Sonagi for all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue

Name of restaurant: Sonagi, which is a sudden, usually brief, downpour in Korean (an unusually romantic name for a BBQ joint)

Concept: All-you-can-eat Korean barbecue with Cajun flavors and a “salad” bar. The salad bar has only some vegetables but many condiments.

What dish represents the restaurant, and why? Why barbecue, of course! You choose from a menu of Galaxy 1, 2, or 3. Best to start with the unmarinated meats, like the angus beef brisket (chadol), the pork belly (samgyeopssal) and work your way down the list to the marinated pork (dweji galbi) and L.A.-style short ribs (L.A. galbi). Ask for vegetables and corn to cook with your meats, and get piles of garlic and jalapenos from the salad bar to throw on the grill as you go. The dwenjang (fermented soybean), marinated peppers and the cilantro muchim (seasoned cilantro) are particularly nice accompaniments.

Who’s at the next table? A group of twenty-somethings chowing down on continuous plates of meat, while a tri-generation family quietly eats dinner as halmuhni (grandma) holds court over the meal.

Appropriate for: An after-work dinner with friends, family or other hungry cohorts. Make a reservation if you plan on bringing more than four people.

Uh-oh...: Not all of their meats are high grade. Avoid the seafood.

Service: Friendly, but slightly rushed. The self-serve salad bar makes it easy to get all the lettuce wraps, rice cake sheets and yangnyeom dwenjang (seasoned fermented soybean sauce) that you need.

What are you drinking? They have all of the Korean beers — Cass, OB and Hite, but also a selection of soju, makgeolli (an unfiltered rice wine), baekseju (Korean medicinal wine), bokbunja (raspberry wine) and a house red wine. Their grapefruit makgeolli is a strange, but not unpleasant, marriage of Squirt and rice wine.

Info: 2585 W. Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles. 213-973-9292; www.sonagibbq.com

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The Scouting Report is a quick look at restaurants worth a visit. Scouts were selected by restaurant critic Jonathan Gold, who may or may not agree with a single word.