I tried Joymode for a month: stay-at-home Korean BBQ date night

Living in Los Angeles has a lot of advantages. There are a million things to do and see.

But it gets expensive fast.

When we want to stay home (and save money) for a date night, we’re pretty limited to Netflix and video games. These two things keep us entertained most nights but doesn’t work when we’re looking for something new.

We LOVE our apartment. But it. is. so. small.

We know we’re so lucky to be living here in such a nice space. But we’re not about to go out buying new things for date night, especially when we probably won’t use them again.

I know we’re not alone in this feeling of wanting to spice things up without buying more stuff you don’t have anywhere to put (or can afford in the first place), which is why I was so excited to get an email from Joymode.

For about $22/month, Joymode users can rent various items right to their door. When the rental period is over, it’s picked up and you can rent something else.

So, I thought, let’s give it a try!

Korean BBQ date night:

I spent most of college eating chicken nuggets, eating at my sorority house or going out. I’ve since learned to cook but I’m not a chef.

I might’ve been daydreaming when I decided to choose the Korean BBQ bundle.

To be fair, the actual cooking part of the KBBQ wasn’t the part that was the most difficult. It was all the prep work.

Getting my first bundle:

To my surprise the bundle doesn’t show up in a packaged box like one you’d get in the mail. A person delivers it in a plastic tub, backpack or other container.

I had them deliver it to my leasing office (where most of my packages go). The leasing office was very confused by this package. But they gave me a call and I came and got it.

For those looking to leave this outside their door, Joymode will be a little difficult. Anyone passing by can see exactly what is there, and might take it.

Luckily, I work for home so it’s not a problem. I can be here for pickup and delivery.

Prepwork:

The bundle came with an amazing cookbook. Cook Korean! Comic Book by Robin Ha is easily my favorite cook book I’ve ever owned (even if for only a short time).

I read through the whole thing before starting.

Then I had to decide what we were going to eat. Oh, boy. *sigh*

I truly wish Joymode had a partnership with Instacart or Amazon Fresh.

I had a very busy week and weekend. Finding cuts of meat and sauces I don’t cook with everyday without a lot of time wasn’t easy.

Ultimately, I did end up finding them using Instacart. But I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING. This was made evident when I ordered way too much food. All the meat was ordered by the pound. I was truly guessing for each meat I ordered — and I was wrong.

When the meat got there, I followed the recipes. What I didn’t realize was that there are parts of the meat I needed to cut off before marinating it (remember, I’m not a chef).

A couple of quick video tutorials from Joymode would’ve been nice.

Either way, most of the meat (and I) made it through this part.

Cooking:

This was the easy part. I thought.

At KBBQ it’s not uncommon for us to be doing this part anyways. Obviously, it’ll be the same at home.

Well, not exactly.

I tried to make Haemul Pajeon (Korean Seafood Pancake). It didn’t exactly look like what was in the book. But it also didn’t look completely wrong.

Have I mentioned I wish there were video tutorials?

In the end, it wasn’t pretty. But it tasted very good! It’ll be something I make again in the future, for sure.

Cooking the meat is exactly like in a restaurant. And we had a blast!

But we did forget one minor thing — we don’t own a range hood (or the fans over your tables at restaurants).

Smoke filled our apartment super fast. We quickly grabbed our fans and opened our porch door.

This made for an easy quick fix but I wish we would’ve thought of that beforehand!

Making memories:

Date night was a success. We had a lot of fun and stories to laugh at (mostly over all the fans we used and how bad the pancake looked).

But we won’t be adding our own electric grill to our wedding registry. We’ll stick to going out for KBBQ.

Once I had some time to reflect, I realized that’s what makes Joymode so great. We were able to try something we love without the risk of paying for and owning something we won’t use again.

We happily handed off the bundle, kept our memories and rented our next bundle.