I think Korea is renowned for its Yakiniku or grilled beef, but we Japanese also have it from time to time. There are Yakiniku restaurants called "Anrakutei", "Manyuutei" and this "Takarajima" in my neighborhood. I've heard that Americans like to hold a BBQ party at home, and I've also taken part in BBQ parties in the past, but only several times. I think this is because not all the Japanese have BBQ grills, and we basically think grilled beef should be usually had at a restaurant.
There are 3 restaurants of this chain "Takarajima" or Treasure island in my neighborhood. Its grilled beef sets are very reasonably priced, and you can have a kalbi set with rice, soup and soft drinks for only 9.7 dollars. "Kalbi" is marinated beef short ribs in Korean soy sauce.
We were offered seats at the table at first, but we noticed they were in the smoking area. So we asked the waiter if we could have seats in the non-smoking area and we eventually settled at these "Zashiki" seats. You should sit on the floor with your legs folded here.
I'm sure you're already familiar with this "drink bar". As I told you before, you can have unlimited refills of soft drinks with this machine without bothering the waiters, since you have to refill yourself.
And besides the soft drinks, you can have two kinds of soup whose price was included in the set I ordered. I had this egg soup. The other choice was "Wakame (seaweed) soup".
The two things you see on the nearside dish are "Korean pickle (left)" and "namuru (right)". The latter is basically bean sprouts soaked in cooking oil with garlic.
You have to cook your beef on the grill yourself. You can fine-tune the heat with a knob under the table. My set had 200g of kalbi beef, but since my friend couldn't finish all of his beef, I was given the leftover and I was finally full.
