Dekko Chicken & Pork Korean BBQ

Parking is easy.

Big restaurant near BBQ chicken

I really liked the spicy jokbal and the cha-siu. The warm jokbal was good too, but I loved the flavor did the spicy jokbal! It had that fire taste to it. Everything I ate was good! The spicy dakgalbi was so good! And adding the ramyun and cheese made it so goodnight mozzarella cheese cuts the spice a little. I also love cheese! At the end of the meal we added rice to the spicy dakgalbi sauce. We added cheese to the rice at the end. It was so good!

Service was good! Servers were attentive and continued to refill our water.

I would suggest giving more napkins or leaving napkins on the table. Silverware is on the table.

Dekko is a Korean BBQ restaurant that specializes in chicken and pork dishes. I came here for the soft opening, and I'm a fan of their Dak Galbi dish! They serve only 2 chicken options, which are Chicken Galbi and Chicken Feet, but they have many different Pork Feet options and Pork Belly. The dining area is pretty open and spacious, with many tables.

The good: The Dak Galbi, which is a Korean dish made by stir-frying marinated diced chicken. The best thing about the dish is that you can add different toppings. I added ramen, udon noodles, rice cake, and cheese! Also ordered some regular and spicy Jokbal, which are pig trotters, which are delicious and tender. The spicy one has a nice kick to it!

The bad: Ordered a pork belly, which was their bossam, and it was good, but it's not something I would re-order unless I came with friends who want to order the dish. It comes with a side of spicy radish and napa cabbage. The pork belly was soft and tender, but it had little to no fat on it, which in my opinion, would go really well with the meaty portion.

Overall, the highlight of the meal is definitely the Dak Galbi because it's served in this giant pan at the table, and I enjoyed mixing it with different noodles! I would return just for this dish alone!

I was skeptical at first but completely surprised by the quality, service and overall experience at Dekko! I am an experienced Dak-galbi eater as my family is from Chun-Cheon(Birthplace of Korean Dak-galbi) and I have eaten authentic Dak-galbi many times in Korea. Dekko comes pretty close and I would even say they have the best Dak-galbi outside of Korea! The owner(I think his name is Kang Ho Dong) even came by to check on us and I could detect a slight Gangwon-do accent so I know this man probably spent some time in Chun-Cheon and knows how to make legit Dak-galbi. The taste, spice-level, toppings and experience exceeded my expectations and I thoroughly enjoyed eating it along with a pitcher of ice-cold beer. I also tried their Jok-bal(Pig trotter aka pig feet) and it was the best Jok-bal I've had in the D.C. area. Very fresh tasting and flavorful.

PRO-TIP #1: Do not order your toppings for Dak-galbi upfront otherwise they will include it right off the bat when they start cooking it. The traditional way is to add the toppings later especially the noodles or else it will sogg up the whole dish.

PRO-TIP #2: You can request spice-level if you want it spicy

My review is all about the taste. Ignore reviews that talk about non-essentials like parking.

While they have other items on the menu, Dekko specializes in spicy chicken and pig feet. Spicy chicken is cooked table side and comes out 95% cooked from the kitchen for obvious reasons.

Spicy chicken:
(5/5)
It's SPICY, perfectly seasoned. Then at then end, they do fried rice with the sauce (separately ordered). Chicken pieces are boneless and well seasoned and brined. VERY tender.

Pig feet:
(5/5)
Most succulent piece of pig feet you can find in the US. No gamey pork smell. Perfect gelatinous yet firm enough texture. Just go eat at this place.

This is a place that is going to rejuvenate the entire shopping center they are located in. People will travel great distances to come here. And this place will have no competition for a very looong time as it is apparent this owner invested tremendous amount of time, money and effort to get this up and running, which others won't willing to do.

As long as this place maintains the consistency, this one is a huge success story in making.


UPDATE after my 5th visit in 2 months:
Took my son there for dinner. Now I am going to talk about price and service. I typically focus almost 100% on food. Which means, when I start talking about other things, something is off on food. I had dakgalbi and med bossam.

Dakgalbi was so meh. Very different from my first few visits. Flavor was weak and disconnected, like watered down.

