with hash brown. The hash brown was good, but seemed to fall apart as we tried to pick it up to eat it. The French Toast was one of the best we have ever had. It came with 6 pieces with fruits and whipped cream on top. The toast was very soft and tender and sweet.

Overall, Village Square Care did not disappoint. It was one of the best brunch place we have been to. The wait time was not bad either as people tend to finish breakfast quite fast. Unfortunately the restaurant is only available in Washington state and not in Oregon.

Kkiko Korean BBQ

Kkiko Korean BBQ is a Korean restaurant specializes in table top barbecue as its name suggests. The restaurant is located in Beaverton where a lot of Korean restaurants are at. The restaurant also had outdoor sitting area to enjoy the breeze of wind at night. The review of this restaurant has been spectacular and shows that the restaurant is extremely busy during the dinner hour and towards the late night. We took our car to the dealership for annual maintenance and had to wait for 2.5 hours. Thus we decided to try Kkiko Korean BBQ since it was within the walking distance from the dealer.


We got to Kkiko Korean BBQ by 1PM and there weren't many people in the restaurant. Not even 10 tables were occupied. However, we still had to stand at the door for 10 minutes along with 2 other groups of people. This was because there was only 1 person working on the floor and she was so busy and couldn't get us to sit at a table even though there were many other tables available.

We finally sat down at the table with a barbecue cook top. We were given menus and cup of water, but waited for a very long time before the waitress came by to take order. By the time we made our order, it was 15 minutes later.

Instead of choosing the 2 persons barbecue combo, we opted for short ribs and slices of Angus beef. Soon after we placed our order, side dishes and rice bowl were soon delivered to us rather quickly. The side dishes were the usual Korean restaurant side dishes together with a big bowl of green garlic. Short ribs and a place of Angus beef were soon  delivered to us as well. On top of the Angus beef, there were slices of onion, 2 sticky rice cakes, and a butter to wipe the grill with.

We placed the Angus beef and onion on top of the grill right away, but we felt that the grill was not hot enough yet. It was cooking very slowly and did not make sizzling sound. Thus we turned up the strength of the fire a little to heat it faster.

The Angus beef were sliced with 5mm of thickness. It was very easy to barbecue these and it was very juicy. We liked it a lot. Mixing the Angus beef together with green garlic was a delight. The green garlic was a great help to soften the taste of grease.

There were 4 pieces of large short ribs on the plate and these short ribs cook quite fast. We loved the short ribs a lot. It had both the fatty part and the lean part of the pork. Mixing it with rice and green garlic was the best choice.

The barbecue sticky rice cake was an interesting addition here. It was soft after cooking on the grill and taste just like S'mores.

Overall, Kkiko Korean BBQ offers authentic Korean barbecue experience. The downside is that it was expensive. It would cost around $60 for 2 people. Also, we hoped that the owner of the restaurant could try to improve its service by hiring more people so that people don't have to wait for so long to get the food.