No, I did not spell cook wrong! Kook Korean BBQ is a relatively new restaurant that opened up earlier this year in First Avenue Marketplace. I have been eyeing this place for awhile but have yet to come until now!

We enjoyed this place so much that we came back a few nights after for dinner! Since it was only the two of us, we ordered non-BBQ dishes which were still great. It would be nice to come back with some friends to share the BBQ platters.

Kook is a nice addition to the other restaurants in First Avenue Marketplace, and the only Korean restaurant in this area (apart from Yook which is about a 5 minute drive away).

Seafood pancake: We always like to order a seafood pancake when trying a new Korean restaurant, although we always get too full and end up packing most of it home (such was the case this time)!

Anyways, the outside of the seafood pancake could have been more crispy. Only the outer edges were crispy. Other than that, it was a delicious pancake with a good amount of ingredients inside.

Banchan: Our meal started off with 5 different types of banchan. If you order a BBQ platter, you get a whopping 15 different types of banchan!

My favourite was the potato marinated in a sweet sesame oil sauce. We ended up getting a refill of the potato and the sliced fish cakes. My least favourite was the picked cucumbers. I personally thought it was a bit too sour to eat it plain.

Bibimbap: The boyfried decided to try the stone bowl bibimbap. It was a generous portion and very filling. The first thing you should do when ordering a stone bowl is to spread the rice thinly all over the bowl, so that you can have delicious crunchy rice!

The bibimbap didn’t come with sauce, but the beef was seasoned enough to give the bowl lots of flavour. I usually order noodle soups when having Korean food, but I wouldn’t mind ordering this myself next time we come here because it was pretty good.

Korean oxtail soup (Ggori Gomtang): Typically, Korean noodle soups don’t come seasoned with any salt. It took a few disappointing visits at a few different restaurants before I figured this out. Instead, your bland soup comes with a side of salt to which you season to your own taste.

After adding enough salt to my liking, I really enjoyed the soup. The slow simmered bone made the soup milky. Meanwhile, the meat was incredibly tender and melted in my mouth… soooo good. The soup also came with some Korean crystal noodle and a bowl of plain rice.

Soon tofu jigae: One of the most popular and comforting Korean dishes. You can pick between seafood or beef, the boyfriend went with beef. There was a nice, spicy kick to the soup but he would have liked it to be even more spicy!

The bowl looked a bit small, but there was a lot of tofu and beef in there to make it a filling meal. It also came with a side of rice.

Sul lang tang: Since I tried the oxtail soup (Ggori gomtang) last time, I wanted to see how the ox bone soup tasted. They seemed to be the same broth, the only difference was the meat.

The beef slices were nowhere as tender and flavourful, probably because it was a different cut. For $4, I’d probably get the ggori gomtang instead because I love my tender beef.

All in all, we left satisfied and happy with our two visits. We will definitely be back, seeing how close and convenient this location is for us as well!

It’s been awhile since the boyfriend and I have tried a different Korean restaurant! So Hyang Korean Cuisine has been on our radar for awhile now, and we finally went to check it out for lunch one weekend.

So Hyang is located on Fraser Street. The storefront is a bit small and easy to miss. But once you get inside, the restaurant is a lot bigger than it seems because it is long and narrow.

Service throughout our visit was really friendly, we had different serves refill our cups and ask if we needed anything!

Banchan: We were given four different types of banchan. The beancurd was sweet and delicious. The beansprouts had a strong, yummy sesame taste. I didn’t like the sweet potato as much because there was an overpowering amount of ginger taste. The kimchi had a nice, spicy kick to it.

Remember how I said the service was really good? A couple of servers came by throughout our meal, asking if we wanted refills.

Seafood pancake: We knew that we wouldn’t be able to finish this, but we wanted to give it a try and pack the rest back for a later meal.

It was delicious! For my first few bites, all I could taste was the red and green peppers. There was a lot more vegetables than seafood. The pancake was crunchy outside while the inside was doughy and packed with ingredients.

It came with a sweet, garlicky sauce that was absolutely delicious. I usually eat my seafood pancakes without sauce, but I used a lot of the sauce this time because it was so delicious.

Bulgolgi tuk baegi: My soup bowl came piping hot! I wasn’t really sure what to expect as the menu just said ‘marinated beef stew in chef’s special sauce’, but the photo looked good!

It was delicious! It was sweet and garlicky, with many slices of seasoned boiled beef inside. There was also some enoki mushrooms, red peppers, and rice cakes. The soup came with a small bowl of rice too so I was quite full.

Beef bulgolgi hot plate: The boyfriend went with his one of his Korean favourites, beef bulgolgi. This dish also came with a side of rice. The beef was delicious, and he really enjoyed it. It was richly marinated and saucy.

We left the restaurant very satisfied with our meal. The food was delicious, and service was friendly as well. There’s no doubt that we will be back!

Over two years ago, I wrote my first review on Jong Ga Korean Restaurant! Since then, I have been a handful more times and it is my favourite Korean restaurant! I’ve taken different people here and everyone seems to enjoy it as well.

