I had to go and throw some money at Donghae with the recent opening of his Grill5 Taco place in Cheongdam-dong right? I so much prefer throwing money at those guys at their various establishments than you know where else.
Anyway, it’s not difficult to to get to the Donghae/Donghwa owned/whatever Grill5 Taco outlet at Cheongdam-dong. Just go to Apgujeong Rodeo Station and get out of Exit 4 and walk straight. Keep walking straight till you see Burger King, that should be Seolloeng-ro 152 gil (선릉로 152길), turn LEFT and just walk straight. You will be able to see Grill5 Taco on the left side of the street (as you are walking in). Also, there’s a *SJ* on the top of the building name so you know you’re at the right outlet. Then again, there is only one outlet in that area so you can’t get it wrong.
Anyway, Lee Donghae, know that I will always love you as a member of Super Junior… but I cannot go against my ethics and conscience on food. I am Singaporean and we are VERY serious about food.
When I first stepped into the place, I noticed how smoky the whole interior was and how it smelt of cooking oil. The photos below are NOT photoshopped. It has only been resized and watermarked. That is how smoky the place was. It’s not some effect I added.
So we basically walked out smelling of I don’t know what really. Tacos or oil from the fries or something. You can see from the picture above that it was an open kitchen and clearly, their ventilator hoods are not powerful enough/not working properly.
So ok, we went to order.
This is a fandom joke: if Donghae ever cooked, the food cannot be eaten/he will burn down the place. Honestly, I was really a little worried about getting diarrhoea from eating at Grill5 Taco because being a huge Super Junior fan and knowing the history of what they are like, I know that Donghae and Donghwa are not very experienced in F&B so yes, I was genuinely a little worried when I was there. LOL.
Still, I was thinking, it’s a franchise so it should have a certain level of taste standard and quality right? And this is how the food looked like when it arrived:
Looks pretty good right? I can’t say the same for the taste of the quesadillas. Both of them were pretty tasteless. I couldn’t even taste the bacon in the Potato and Bacon Quesadillas. The potato was tasteless as well. Same goes for the Double Cheese one. I thought that at least there’d be a faint taste of parmesan cheese and the slightly salty dough for the quesadillas but no. Just tasteless. Bleh.
The fries were better though. I mean if they messed up the fries, they might as well just close shop right now right?
I actually like the Buffalo Fries as they reminded me of the curly fries from A&W and Twister Fries from McDonalds. The Skinny Fries just tastes like normal fries with cheese sauce (like the KFC version).
That said, we actually ordered drinks as well and the Sprite that I shared with a friend was a dud. Booooo. We only got soda water. Shit. We didn’t get the Sprite syrup. I didn’t know about this till the end of the meal but it was too late to ask them to replace the drink. My friend actually continued drinking the soda water without telling me about it. GAAH!!
Anyway, that’s all about the food. Now, for the toilet. Oh course I have to talk about the toilet, it is important isn’t it?
The toilets are clean and very zen; white and sparsely decorated. However, there were no toilet paper and hand towels in there at all. It was finished when I was using the toilet and it wasn’t replenished by the staff. :-/
So yeah, that’s Grill5 Taco for you. I honestly wouldn’t recommend the place to anyone unless you are planning to hang there for a bit to see if you can spot any of the SJ/celebrities. Go and eat at your own risk. 😉
Still, I’ll give them the benefit of doubt as it is still within the first month or two (I think) of them opening shop. I hope they get their act together and do something about the quesadillas. It’s really bad.
If anyone of you do head down to throw money at Donghae, let me know if your experience is any better than mine ok? 🙂
And finally, just for fun, as I returned the trays to the collection point, Donghwa took the tray from me. I couldn’t help noticing how short Donghwa is. XD I’m 1.6m and I was practically eye level with Donghwa. LOL. I’ll say he is 1.65~1.68m or so. So judging Donghae and his shoelifts at that point. Hahahaha.
So yeah, that’s it from me about Donghae and his Taco Place. 🙂
동해야, 사랑해요! 동해 + 동화야, 열심히 하세요. 화이팅!!