"0"^^ . . "2012-01-05T00:00:00"^^ . . . "0"^^ . "Restaurant: Thumbs Up\nCuisine: Korean\nLocation: The Annex\nAddress: 615 Bloor St W\nPrice Range: ~$10\n\n1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very Good 5: Excellent\n\nFood: 2\nService: 4\nAmbiance: 2\nOverall: 3\n\nExtra information:\n\n*$6 lunch Special (including tax) from 11:30-2pm\n\nI found out about Thumbs Up Restaurant because they are well known on many restaurant review websites for having a killer lunch deal.\nAnd for 6 dollars? I do have to agree. \n\nOnce in awhile, I go to Christie to visit the Korean market and have lunch around the area. Last 2 times I was there, I went to Buk Chang Dong Tofu Pot place and I wanted to try something new so I dropped by Thumbs Up. I find their menu to be quite random here. They serve all different 'types' of Korean food and it's not really categorized. I was aware of the fact that some people say they have the best pork bone soup here...but I personally don't like that dish so that didn't interest me very much.\n\nWhen we sat down, we were given some water and a piece of paper with menu printed on it and we could basically write down how many of what we wanted.\n\nWe were given 3 types of side dishes and to be honest, they were all pretty bad.\nKimChi was very bland and basically covered in red pepper flakes, the potatoes were undercooked and I don't even know what that shredded cabbage was.\n\nOrdered: #7 Dukbocki 2/5\n\n*Korean rice cake with vermicelli and cabbage in spicy sauce for $5.31\n*I love spicy rice cakes and everytime I visit Korea, I would have this at least once a day\n*It's a childhood food for Koreans but still very much loved by adults \n*I was surprised to see that they used 2 types of rice cakes (the long ones and the flat ones)\n*Rice cake was overcooked and way too soft\n*They use more chili flakes than chili sauce (gochujang). This could be either way, it's just their recipe\n*I could tell that they don't use MSG here at this restaurant\n*Usually when I eat this out, it's filled with MSG so it would be super spicy but this one tasted like it was homemade\n*Overall it was too bland and watered down\n\nOrdered: #14 Goon Mandoo 1/5\n\n*Plate of 11 pan fried dumplings for $5.31\n*At asian restaurants, pan fried dumplings are quite standard and usually a safe item to order\n*I usually order these when my main dishes are spicy to balance it out\n*Fillings were grounded up pork and some chopped up vermicelli\n*Fillings were really mushy, had no flavor and had this unpleasant taste\n*These were just bad dumplings overall\n\n\nOrdered: #17 Ojinguh Bokum 3/5\n\n*Stir fried squid and vegetables in spicy sauce served with rice for $7.08\n*Normally I don't really care for this dish but if you've been following my tweets recently, I've been obessed with Spicy squid and Milkshakes!\n*This dish is quite big in size (rice and squid)\n*This wasn't spicy at all but it had enough sauce to be eaten with rice\n*It looked like there wasn't much squid but there was underneath all that cabbage pieces\n*I actually enjoyed this dish a lot\n*It tasted home made but had overall good spicy flavor\n\nService was really good at Thumbs Up- there was this girl working by herself and she would constantly check up on us asking if we needed anything. She actually went around asking people how was the food and if they were enjoying it. I think she made my visit extra pleasant by being in such a good spirit!\n\nSummary: For $6 lunch, you can't really complain about Thumbs Up. Their food is just average and if you like home-made style Korean food, this might be the place for you."^^ . "0"^^ . "3"^^ .