We have a few Japanese restaurants in town – three, if I am not wrong, excluding one of those franchises but including the one that we frequent quite a lot. However, we only have a Korean fried chicken franchise place and we do not have a full-fledged Korean restaurant. My girl loves the spicy Yangnyeom Original at the former and their fried chicken with the yellow sauce (that tastes something like honey mustard) is quite nice too, anytime better than the Colonel’s.
This…
…has been around for a long long time ever since my girl was little and we used to drop by quite frequently…
…but other than the Korean “barbecue” and the complimentary kimchi that they would give everytime, I do not recall anything that we had there that was Korean. All the other dishes would be more or less what we can get at a lot of other places in town, more Chinese than Korean but everything tasted great and it was cheap. I think at the time, we could opt for the RM10.00 per head set dinner and for groups of 10, one would eat free. Somehow or other, I just stopped going though I do drop by this place located right below the restaurant time and time again.
Well, seeing that my girl and the mum are so into everything Korean these days, I decided to take them there last Sunday to see if it was any different than before…and goodness gracious me!!! The place was packed to the brim and there wasn’t a single table left. Just then, the people at a table by the door were done and they left and the lady boss asked us to sit there. There was a family who got there ahead of us – a couple and a son and an older man, probably the grandfather of the little boy, and even though she kept insisting, I simply refused to take the table and asked her to give it to them since they were there first. I told my girl to check the menu to see if there were things that would be typically Korean but there wasn’t really much so we decided to leave. The lady boss saw us and quickly asked us not to go, saying that there would be a vacant table very soon.
True enough, a group at one table left and we grabbed the seats at that one, adjoining another table where the diners were still eating. The workers (if I’m not wrong, there were only two) took quite a while to come by and clear everything and clean the table but it was all right – they had to do the serving as well. Then my missus pointed out that there were a few tables yet to order and we probably would have to wait forever for our turn so we got up and started to leave. Nope! We did not get to do that as the lady boss came again and said that she would take the order soon and everything would be served very fast…so we sat down again.
The group at the next table left and some sweet young things came and sat there but the lady boss came quickly and told them that the table had been booked and apologised that there wasn’t any table left so they would have to go elsewhere (which they did). Then she asked us to move to another table (adjoining another table where a couple was already eating away even though when we sat down at the first table, they had not ordered yet!) as there was a big group coming and she had to give them the two tables. Ok, we moved as instructed…even though my patience was already running out.
I wanted to order the more-like-Korean things on the menu such as the bibimbap or the kimchi fried rice…but she said we would have to wait a long time and advised us to take Set Meal B (for 3 persons)…
…and we would be served in a jiffy! In the end, we relented but I insisted on ordering the Korean seafood pancake (haemuipajeon) as well, ignoring all that she was saying about having to wait.
This was served first…
…the pickled seaweed appetiser and boy, it was so very nice – a lot nicer than the one at the fried chicken franchise place. The one we had there reeked so strongly of sesame oil and I am never a fan of that. I was beginning to feel much better already after being real pissed off by all the initial calamity.
This came just as quickly…
…except that we had to wait a bit for everything to cook before we could eat. I guess this is the typical Korean BBQ (barbecue) though to me, it is more like a steamboat except that there is no soup. I refused to give up that easily and helped myself to the little…
…that there was at the side. It was so flavourful, so very nice, and I noticed my girl enjoying it too.
Next, there was the jap chae (chap che on the menu) – the Korean fried glass noodles…
…and we all loved it a lot! It went especially well with the special (chili) sauce that they gave in a little Chinese teacup-like bowl, one each. Now, those glass noodles looked unusually big – I wonder if I can buy them at the shops so I can try frying my own.
To our disappointment, we did not get any kim chi fried rice and instead we got this…
…that we can get anytime at any of the Chinese stalls or shops. What was worse was that they used those frozen vegetables from the supermarts, the ones with the peas that will not turn soft no matter how long they are cooked!
Then our seafood pancake…
…came and this was so very good. There were prawns and squids inside…and bits of shitake mushroom and leek and onions too. We loved it immensely but we were already too full by then so each of us had a slice and took the rest of it home.
Just when we thought that was all there was, they served the fried kangkong (water spinach)…
I don’t think that’s Korean or even if they do have something similar, they probably would cook it differently, not like this – the way they do it at the chu-char (cook-fry) places here. Anyway, we were all too full by then so we asked for it to be tapao-ed for us to take home along with what was left of the seafood pancake.
This drink was part and parcel of the set as well – the luo han guo with mok mee (white fungus)…
The bill totalled RM60.00, no GST, no service charge…and that, I must say, was incredibly cheap! Dinner for three at our regular places would go way beyond this amount these days, usually for just one meat dish, a vegetable and a soup…with plain white rice. At this rate, plus the fact that the food is pretty good, I sure would love to go again…but I guess it would be best to make a reservation or drop by early or go for lunch instead. They open seven days a week, 10.30 to 2.00 p.m. and 5.30 to 10.00 p.m. and if anyone is wondering where it is located, it is in that block of shophouses to the right of Paramount Hotel, Jalan Kpg. Datu, on the 1st floor.
In the meantime, I am waiting for this new Korean place to open…and I hear there is another one coming soon as well. My girl and the mum would be mighty pleased, I’m sure. LOL!!!
