2 Bellevue restaurants for a delicious (and entertaining) meal

The dining room at Bellevue’s Daeho Kalbijjim & Beef Soup is loud. There’s upbeat Korean pop and the general din of diners, but also robots that whir by, beep-booping a “hello” or table number. Amid that cacophony there’s a loud, intermittent click, followed by the hiss of a blow torch and the inevitable “ooooh!” as diners watch mounds of mozzarella melt into beef stew.

It’s like hearing the sizzle of fajitas being paraded through a dining room, creating a Pavlovian response. I couldn’t resist getting my own bubbling cauldron of stew, even at a price tag of $81.95.

Daeho is a San Francisco-based chain that opened in January on a previously sleepy corner just off Interstate 90. Shortly after opening, my colleague Tan Vinh reported wait times stretching 90 minutes, but my server said weekday lunches and early dinners have calmed down. On the weekend, you should still be prepared to wait (as evidenced by the signs with etiquette suggestions that dot the walkway to the restaurant). One way to gauge the line prior to driving over is to check Yelp for the waitlist, joining if necessary before you show up.

Now, for the dish in question: the kalbijjim with braised beef rib and the optional cheese add-on ($5.95). Like everything on the menu, the dish comes with a full assortment of banchan — traditional kimchi, radish kimchi, sesame-oiled bean sprouts, creamy white seaweed salad and stir-fried fish cakes, plus your choice of purple or white rice.

The stew — presented in a hot cast-iron pot big enough to feed at least two — arrives bubbling, even before being torched to melt the cheese. There are hunks of tender short rib plus rice cakes, potato, Korean radish, carrots and onions bathing in a thick, reddish broth that has an inherent sweetness alongside the sour spice of gochujang and chili. Traditionally a celebration dish in Korea, this kalbijjim feels like a labor of love burbling on your table; it’s so good that I can see why my Korean friends say soup season is year-round.

This dish is massive and on the pricier side, so if you’re at Daeho by yourself, or you’re not into sharing, there are other options. The hot stone bibimbap, spicy cold noodles, spicy beef rib soup and seolleongtang (an ox-bone soup) are all nicely proportioned and range from $19 to $25.

For a different kind of meal-with-a-show, head to Istanbul Cuisine Cafe, a walk-up window situated in the outdoor courtyard near Macy’s in Bellevue Square.

The casual restaurant is a window-fronted galley kitchen where you can see the dough for pide and gozleme being rolled thin before being placed on the flat top griddle, where they’re cooked to order. It’s food done quickly but with care. There are also wraps on the menu, plus a small case with grab-and-go items like stuffed grape leaves and baklava.

It’s tough to choose between the pide and the gozleme. They’re essentially food cousins; the pide is a bit puffier and more breadlike, hugging the fillings, while the gozleme is much thinner and more delicate, the filling spread thinly inside and sealed between two dough layers. Both are served with creamy, herbed yogurt sauces, with meat and vegetarian available for fillings.

The beef gozleme ($16) is mixed with scallions, the tissue paper-thin dough delicate and slightly blistered. After it’s finished cooking on the oiled flat top, it’s sliced into large strips that can then be rolled up and dunked into the yogurt sauce and eaten.

The lamb pide ($18) has lamb and beef gyro meat, tomatoes, fresh parsley, scallions and cheese piled on top of a slightly puffier bread, which gets pulled up and around the fillings. Slices of the elongated pide are sturdy enough to be picked up like a slice of pizza.

It’s mesmerizing to watch the dough be expertly manipulated from roller to flat top — and the results are equally delicious.