Woomi Garden

2423 Hickerson Dr. Wheaton, MD 20902;301-933-0100

I must admit, as much as I like to go out to eat, I had not been very adventurous in my choice of dining establishments. I think it’s because my mom is a bit of a picky eater, so growing up she didn’t make us anything too crazy and we didn’t really go to many international restaurants. Plus I grew up in a small town so there weren’t many restaurants around anyway, and especially not international ones. Anyway, I now live in an area that has SO MANY different types of restaurants, all authentic, and Rob and I want to try different types of cuisines. Luckily a lot of the restaurants in Wheaton/Silver Spring are pretty inexpensive so we can go out a few times a week and try new things. That’s one of the reasons Rob wanted to start this blog, so we could keep track of the new places we try and see where we’d like to go again.

I’ve wanted to try Woomi Garden for a while, and I got my quarterly bonus yesterday so Rob and I went out to celebrate. Woomi is a sushi, Japanese, and Korean BBQ place, but the reviews I’ve read online focused mostly on the Korean BBQ. When we walked in, Rob immediately commented that he liked the look of the restaurant. To the right of the entrance was the sushi bar, which I didn’t get a good look at, and immediately in front of us were 6 or so large tables and shoji screens for walls. There may have been more seating on the other side of the screens, because the building was pretty big. There was also a koi pond right up front which we took a closer look at on the way out – it was kind of neat.

After we sat down we ordered our drinks and beef negimaki for an appetizer. The menu was nice because it had pictures of everything, and since I have never really been to a Korean restaurant, I had an idea of what we were getting. We both ordered BBQ items for the main course – bulgogi for me and jyeyooh gui (that’s what I wrote down, but I think that’s wrong) for Rob. We were served a surprise bowl of miso soup while our waitress brought the raw meat tableside and cooked it on a little gas grill that’s built into the table. Along with our meat we were served steamed rice and an assortment of pickled vegetables, which I now know is called banchan. The veggies were kind of a mystery to us; we didn’t really know what each was before trying it. We were also served a plate of leafy lettuce that we had no idea what to do with – we didn’t end up eating any of it. I knew two of the sides were kimchi and sprouts, and I think the others were yams or potatoes (or something else starchy), kale, a sweet slaw of some sort, and a few other things that I couldn’t identify. Oh and there was a really good ginger dipping sauce for the beef, Rob didn’t try it until after most of his food was gone and was mad that I hadn’t told him how good it was earlier.

For dessert we were served a small bowl of sweet juice with I think rice and some nuts floating in it – we had no idea what it was or how to consume it. Since we didn’t have any spoons on the table I figured we were supposed to just pick it up and sip it, although I felt silly doing it. This started a conversation about how stupid we feel in new places sometimes when we’re not familiar with the customs, how we should eat things, how I’m not very good with the chopsticks, etc.

Although Woomi wasn’t terribly expensive, it was still pricier than most of the other restaurants in Wheaton; most of the main dishes were around $20. We both saw other things on the menu that we’d like to try and the experience last night was great, so hopefully we’ll be back soon to check out their other offerings.