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| - In a nutshell, good korean food, slightly adjusted for the Canadian palate, at a good price range for the area.
I was introduced to this as a Korean version of Guu, so I came into this expecting for a rowdy bar style environment to share small plates with two good friends. Definitely not the environment that I found. The place is bright and natural, with a bit of hipster-modern. Other than the picture of the fermenting pots on the wall, I never would have guessed this was an asian restaurant.There is one large table where they can seat a large group, but the restaurant is small, and I would only come here with a group of 3-4 people
The menu seems to change every once in a while, so it's lucky I didn't fall madly in love with any of the dishes. Being said, almost every dish was well executed, paced well, and the service was friendly. There are a number of Japanese style dishes (the two cuisines often comingle), but looking for a more Korean experience, we tried the fried capelin, prawns with tobiko and seaweed salad, lobster bibimbap, bulkogi ssam, and the ban chan trio. The portions were a bit larger than expected. An small person could be satisfied by eating only one or two of the 'hot plates', or one ssam set, whereas you would expect to order 3-4 at any 'small plates' style restaurant.
Despite having barely any lobster, the lobster bibimbap was even larger than I would expect from a typical yonge-street korean restaurant that serves this as a main dish. The bottom was crunchy, and the flavours were bold, just the way a bibimbap should be.
The fried dishes were also well done; without any heavy greasiness, and complemented well by sauces for each. My only disappointment was the ban chan trio, the flavours were rather lacking, and the texture of the beans reminded eerily only of large black beans that are soaked but uncooked .
Without drinks, the bill came to $70 for three small-ish eaters. Reasonable price range for eating around financial district (well it's probably considered just outside), but this is the first time I've ever paid for side dishes at a korean restaurant!I wouldn't consider any of the dishes revolutionary or particularly unique, but each was made well and I would come back here again.
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