Jong Ga is a small, home-style Korean restaurant. It is usually busy so I try to make reservations before coming. The only bad thing about Jong Ga is the parking! It is located in a small strip mall in Koreatown, and many parking spots are reserved for other businesses.

Korean beef patty: I’m not really sure why the boyfriend ordered this when Jong Ga has enourmous soup noodle portions, but alas. I didn’t have any because I wanted to save room for the banchan and my soup noodles.

He really enjoyed the beef patty, it was full of grilled flavour and sweet Korean sauce. For $10, I personally thought it was a bit overpriced but he enjoyed it.
Banchan: All of their banchan was delicious! In particular, my favourite is the chilled sweet potato which is marinated in some sort of garlic sesame sauce?

The other banchan dishes are quite delicious and fresh as well. The cucumber dish and the beansprouts are also marinated in some sort of sesame sauce, and are both crunchy.
Prime beef rib and sweet potato in savoury broth: This is my go-to! I know I should really try other dishes (well I did order the seafood tofu soup before), but this one is so delicious that I always end up going back to it!

The term savoury broth is not very helpful, but I would describe the broth as a beef broth with garlic undertones. There is a generous portion of soft, fall off the bone, tender beef rib and crystal noodles. There is also a cooked egg and some leeks inside too.

One of my favourite things about Jong Ga is their stone bowl rice! All of their dishes come with a free side of plain rice or stone bowl rice – do yourself a favour and go with the stone bowl!

I like to leave the lid on the stone bowl for about 10 mins while having the soup, to make the rice crispy. Then, I put small spoonfuls of soup into the stone bowl and eat it with the crispy rice. SO. GOOD.
Spicy beef tofu soup: The boyfriend really enjoyed his spicy tofu soup too! Koreans take their spice seriously, and he loved how spicy it was. There was a generous portion of tofu and beef. At the end of the meal, he was sooo full and stuffed!

Seafood pancake: On a separate visit, we took Maki and Nigiri here because they like Korean food as well! Nigiri ordered the seafood pancake, which was nice and crispy outside. The inside was bursting with ingredients! He was quite impressed with this and brought some home for lunch the next day.

Jong Ga is a bit hidden and unknown, but so good. We always say that we should try other places in Koreatown… but somehow always end up back here because it’s so good and worth the price. I can’t wait to come here more as the weather gets colder!

Yay!

Brown Bites is a new mini series on my blog featuring places the boyfriend has tried without me, so it wouldn’t be my own review. Why the name Brown, you ask? It is named after the Japanese LINE character, Brown. Brown is a cute, shy, emotionless cartoon bear but secretly full of love, and we adore him to pieces! 

The boyfriend was working in Richmond one day back in the summer, and it was time for lunch. He was originally planning on going back to Sushi House which is also in Continential Plaza, but they were closed that day. Dolpan Seoul BBQ was in the same plaza and was open, so he came here instead.

The interior of Dolpan was pretty modern and woodsy. It seemed like a relatively new restaurant based on the decor. At lunch it wasn’t that busy, but I heard it gets really busy during dinner.

Korean BBQ beef lunch combo: Mmm, looks delicious! He went with the lunch combo which came with a generous portion of sliced beef, Korean crystal noodle (aka sweet potato noodle), and onions. There was also a side of rice, making it a super filling meal!

He really enjoyed his lunch at Dolpan. The beef was marinated very well.

He would definitely not mind coming back! We were actually planning on coming back a few days after since he couldn’t stop talking about how delicious it was. But after checking the menu, it didn’t seem like they had any BBQ chicken which was what I wanted that night … So I didn’t really want to go, teehee.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my BBQ beef too but sometimes I just prefer chicken and white meat! It would be great if Dolpan could add some chicken.

Yay!

 

It was Sangria’s birthday, and a dinner celebration was in store! We all went to Korean BBQ to celebrate. Since it was a large group of 18 or so, they gave us a semi-private room which had another group of 10. At first, the room was really chilly but once the BBQ started, it was really warm in there!

Since there was 18 of us or so, we were split into 3 different tables. Each table of 6 split the giant BBQ meat combo, which was a better deal than getting everything separately.

Seafood pancake: The seafood pancake was smaller than most, but that was fine since we had more food coming. It was crispy and had a good amount of seafood in it!

Japchae: The japchae was delicious! It was seasoned very well and a bit more towards the salty side, but not overly salty. Korean glass noodles are so good!

Salad: Can’t forget our greens right? The salad was a big portion for 6 people. All of the vegetables we’re fresh. My favourite part was the sauce. It was some sort of sweet tangy fruit sauce. I had seconds and thirds of this because of how delicious the sauce was. Would love to learn how to make this at home!

Tofu soup: We also got a bowl of spicy tofu soup with a side of rice. It had a good amount of spice but Cocoa found it to be too spicy. More for the rest of us then 😉

Assorted BBQ meat: The star of the show- all the meat! We had different kinds of meat which were already marinated. Beef, chicken, and pork… Mmmm. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but believe me when I say all the meats were seasoned very well and had lots of flavour to it!

It was a very delicious dinner and I would love to come back with a group for the combo again. It was such a fun night and my stomach was so satisfied!

Yay!