Restaurant Gaya

When in Geneva and craving Korean. This is where it’s at. It’s not cheap, but neither is anything else in Geneva, right?
The Korean food is pretty authentic, with the inclusion of multiple banchan small dishes that was unexpected in Geneva. Quality of the meat was good and despite not having a fume hood over the grill, we didn’t all smell like smoke afterwards. Portions were good and we were stuffed by the end of the meal.
I wouldn’t go out of your way for it, but sometimes you just want some Korean BBQ no matter where you are.

Une découverte en or!!!
Comment bien commencer le mois de mai! En allant s’évader direction la Corée chez Gaya.
Gaya est semblerait-​il le meilleur restaurant coréen de Genève. Je né sais pas si je peux me permettre de confirmer n’en ayant pas testé d’autres pour l’instant mais je peux certainement confirmer que j’imagine difficile de trouver meilleur que ce que j’ai dégusté chez Gaya ce weekend!
Samedi soir dernier était donc une première en matière de nourriture coréenne et je né suis pas prête de l’oublier…
De l’extérieur le restaurant n’est pas forcément très attirant. Le quartier n’est pas le plus mignon non plus (le long de la rue de Lausanne, côté nord). C’est d’autant plus dans ce genre de situation qu’on apprécie Unilocal.On rentre sans craindre d’être déçus, alors que d’instinct (sans prendre en compte les avis d’autres Unilocaleurs) on aurait pas été très attirés à entrer…
Aussitôt à l’intérieur l’ambiance est déjà bien plus plaisante. C’est mignon. Pas incroyablement romantique non plus mais assez mignon pour être heureux de s’y attabler pour la soirée. Etant juste avec une amie ce soir-​là, on s’installe plus au fond vers les tables plus petites mais il y a un joli espace possible pour les plus grandes tablées. En plus, comme le veulent les spécialités coréennes, le barbecue est de rigueur et donc chaque table est fièrement équipée d’un petit grille en son centre. C’est super convivial mais également très… odorant. Il s’agit d’ailleurs là du seul point négatif. Oubliez l’idée de sentir bon quand vous sortirez d’ici. L’odeur ouvre l’appétit mais présage une intense lessive le lendemain ;-)
Les deux plats choisis sont délicieux (riz aux légumes à la coréenne, et Kimchi, THE spécialité, aux légumes/​crevettes). Très épicés de manière générale. Personnellement je pourrais manger encore bien plus épicé (épices addict :-) mais ma voisine de table à dû demander du riz en extra pour pouvoir alléger le piquant… Si vous êtes sensible également, prévoyez donc de faire une petite demande spéciale à la commande…
Avant de recevoir la commande vous aurez automatiquement une petite soupe et plein de petits «starters» en accompagnements du plat principal (ce qui nous fait d’ailleurs un peu mieux comprendre les prix assez élevés des plats). Tout comme les plats principaux, les accompagnements sont tout simplement succulents et la qualité et la fraîcheur des aliments sont indéniables. On va de surprise en surprise et de délice en délice. Rien né restera dans nos assiettes et je réfléchis déjà quand je pourrais revenir…
Découverte gustative inoubliable… et heureusement renouvelable!

I ate here with Korean friend of mine who said its the best Korean game in town. It seemed very authentic to me and she did say some things were. It was nice to have someone who was familiar with the food explain what everything was. They bring out a ton of little dishes full of different vegetables and she was able to say this is… and this is spicy and this is not. We tried the special which was like a large salad with all kinds of squid on top. We mixed it up and there were different sauces for us to add to make it spicy which was delish. I would go back for sure. The menu is large, the website shows a very limited selection. The service was great.

Nice Asian restaurant in Geneva, in particular I recommend the BBQ, it is definitely worth trying. Fortunately or unfortunately the waiters don’t really speak French but mostly English, anyway they did a good job, only problem the ran out of Korean beer last night.
Pricey as almost every restaurant in Geneva I felt my money well spent.

This one of the only, if not THE only Korean grill in Geneva.
Place is very nice, traditionaly decorated I guess, grill tables. Staff is nice and friendly.
I’ve only tried the grill and the bim bim bap.
The grill is great, especially if you are a lot of people. You have the choice between 2 different «grill menu». The only «negative» point is maybe the portion of meat, they used to be bigger, but now you have to order a second plate of meat if you really do not want to get out of there hungry :)
Prices are a bit high, but again this is normal in Geneva for this kind of food/​restaurant

This one’s a toughie. Being Korean, having lived in the US for the past four years, and now doing a short stint in Geneva for a few months, assessing the food of my home country completely out of context is a bit difficult.
So I’m giving it a middle-​of-​the-​line-​A-​OK-​three-​star review.
Gaya is apparently the best Korean restaurant in town. It was definitely «authentic» in the sense that the owners, servers, chef, décor, and food were very Korean. Our table had the pajeon (veggie pancakes) and spicy squid with noodles to share, and I got a kimchi jjigae for my individual meal.
The pajeon was a good size, but a bit flavorless. It would have benefited from MSG-​help, but it was a semi-​business dinner so I refrained from reaching across the table to grab the soy sauce. The spicy squid was pretty good (and I usually don’t even like squid), but the portion was a bit small for a full table. Between six of us, we each got perhaps two chopsticks worth of noodle, and I barely got a taste of the squid. There were only a couple of pieces left by the time the plate came my way, and again, being a business dinner, I chose the smallest piece of squid on the plate (damn Asian etiquette). Then, the individual dishes. Finally! A full dish of my own! I’m not exactly sure whey I chose the most standard Korean dish on the menu, one that you can’t do particularly well or particularly poorly. It was fine, and tasted exactly as it should, but no surprises.
In most other situations, I would have probably returned. Although the food wasn’t particularly impressive, it was definitely standard «authentic» Korean food. But I’d just barely gotten used to the US $ 9 – 12 price tag on a dish that goes for $ 3 – 5 in Korea, and I don’t think I’m ready to stomach the CHF28−32 for the same dish. At least not yet.

Wonderful Korean food, clean elegant restaurant but some of you may find the lunchtime portions a little little!