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The slogan for Bill Kim’s latest restaurant, BellyQ, is “Tradition. Amplified.” But Mike Sula finds the food at this Randolph Row redo surprisingly muted, its “modern Korean” showing little of the cuisine’s muscle, heat, or funk. The few meats available for tabletop grilling come in small portions unlikely to inspire “the sort of primal, gluttonous fire party” you’ll find at traditional Korean barbecues like San Soo Gap San or Hai Woon Dae (don’t look for late-night hours, either). The much-ballyhooed “tea-smoked meats” are gorgeous but bear not a whiff of tea leaves, and Kim’s rice-flour pancakes, a riff on Korean jeon, are drier and less chewy than the ideal, with nothing to hold their toppings (kimchi and bacon, goat cheese and fried noodles) in place.