Bossam was still good but $32 for about 10oz of pork?? Not eating Kobe here. I usually don't care much at all about price if the food is outstanding but I'm not the norm/majority of customer base. Their price is off and it might hurt their biz long run. Many people won't tolerate after they get over the honeymoon phase with the new place.

Side cold bean sprout soup:
It tasted very different all 5 times I visited. Yesterday was the worst. It tasted like they just dunked the sprouts in cold water with a pinch of salt. No flavor nothing. I almost threw up.

Overall a disappointing meal. And expensive one at that. As I said before in my review the key was going to be CONSISTENCY. I'm afraid I'm not seeing it. It was so promising in the beginning.

Got the "Jokbal Set Combo" - w/soy Cha-Su instead of boiled pork belly slices. The price seemed a bit on the expensive side .... but after ordering i quickly found out it was so worth it. I couldn't stop saying "wow so good" while I ate it. The jokbal was warm and very soft, while the cha-siu had a soft grilled taste ? It was really good. The only thing I couldn't eat as much was the spicy jokbal ...: it was legit burning spicy !!!! I only had 2 or 3 bites of it but it was really good. The servers were petty awesome too! Must come ba

I and my boyfriend ordered a combo. It was quite spicy but we still can handle it. However, I thought they would serve with rice because it tastes better with rices (the food is salty and spicy, it would be a good combo)

Ummm....it was pricey for two people (total $50 with rices without tip)

The service was okay. It just likes many Korean servers at other restaurant. So don't respect that they will like 5 stars restaurant.

I am adding an updated review addendum, because although my opinion of the place hasn't changed, at all, my wife has since told me that she enjoyed her meal and thought it was overpriced.

Since she enjoyed it, I'm bumping it a star and disclaiming that my opinion is entirely subjective.

Trust the other reviewers when they say the food here is overpriced. There's just no way around it. My boyfriend and I ordered the Cheese Dak Galbi for lunch, which cost $39 for 2 servings, and it was a major disappointment. The first time I had this dish was in Korea. I expected rice/noodles, rice cakes, and an assortment of vegetables would be a part of this dish (sweet potatoes are included in most of the recipes you find online), but sadly for us, there was none of the above. Dekko's Cheese Dak Galbi includes nothing but cabbage and spicy chicken. The seasoning was good - not too sweet and not too spicy - but each topping (that is typically a part of the standard recipe) costs an additional 4-5 bucks. We ordered two bowls of rice, and that alone cost an additional $4. Not to mention, the sides that they did serve (cold bean sprout soup and cabbage salad) were not tasty at all. Although this restaurant is spacious and nicely decorated, the food itself was a letdown. Service was also mediocre. For a relatively new restaurant in an area where there are many asian cuisines to choose from, Dekko will need to do a lot more to keep up. To start: provide tastier sides/appetizers, improve customer service (by hiring/training attentive employees) and offer more affordable lunch specials! There are tons of gov con workers in the area that are looking for a good place to grab lunch. Dekko could do a lot more to tap into those customers and ensure visitors are left feeling more fulfilled and satisfied.

We came here last night with a bunch of friends to try it out. The past week I had driven by it and was interested to try. They serve a array of Korean pork and chicken dishes, mostly really light your mouth on fire spicy . Arrived around 7 on Saturday and had a table waiting . As we ordered maybe .. 15? Was a while min after we ordered we were told they didn't even have one of the dishes , they were all out of pork and only had the dakgalbi.. well couldn't have someone said that in the beginning ?? We had some toddlers at the table as well as people that didn't prefer the super spicy things (aka myself ) and all I had to eat there was maybe 5 pieces of fire chicken which upset my stomach later .. in total we were there for over two hours, from sit down to check paying.: not optimal
service was incredibly slow, I get that your a new restaurant but still..: prices are insanely high for what they are cooking .. and like I said my stomach got upset maybe an hour and a half after eating .... don't waste your time .. tons of other Korean places in the area or perhaps I'll just make it at home next time

- Great food and reasonable prices.
- Spicy chicken is ACTUALLY spicy (Thank you).
- Dak Galbi and cha-siu are recommended.