seoul restaurant

One of the several restaurants that was closed during the Great Austin Sushi Crawl is Seoul Restaurant & D.K.'s Sushi Bar on South 1st near William Cannon. After hearing reports of Monday night disco and karaoke, we had to check it out.

The food was quite good, and the prices decent. I started off with negimaki, which was excellent -- the best I've had in Austin since the heyday of Kyoto II, which used to have absolutely amazing negimaki. This wasn't quite up to those standards but the best I've had for a couple years. The sushi was decent; the yellowtail was very good, the salmon decent, everything else about par. A large sake here is similar to Korea Garden; it comes out in a large teapot and is significantly larger (and better value) than most other large sakes in town.

The real experience of the night came from D.K., the owner/chef/disco star/KJ, who was roaming around the restaurant in a huge afro wig, pimp suit and sunglasses. To say this guy is a character is a huge understatement. He talked to every table in the place, and at about 8 started up the karaoke, during which he would stop every couple of songs to crack really crude jokes. There are not many people who could pull off a lot of the humor he used, but he had us on the floor repeatedly.

As for the karaoke, the song list was pretty weak despite D.K.'s repeated reminders that it has 3,500 songs on it. Nevertheless, it's also D.K.'s policy that you only get one song per night unless you're "really &*@!ing good" so it's more of a dinner-and-karaoke place than vice versa. D.K. also has a gong (pictured) which he uses to gong people who have overstayed their welcome on the mic, which turned out to be just about everyone who sang. The upside is that if D.K. gongs you he also buys you a sake bomb.

I can't overstate how ridiculous D.K. was. He got totally drunk on sake bombs, was doing crazy disco dances during karaoke songs, made some of the least tasteful jokes I've ever heard, bought at least 20 sake bombs for customers, cussed like a sailor, grabbed the asses of several restaurant patrons, and was generally the most hilarious restaurant owner I've ever witnessed. We found him terribly funny, but I think easily offended and/or old people would not find him amusing.

We're definitely going back.