Yun Tan Gil doesn’t serve the typical cluttered, colorful Korean meal. Indeed, they pointedly ignore rice and an array of other dishes native to the cuisine. Yes, dishes will pile on your table as servers bring out the sides. But these are condiments. Vegetables can be hard to find, apart from kimchi—and the gentle lettuce leaves necessary as a capsule for the juicy, acrid sensation of grilled meats.

The restaurant takes its Korean barbecue mission seriously. Grills serve as a functional centerpiece for each table. Servers fill these with glowing coals, which sear rich pork bulgogi or strips of beef. Complex marinades release earthy sweet and spicy flavors in various guises, peaking here, scurrying into the background there.

But that’s it: barbecue. The restaurant has an industrial feel, a byproduct of their attempt to bring urban block party ambience together with Korean family grilling to a shabby strip center—it’s a difficult space to define in a few words: casual and vaguely familiar, yet also distinct and quite foreign (though English menus are available). All of this is to your benefit. The soju selection seems rather commonplace, by comparison.