Biergarten

Biergarten is a German fusion bar located in Los Angeles, California. A couple of friends invited me to join them for dinner one night, and naturally, I can't turn such an offer down.

It's a typical bar feel on the inside. I personally am not a fan of bars (don't really consume alcohol much these days), but I'll still approve of the place if the food's good. On our visit in mid-March, we basically transformed into pigs and noshed on a ton of food.

While waiting for our food, my friends went to town on a pitcher of Bear Republic Racer 5 (7% ABV; India Pale Ale).

A server brought a small dish containing dijon mustard and this kimchi-sauerkraut side dish. It actually tasted quite good. I could easily see that put on a hot dog or a burger.

We got a two-sausage Wurstplatte ($15) served on a sizzling cast iron pan with onions and bell peppers. Delicious, juicy, and cooked perfectly.

The Chosun Burger ($11.50) includes a premier beef patty, sauteed kimchi, gochujang aioli, pickled daikon, grilled spam, and dijon mustard inside a King's Hawaiian sweet sandwich roll. Another home run. I personally liked the crunchiness of the pickled daikon and the salty-savory spam. A bit of tang from the mustard and kimchi, some sweetness from the roll and the aioli. The beef patty was again perfectly cooked to about medium.

Biergarten offers their take on Poutine! This $11 appetizer starts with a generous amount of hand-cut fries, topped with German cambozola cheese and short rib gravy. They pile even more short rib meat on top. Can you say foodgasm?! The short rib was outstanding. If you like comfort food and blue cheese in any way, this will be your go-to dish while downing a cold one.

Biergarten's take on Poutine!

For variety, we also got the Spicy Rice Cakes, known as Ddukbokkee ($13). It's a stir-fry dish containing Korean rice cakes, vegetables, potatoes, fishcake, and spicy Korean red pepper paste. For me, an addicting blend of spicy, sweet, and savory. The rice cakes act like a thick, chewy pasta noodle. Real delicious stuff.

"Ddukbokkee" (Spicy Korean Rice Cakes)

The Grilled Asparagus ($7.50) is served with some garlic aioli. It was honestly the most underwhelming of the dishes we got in terms of appearance, but we still went to town on that, too. Aioli was well-prepared. Real thick asparagus here, and I probably would prefer thinner stalks.

One of my friends also got the Biergarten Kalbi Tacos (three for $8.50). I didn't get to try this, but I still snapped some pictures. You can also get the tacos with spicy chicken, spicy pork, or spicy tofu. Looks so good.

By this point, I was incredibly stuffed. Wish I woulda saved room for dessert, which includes Tempura (deep-fried) Ice Cream.

Then again, I should note that I had been to the Kogi truck and Luigi Ortega's earlier in the day. Yeah, just a few tacos and quesadillas, and an entire pizza. No biggie.

We had a great time here, and I definitely recommend Biergarten if you're in Los Angeles! 8.5/10