| rev:text
| - Hm. The reviews here for Lim Ga Ne are... interesting. Especially since they contrast quite a bit from my own experience.
First of all, I am Korean. I grew up on Korean food, ate mom's cooking, lots of other Korean mother's cooking, LA Korean food, and most recently NY Korean food, so I think I have a bit of background in Korean food.
First of all, this place is not a Korean BBQ place. Although they offer BBQ, if you really want BBQ, you should go to a place with soot bul BBQ (charcoal BBQ).
I did not have their naengmyun, so I will not comment on that.
1st: banchan (side dishes, comes free): Lim's actually puts out about 6 sides, which is more than most. From my 3 experiences there, they had 3 types of kimchee: regular napa cabbage, radish cubes, and leafy green kimchee, bean sprouts, seaweed, slimy hot stuff which i think is squid, but i'm not sure, and I didn't really like it. Overall, the spread was decent, and tasted good (except for the slimy squid). Of note, I really liked their kimchee. It was not overly fermented, and packed a powerful punch. One of the best kimchee's on bloor. One great bonus about this place is that they also give you some pieces of pa jun, (flour pancake with veggies in it, served with soy sauce), which will cost you $5-8 dollars for a full one at other restaurants. Nice bonus.
2: My favorite here is the spicy beef brisket soup (yook gae jang. It IS spicy, for those of you who can't handle spicy foods, you probably want to stay away. However, for those of you who CAN handle it, there is probably nothing better in the chill of autumn and winter, then to sit down to this soul-warming soup. It will fog up your glasses and make you sweat, and that's a GOOD THING. It is hearty, filling, and extremely flavorful. The brisket is appropriately pulled apart along the grain, not cut across. The 2nd most important ingredient, goh sah ri (baby fern), lends this dish the... I'm not sure how to describe it, other than that it has an earthy/mountain plant taste, that comes only from this plant. Other places will skimp this, skip it altogether, or not soak it long enough, leaving it hard. Not Lim's. I've had this dish 3x, came out perfectly each time. In addition, there are bean sprouts, vermicelli noodles, garlic, etc.
3. dolsot bibimbab (stone pot bibimbap). Usual medley of veggies and spoonful of ground meat. It was ok, usual fare.
4. Fish. Now, I am personally not a lover of fish. But most ppl don't know that Koreans eat fish quite frequently, and especially in the manner that Lim's serves it: Heavily salted and grilled. Most ppl don't eat this to be filled by the fish. You eat a small amount of fish at a time with your rice, that's why the fish are generally small (although it's bigger here than the ones my mom usually gets), and heavily salted.
5. Kimchi jji gae. (kimchee stew). This is one of the ways that I personally grade a korean restaurant, and Lim's comes through with flying colors. Kimchi chi gae can go wrong in several ways: It can be made of overly fermented kimchi (making it extremely sour), it can be make of too fresh/raw kimchi, it can have inadequate meat flavor (usually needs pork bone base, or ssam kyup sal (3-layer pork), for necessary meat flavor. Lim's kimchi jji gae has none of these deficiencies. It was not mindblowing, but pretty good nonetheless.
Price: Lim's is about $1-2 more expensive than the "bun shiks" (korean version of fast food/snack restaurants) Thumb bun shik, Seoul bun shik.
Oh yeah, they don't always have English-speaking waiters/waitresses there, which might be an issue. One of the times I was there, there was a tall skinny korean dude who spoke excellent English, practically explaining every dish to a caucasian family. I don't know how often he is there.
Overall, good value, good service, tasty food. I wish it was a little closer, and not all the way at the west end of Bloor-Koreatown, but that's a different issue.
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