I have to give a shout to to my mom who sent me a generous gift and asked me to use it to pay for dinner at a Korean restaurant of my choice (or any restaurant if I wasn’t keen on Korean food, because she’s cool like that)! Thanks, Mom! <3
I came across this place when searching for Korean restaurants in the Okanagan. While there are some more traditional restaurants in the area, this one got good reviews and sounded fun and hip, which was perfect since I was going to have teenagers joining me for this meal. Yes, I’m acutely aware that using the term “hip” is probably not at all hip but here we are.
First things first:
- Parking is not easy to find as the restaurant is located right in the heart of downtown on Bernard and city parking is hard to find in that metered spots are so often taken. We were lucky enough to get a spot directly across the street and that meant walking half a block to cross the road and then back the other half to the restaurant.
- There are no stairs into or inside of this restaurant.
- I didn’t use the washrooms but there was a patron there in a mobility scooter who was ordering food to go, so clearly there are people with different levels of mobility who comfortably visit the place.
- There are tables and chairs that can be moved as needed, along with padded bench seats running the length of one wall. The chairs do not have arms but I can’t speak to their strength as I sat on the bench seat along the wall.
- The service was excellent. Very friendly and attentive but never hovering, and always making sure we had sufficient drinks.
- They think of the “little” things here, such as providing a bucket for chicken bones and wet wipes for sticky fingers.
Now for the food! Many of their menu items are sharing platters but you can order a half size if you’re dining alone or looking for a smaller option. In general, portion sizes are big which I knew from online reviews, but we planned on having leftovers for lunch the following day and that worked out really nicely.
Between 4 of us we ordered a half order of Snow Cheese Fried Chicken, and order of Bulgogi Rice, Cheese BBQ, and Sweet Potato Rice Cake BBQ. Additionally, there were sides of corn in a sort of savoury cream, and slightly sweet pickled radishes.
Above photo: half order of Snow Cheese Fried Chicken.
Some of the online reviews raved about the “snow cheese”, which is a powder that they will dust over any number of items at your request. I have to say that I didn’t really love the snow cheese. In fact, one of the people who joined me for this meal aptly described it as tasting much like the cheese powder found in Kraft Dinner. That said, the chicken itself was really good. Hot, extremely crispy, and very moist. I didn’t waste any stomache real estate on the fries but the teenagers happily gobbled them up.
Above Photo: Bulgogi Rice
The Bulgogi meal can be ordered with rice or noodles and the people I was dining with asked for rice. I didn’t try any of this because, frankly, there was so much food and I was stuffed, but the other members in my party loved it and cleared every last morsel from the dish. They said it was very flavourful and fresh tasting.
Above photo: Cheese BBQ
As with all of their chicken platters, you can order the chicken cooked in the sauce of your choice (ranging from not at all spicy, to spicy, and in savoury or sweet options) but, being that it was our first visit, we stuck with the traditional Korean BBQ which was sweet and mildly spicy. This dish is exactly what it looks like; a giant platter of melted cheese, heaped with a pile of BBQ chicken and a few bits of green onion. Underneath, are some sliced onions for a bit of texture and flavour. Obviously, this place is not where you come for “health food” but this is where you come to enjoy every mouthful of indulgence! It was so creamy and rich and I would definitely order this again, though I might try it with a different chicken sauce but only because I like to try new flavours. It was sublime with the Korean BBQ sauce.
Above photos: Sweet Potato Rice Cake BBQ
This platter is HUGE and delicious! It includes loads of chicken in the sauce of your choosing (again, we went with Korean BBQ), deep fried slices of sweet potato, slices onion underneath that mound of food, and what they call rice cakes that, in this case, are like giant capsules made of rice flour and what I think was either taro (they were purple when bitten into) or some other variety of sweet potato. The consistency reminded me a lot of mochi. All I know is, they were little capsules of heaven. Everything that was supposed to be crispy was crispy and everything that was meant to be soft and flavourful was exactly that. Just like the cheese platter, this is something I would gladly order again.
Above photo: Sides (corn in a cream sauce, slightly sweet pickled radishes, and hand wipes)
The corn really just tasted liked canned corn with a bit of cream to me but I really enjoyed the radishes. Eating a couple between the other foods really cut the richness and acted as a palate cleanser, much the way pickled ginger does when eating sushi. Each of the two large platters came with these sides.
None of the people in my party wanted to try the octopus on the menu but I definitely want to go back and try that so I’ll be sure to update about that when I do! For health reasons, I’m not indulging in alcohol right now, but they did have some interesting looking Korean alcoholic beverages including beer and some milky drinks that intrigued me.
Parking aside, this place is comfortable, the service is excellent, and this is a place I will definitely visit again and again because it’s a great place for a casual date night or to bring loads of friends and share giant platters of food.