**Disclaimer: This visit happened in early November right before the new health order. We bumped into 2 friends outside randomly, and had lunch together. Right after, the new health order was announced. I wanted to wait until the health order was lifted to post this and not set a bad example.

However, 2 months have passed already and the order keeps getting extended so I am just going to post this now. Stay safe and be responsible.**

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Kimbap Cheonguk has been on my to-try list for many years now but I never ended up going until now. I’ve read many good things on this place so my expectations were high.

Kimbap Cheonguk is located on the Burquitlam border, in Koreatown. It is in a plaza with plenty of parking and other restaurants too.

Funnily enough, while the fiance and I were in line, we bumped into Kimbap and Kimchi outside! They were also planning on having lunch here, so it was a good coincidence. We ended up having lunch together and since they come here regularly and speak Korean, they did the ordering for us.

Side note: Kimbap and Kimchi both lived in Korea before, and they told us that in Korea, “Kimbap Cheonguk” is also the name of a cheap Korean food chain known for their kimbap. “Cheonguk” is heaven in Korean, so the name of the restaurant translates to Kimbap Heaven.

Soup: At first glance, you may think this is tea. I certainly thought it was until Kimchi told us it was soup. The soup was savoury and tasty. They also kept a big teapot of it next to us so we could keep filling up on it.

Tuna kimbap: The reason why we came here, to try the kimbap! The tuna kimbap was delicious and I could see why this place is so popular. This may be odd but I enjoyed the seaweed wrapping a lot. The seaweed tasted like it was lightly brushed with sesame oil or something.

Cheese kimbap: We also ordered a cheese kimbap, which was tasty as well. I thought there would be more cheese in it, but turns out it was a thin piece of processed cheese as you can see in the top photo.

Ra bok ki: This was a sweet and spicy rice cake dish that also came with fish cakes, egg, cabbage, and instant noodle. It was our first time having this dish, but Kimchi and Kimbap order this regularly.

There was a good balance of sweet vs spicy. The dish was full of rice cakes, noodles, and fish cakes so it was really filling.

Ddock mandoo gook: Ever since trying Korean dumpling soup at Tongileo, I have been ordering more dumpling soup whenever I go for Korean. The dumpling soup here was delicious and very comforting. There was a very generous portion of dumplings, rice cakes, and egg. I couldn’t stop drinking the broth!

Al bob: The al bob was a stone bowl rice with tuna, cheese, tobiko, mozzarella cheese, seaweed, and vegetables. It sounded delicious, and it was! This was the fiance’s favourite dish. Everything mixed together nicely and the cheese was stringly and melty.

In addition, the tobiko added some nice crunchy texture. I haven’t seen this dish offered at other Korean restaurants but we would gladly order this again. There was a lot going on in this dish, with lots of different ingredients, but everything went well together. The best part was eating the crispy rice at the end! Make sure to spread the rice around the whole stone bowl so your rice will turn crispy!

Fish cake soup: The fish cake soup was a small appetizer size compared to the rest of the dishes. I found it alright with no complaints, but it was forgettable to me since the other dishes were so good.

All in all, we had a delicious lunch at Kimbap Cheonguk and I am looking forward to our next visit. A bonus was bumping into Kimchi and Kimbap (see disclaimer at top, this lunch happened before the most recent health order) at the restaurant, and trying some new Korean dishes with them. Next time I am craving kimbap, I know where to go. Their non-kimbap dishes were delicious too.

Almost 3 years ago, the fiance and I went to Maru Korean Bistro for dinner which I wrote a review on. At the time, Maru had just newly opened in the area and it wasn’t as popular yet. We enjoyed our dinner there but since there are a bunch of other Korean restaurants that are more convenient, we haven’t come back until now when we found ourselves in the area.

Since we were doing an errand in the area, it was the perfect time to come back and see if Maru was as good as we remembered it!

Walking in, the restaurant was split into two sections. The front section was closed off and only the back section was opened.

The back section was a lot bigger and really spacious so it made sense. The tables were more spaced apart than the health protocols needed, but we aren’t complaining because it felt really safe and clean.

Korean fried chicken: The fried chicken at Maru stood out than other Korean restaurants I have been to. The reason is because they also included deep fried rice cakes with the fried chicken! I’m not a huge fan of fried chicken except for chicken strips (GASP! The audacity!) so I happily had the rice cakes instead. The rice cakes were delightfully chewy on the inside, but crunchy on the outside.

You can pick from the soy garlic, spicy gochujang, or miso sauce. The fiance picked the soy garlic sauce which was delicious with a nice sweetness to it. The fried chicken itself was piping hot, crispy, and not oily at all. The perfect Korean fried chicken with a nice addition of rice cakes and pumpkin seeds.

Banchan: The banchan was pretty average, nothing particularly good or bad to note about it.

Beef rib soup: I normally order beef bone soup whenever I go to Korean restaurants, and this time was no different. The price was more expensive than I was used to, at $18 a bowl in 2020 (who knows, if this blog is still around in a few years, this may be considered a reasonable price cause inflation). With that said, I was a bit wary that it would be disappointing and not worth the higher price point.

However, the beef bone soup turned out to be delicious! The beef bone was huge and came with tender beef that easily fell off the bone. There was also some tender sliced beef in the soup. The soup broth itself was very flavourful and comforting, with lots of depth. I could see why it cost a bit more than other places. I would gladly order this again.

There were also some dates and nuts inside the soup, which I hadn’t seen before. This made the soup feel more herbal and healthy.

Tofu soup and meat combo: The fiance went with one of their lunch combos, which was a pretty good value for what you get. It came with a full portion of meat (your choice of beef bulgolgi, spicy chicken thigh, spicy pork shoulder, or grilled soy pork shoulder).

