Jacquie "The Amazon Real Estate Agent" C.'s Profile

My husband and I got a night out (for a change) and after dinner and a movie, were looking for a halfway decent place to have a drink before we headed home.  We drive by here all the time but I had never noticed it, and at his prompting, we stopped in.

Much to my surprise, it was very nice inside, the wait staff was attentive, and the drinks were mixed well.  We ordered a pizza and some clams to munch on, and while the pizza was good, the clams were fantastic.

I definitely will drop in here again when we have a night out!

Met with a title and escrow rep here today for lunch and to discuss business.  Great food, salad was very fresh and my husband gave their French Dip his stamp of approval.

Bit loud though for talking, but other than that it was a great lunch!

I just toured this location with the Victoria, the general manager, and I am very excited for its grand opening at the end of May.  They will have a good selection of local brews and wines as a well as a tasty sounding menu which includes freshly ground sirloin hamburgers.

Movie ticket prices are even going to be a reasonable $10, and if the menu prices from their other locations are any indication, the food will be priced pretty competitively as well.  The venue is 21+  so no kids, but if you are going and have an evening out at the movies, it is nice to be able to sit, snack and not have to listen to kids and teens the whole time.

This is a place to put on your list to visit!  I know I will be going there!

Ok, ok....so it isn't the fanciest food in the area, but it definitely is a great value with their half price happy hour menu.  My girlfriends and I love to meet up on Sundays and I must say the fact that they have 1/2 priced food all day in the bar is a definite plus.  Although some of the items are a touch lacking in creativity, I have to admit that I am in love with the corn fritters.  They served hot with honey butter and with the yummy kernels of corn, I am allowed to pretend I am eating something better for me than donuts. :)

Let me start by addressing some of the negative comments.  This is a hole-in-the-wall Korean barbecue, not an upscale restaurant.  I was neither surprised nor offended when the waitress didn't speak much English.  If anything it adds to the charm of the restaurant.  The heating and cooling is mostly in sync with the seasons, hot in the summer, cold in the winter.  Those of us that eat here frequently know this and dress appropriately!  The decor is not a designer, and things can be a little greasy, but what do you expect when you're cooking food at your table?  If you can't handle quaint and want pristine yuppie food, then I suggest you head over to the mall and get a table at PF Chang's.

Now back to my experiences and thoughts!

To start off, we have been coming to the Secret Garden for about six years, always order the all you can eat and have never even looked at the menu.  Our daughter who is now five years old loves this place, in fact is a frequent request to eat at 'the place where you could get the tables.'  She loves wrapping the food up in lettuce and chowing it down.  She especially loves their potato salad, which is the only potato salad, she will eat.  She also loves the sweet pickled radishes!

All of the sides (Banchan) that we've ever had were excellent, flavorful and delicious!  My favorite is the bean paste, and if I knew more Korean I would try and pry the recipe out of them.  I don't know what else I can say about the meat since, well, it is meat.  You have your choice of steak chunks, thinly sliced marinated beef, spicy pork, chicken, short ribs, and more I suspect if you can speak Korean.  For what we get, I think the all you can eat is very fairly priced.  I know when we've taken friends here that we have polished off several piled high plates of meat and countless number of Banchan.

What I can tell you is that when you come to eat here that you need to leave your pretentiousness at the door and just enjoy the food.  Don't be in a rush, and just be patient.  Things at the Secret Garden don't flow like they do at a regular restaurant, and things me feel a little willy-nilly, but it is okay.  I would really love to see this place featured on an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.  I can only imagine what Guy Fieri would do in here!

Bring your friends, take some time, eat a whole lot of food, drink some Sake or Soju and just have a great experience!

Brian (hope I picked the right spelling) definitely has it going on here!  Great quality, fair price and a clean restaurant with friendly staff.  We eat here quite often and is probably our #1 go-to place when we eat out.

If you are in the area and looking for a great meal, then definitely drop in!

We stopped in here for a snack while waiting for an appointment.  It was their first day being open as I understand it and the place looked great.

More importantly all the pastries looked to die for!  I picked a couple of Eclairs and my family loved them.   Very good quality on all the ingredients.  

If I am ever in Aberdeen again I will definitely stop in again.

We stopped in here when we came down to Aberdeen to look at some investment properties.  I can't say that is stands out in my mind as anything super special in the world of Mexican restaurants, but at the same time it was good.

The restaurant itself was clean, the waitstaff was friendly and the menu had all the items one would expect.  Prices were about average for a Mexican restaurant and the bathrooms were clean.

I would definitely not hesitate to eat here again if I was hungry and headed through town.

---  RUN AWAY FROM THIS PLACE! ---

A little over a year ago my husband and I ate here and he vowed to never come back because the person that brought our food out looked and smelled like a dirty homeless person than an employee.  Today I talked him into going back because I really have loved their chowder.  BIG MISTAKE!

Since the Skippers company has gone bankrupt, they have apparently changed chowder recipes and have let all of their standards slide into the toilet.  The place is dirty and the lighting is just sad.  The counter when we went is was dirty, with visible chunks of stuff on it.  The windows and doors were cloudy with swirls where they had been wiped, but not actually cleaned.  The sauce dispensers were leaking and had puddles of nastiness under them.  

The chowder was just OK, the fish was over cooked and the fries and shrimp (once we reminded them that we ordered them) were undercooked.

Just nasty, nasty, nasty!

This is as good as coffee stands get.  And you can walk up and have a seat when the weather is good.