BBQ News
New Korean restaurant Wooga KBBQ fires up tabletop BBQ in Haltom City
Server cooking meat tableside at Wooga in Haltom City.
An Asian restaurant serving uber-popular Korean BBQ has debuted in Haltom City: Called Wooga KBBQ, it just opened at the Haltom City H Mart Plaza, at 3980 NE Loop 820 #100, where it's serving Korean BBQ side by side with traditional Korean food.
Korean barbecue, known as gogi-gui or KBBQ, refers to a tradition where meats are grilled at the table on built-in grills, accompanied by rice and and an array of side dishes. Traditional Korean food is a wide umbrella under which signature dishes such bibimbap, bulgogi, kimchi, and tofu soup fall.
Wooga is a spinoff of ChoDang Village, a small family-owned chain of Korean restaurants in Texas with locations in Carrollton, Plano, and Austin. Wooga's official name is actually "Wooga - Korean steakhouse by Chodang Village."
Wooga serves many of ChoDang's dishes including their best-selling soft tofu soup, says co-owner Charles Kang.
"Wooga offers authentic KBBQ style meat grilling done at your table by our staff, but if you are not up for KBBQ, we also have our regular Chodang Village menu," Kang says.
Chodang Village first debuted in Carrollton in 2018 and is a destination for aficionados of Korean food, especially natives of Korea, who liken it to restaurants they've been to in South Korea — prized as a great spot for a comforting Korean meal including complimentary barley tea.
Diners come from all over for Chodang's soon tofu stew, also known as Korean spicy soft tofu stew, also known as sundubujjigae. It's a soup featuring freshly curdled tofu which has not been strained and pressed so it has a soft jiggly texture, combined with vegetables such as onions and mushrooms, and optional additions such as meat and seafood.
Other dishes earning raves include the seafood pancake, galbi, and radish kimchi.
"We're getting a lot of compliments especially for our wide variety of banchan side dishes and for our marinade," Kang says. In addition to various fermented veggies that are banchan staples, Wooga also serves delicacies such as corn cheese, soybean stew, and souffléd egg.
The food is the draw, and is hailed as being reasonably priced. The place always gets crowded during peak meal times. They earn lower marks for their occasionally impatient service and ordinary setting — but they have an abundance of private rooms for small special events.
Kang says they also plan to offer alcohol at Wooga, but have not yet procured their license.
One thing that makes Wooga's Korean BBQ offering unique is that it is not "self-serve." At some Korean BBQ places, diners are served raw meat which they cook on the tabletop grills themselves. "At Wooga, the servers do it for you," Kang says.
Getting into H-Mart Plaza was a coup, and Wooga is in the first wave of what will be many new places making their debut in the next few months, joining recent openings such as Kin Pho.
The hotly-anticipated H-Mart itself is still under construction and is forecast to open in fall 2026.