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
I am sorry to hear that the rice was a disappointment. Looking at the photo you are sharing I can see why.
The ones I cooked look better? To be fair, it was all right, nice…except for the peas…just not Korean and we can get pretty much the same anywhere else.
The food is really not very Korean. But the price is great!
Yes, and very nice – two things that would keep me going back. I hope it isn’t always so crowded though…but another thing in their favour, even though it was a full house, it was not noisy unlike some places around here. Teachers, occupational hazard – can’t stand noise!
Wow, so packed, so good business, price is affordable too, no wonder.. The only Korean dish I lile is the bibimbap rice with egg, beef bugolgi (with cheese gravy) and maybe the Kimchi with egg soup.. But your seafood pancake looks very good too..Errr, you are right, the fried rice looks like Yeongchow fried rice, hehe 🙂
I tried bibimbap in Auckland – was ok, can’t say that it swept me off my feet but I would want to order that or their kimchi fried rice (even though I am not a fan of kim chi) as those would be more Korean than that which you call Yeangchow fried rice.
I like the Korean fried glass noodles, looks good. I agree that your fried rice looks so much better than this and I don’t like those frozen vegetables too. Usually, Korean/Japanese food are expensive but this is quite reasonable. Happy Blessed Mother’s Day to your missus.
Thanks, and the same to you.
We all loved that glass noodle dish, very nice. I did read somewhere that the ones in Kuching are not very nice – in fact, I do not know of one there even, not so popular or why, I wonder? Somebody said this one here is nicer even though it’s not quite Korean, and choices of anything remotely Korean are very limited. Maybe it suits the local tastebuds better – I’ve seen at least two positive/favourable blog reviews of this place.
wow, that’s VERY cheap! I had a kimchi hot pot yesterday, rm55…. jthen fried chicken rm33, near to rm90 just for 2 person T.T
Good grief! Then, I’d happily settle for this not quite authentic place – the price is right, very very right! 😀
The lady boss is very insistent on not losing her customers! It’s good that you managed to get a seat and had food served quite promptly in spite of the initial chaos. The food does not look too bad. The BBQ is quite different from what I have had. This one looks more like a hot pot with very little gravy.
Yes, the one we had in Auckland was a hot charcoal grill, not the same…and they barbecued the meat on it – thankfully, they had suctions over the grills to suck out the smoke so we did not end up smelling like the food after the dinner.
https://suituapui.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/arirang/
Bananaz would have no problem at all in ordering when inside a Korean restoran..its certainly bibimbap. If ‘no got’, then drop the ‘t’ ‘no go’ kinda simple equation haha.
Where’s a good place in KL or the surrounding areas? You take me there next time I go KL, can?
P.S. Glad to see you again. It has been a while. Hope all’s great at your end, hope Mango’s doing good too.
Huh luo han guo in the set? Should serve Korean rice tea which is more closer to home haha.
I have two boxes of Korean tea in the house, friend from Singapore gave me. Had one, can’t remember what it was, very sour. The other one’s ginger…so not going to have that in the meantime, so very hot here these days.
Your fried rice is better than the one served…
That goes without saying! 😉
heheh, yeah, Korean fried chicken is a fun change from KFC, i agree with your daughter 🙂
To give it due credit, family and friends from overseas and also Singapore say our KFC is better than theirs. Don’t ask me how or why – I wouldn’t know. 😀
Besides the bbq, Kim chi and steamboat, I don’t really fancy Korean stuffs. Maybe I’m too Japanese.. Haha..
You’re a little better than me – I’ve yet to acquire the taste of kim chi…and wasabi, when it comes to Japanese cuisine.
I think the only thing in Set Meal B that’s slightly Korean is the chap chea. 🙂
The price seems reasonably but it doesn’t look authentic Korean at all. Korean BBQ is always dry, never wet, there are actually several types but this looks more like a soup.
I do like Korean fried chicken though, they’re quite different from “regular” ones (meaning from the Colonel). There are quite a lot of places just cashing in on the Korean food hype (like a certain olive oil Korean fried chicken outlet here) and some quite good authentic ones – the restaurants around Mont Kiara are usually solid, since they’re run by Koreans.
Good to hear Sibu is getting a proper Korean restaurant, I wondered when someone would cash in on the craze. Kuching has had good ones for quite a long time, Koreana was opened in 2008 and that was pretty decent.
I think there are two versions of the Korean BBQ – this wet one or the dry one I had in NZ:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_barbecue
They have this wet type as well at an eat-all-you-can place on the 9th/top floor of the Sibu Central Market – never been there though, not all that keen to drive all the way up there:
http://ccwen08.blogspot.com/2014/09/eat-till-you-drop-king-kong-bbq.html
Maybe this style is 2-in-one – the soup is only around the side, the top part of the dome is dry…so maybe we were supposed to barbecue the meat there…but no, we goondoo…went and dipped in the soup. The lady did tell us to keep the veg at the side and not move any to the top and mix with the meat to cook them altogether. Blush! Blush! 😛
One of the new ones belongs to your friend’s brother – I saw you on her Facebook friends’ list, lives in Perth (but in Sibu right now, still here, I think). Probably you were friends in school here before. It’s going to be above that coffee place opposite Kin Orient/Sing Kwong, somewhere opposite your school. If I’m not wrong, he also has a share in that one. Right now, they are “trailling” the dishes – not open yet.