KOCHI Japanese BBQ and Beer

The first decision a table makes at KOCHI Japanese BBQ and Beer is which side of the menu to cook from. One side is all-you-can-eat yakiniku, where the grill sits in the table and the meal is something a group builds itself, cut by cut. The other is a smokehouse and a-la-carte kitchen that does the slow work for you — brisket pulled after twelve hours, beef ribs after nine. Pick the grill and dinner becomes a project. Pick the smokehouse and it becomes a hand-off. Most restaurants offer one way to eat; this one on Lundy's Lane runs two kitchens against each other and lets the table choose which kind of night it wants.

The yakiniku side reads like a shopping list for a long evening: beef brisket and kalbi short rib, rib finger strip in Japanese BBQ sauce, AAA striploin with nothing but salt and pepper, gochujang-glazed salmon, clams with sake and butter, mussels in chimichurri. Vegetables get the same attention as the meat — sweet corn under togarashi butter, roasted sweet potato in honey soy butter, house-made kimchi, a bowl of bibimbap to round it out, and one soft-serve cone per person to close. The a-la-carte side fills the other half of the appetite. The smokehouse runs a half-pound of AAA brisket, St. Louis pork ribs at five hours, a beef plate rib at nine, and a half Peking duck brined, five-spice rubbed, and finished with seasoned soy. The snacks pull from everywhere at once: beef tartare of AAA tenderloin with wasabi shoyu mayo, cured egg yolk, and shrimp chips; birria tacos of smoked brisket braised in consommé; Japanese street corn with kewpie and lime. For the table that wants it all, the Holy Smoke Platter arrives with every meat and every side, and dessert lands somewhere familiar — chocolate lava cake over vanilla soft-serve, or a classic crème brûlée under its cracked sugar crust.