The fiance went with the beef bulgolgi and it did not disappoint either. The beef bulgolgi was marinated well and very juicy. The portion was really big, and the cost of just the meat plate alone would have been worth it.

The combo came with a smaller side of tofu soup, my bowl was bigger. The tofu soup packed a spicy kick and there was lots of tofu inside.

Overall, we left very full with some leftovers for dinner as well. Although the prices were a bit higher than most Korean restaurants, the quality and taste of the food was delicious and worth it. Service was also friendly and attentive too. Maru is a gem in North Vancouver and I highly recommend it. We will be back again!

I had the sudden craving for kimbap one morning, but there aren’t many places around me that have kimbap. I ended up forgetting about it but as I was looking on UberEats later in the day, I noticed a new place that I haven’t seen before called Bobkim’s Kimbob Korean Rice Roll. What a long name!

I haven’t heard of this place before, and no results showed up when I did a Google search. Very weird… Then I looked up the address and Milssam Tacorea in Yaletown showed up. When I looked up the menu at Milssam Tacorea though, there was no mention of kimbap or Bobkim’s so I was pretty confused at where this mysterious kitchen was coming from. I ended up calling Milssam to ask. Turns out, Bobkim’s is sharing a kitchen with Milssam. Mystery solved, and I knew where my food was coming from!

Tuna kimbap: My favourite kimbap is tuna, so of course we had to get this. The price was pretty reasonable as well. At the time of writing, this was $4.50 for 9 pieces.

The tuna kimbap was alright. It did satisfy my kimbap craving though and the roll had a lot of fresh, crunchy vegetables inside. The tuna was also juicy and mixed with some mayo, so it wasn’t dry.

Kimchi kimbap: The kimchi kimbap was our least favourite. We found the kimchi to be on the watery side and not spicy. You can probably tell looking at the photo too. The kimchi was more vinegary and lacked spiciness.

On the plus side, look how jam packed it was and how much egg was inside!

Pork kimbap: The pork kimbap was nothing special and pretty average as well.

We appreciated the amount of fresh, crunchy vegetables inside but the pork flavour itself was meh. It could have used more seasoning.

Fried gimmari seaweed roll: To meet the delivery minimum, we also added a fried seaweed roll which was something neither of us have tried before. It was a bite sized, deep fried roll with glass noodles and veggies inside (think of a deep fried japchae roll?).

In writing, gimmari sounds delicious, but I found that they used some sort of seasoning that made the roll taste a bit off. There was also a very heavy sesame oil taste.

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Overall, we definitely have had better kimbap elsewhere. I also found myself pretty thirsty afterwards, so I suspect they added a lot of MSG in the rice because it did taste pretty salty. It’s weird because we found the main items (like the kimchi and pork) to be bland, but other things like the rice and gimmari were overly seasoned and too salty.

On the plus side, the rolls were filled with fresh ingredients and they did not skimp out. Seeing that there aren’t any Korean places around us that have kimbap, we may possibly order again but have our expectations lowered (or just go to Kim’s Mart instead).

Yook opened a bit over 3 years ago, and I remember we were quite excited to have a Korean restaurant so close by! However, we ended up only going once with Smores, which I wrote a review on.

Then, Kook Korean BBQ opened up shortly afterwards and that has been our go-to place for Korean when we are feeling like going somewhere close. There is also the newly opened Rib & Chicken a couple blocks away from Kook now.

We ended up at Yook on a whim. I was craving Korean noodle soup and we were going to go to Kook like usual, but they were closed. I figured I’d write a re-visit post since it’s been 2 years.

The restaurant was clean and organized, with hand sanitizer, contract tracing and socially distant tables. One thing I liked about Yook was the abundance of plants and greenery. The plants also provided some privacy between tables.

Banchan: We started off with the banchan. They were all tasty with no complaints. Also, in the back of the photo, you’ll see the sauce container. I appreciated how they wrapped it during the pandemic to prevent everyone touching the same bottle.

Bibimbap: When this arrived at the table, I was really underwhelmed. Usually bibimbap is served in a hot stone bowl, but this was served in a cold metal bowl that was refrigerated. Perhaps this is normal in Korean restaurants, and if so, I apologize for my lack of knowledge. But my first thought was that wouldn’t the food get cold easier?

Also, we like the stone bowls more because you can spread the rice thinly around the hot bowl and have crunchy rice, a great way to end the dish.

Secondly, bibimbap is usually served with an egg where you mix the egg yolk into the rest of the dish. I was disappointed to see that it didn’t come with an egg. We double checked with the waitress incase this was forgotten, but they told us that the egg was extra.

The bibimbap was tasty so it made up for the initial disappointing thoughts a little bit. I remembered that they have great stir-fry meat dishes, and the beef was very flavourful and tender. Even then, I couldn’t help by thinking it was lacking compared to other restaurants.

Update: I’ve been informed that the stone bowl bibimbap is known as a dol sot bibimbap. The more you learn! Now I know to look for “dol sot” on the menu to make sure it’s a stone bowl.

Dduck mandu gook: I was originally wanting an ox bone soup, but was disappointed that they didn’t have it on the menu. I saw that they had a rice cake soup with handmade dumplings, so I decided to try Yook’s version of it after having a delicious bowl at Tongileo.

The soup broth was comforting and delicious, and tasted like an ox bone soup broth. The rice cakes were chewy, and they also included some sliced scrambled egg and beef strips. The beef was on the tough side so it was hard to chew, and strongly marinated with ginger.

However, the dumplings were plump and delicious, packed full of vegetables and pork.

Yook wouldn’t be a place that I drive purposely too, only if I was in the area. With that said, I would still pick Kook over Yook.