Seoul House Royal Korean Restaurant

I spent the last week learning a semesters worth of excel statistics.. gross. but who am I kidding, I ended up playing word challenge on fb (I hate those stupid apps.. but this one was so addicting damnit). I had to resort to frozen pizzas, peas and carrots, or cereal for food. Today, I went to Seoul House Royal on W Broadway for lunch.. It was good to see the world after being a nerdy hermit on the foggy mountain, but I wish I went elsewhere.

The restaurant is huge, but extremely dead at lunchtime on a Saturday. There's no music, so it's very very silent inside. The food was the usual korean/japanese food.. nothing special or different. We ordered the chicken wings, beef short ribs hot pot, and stone bibambap.. It took a very very long time for the food to come, even the kim chee :(

The bibambap was ok, it wasn't very big, I still like seoul doogbaneki best. The hot pot was just a metal bowl full of soup and a couple pieces of beef short ribs. It looked and tasted mediocore. I thought it was a hot pot! The chicken wings were deep fried too long.. They weren't very good.

The food was a little expensive- 3 dishes= 41 dollars.. We also got a piece of melon/grape at the end.. btu the grape was soo mushy.. I had to spit it out.

The service was ok, sometimes a bit slow, and the ambience isn't very good. I think if they played some music it might have been better.

Benkei Ramen+ Jang Mo Jib

my parents recently came back after a month stay in hk, we decided to try out shiro on cambie but it was closed on remembrance day :( so we opted for korean food on Robson st. From my recent discovery of free parking on Robson (sorry it's a secret that I cannot reveal. parking is too damn expensive!) we weren't afraid of going downtown to eat anymore. We used to stay away from that area from the conjested traffic, flocks of people walking on blinking hand sign, and the one way streets that add the confusion of it all. I would much rather walk around downtown over driving!

Anyways, we went to jang mo jib.. We've heard of this restaurant a lot but never been because there hasn't been an opportune time. We went inside, and was a little confused because there were two doors.. and we weren't sure whether or not it was one or two separate restaurants. There seemed to be a lot of koreans as well which comforted us to think it should be authentic. We ordered a tofu hot pot, bibambap, and bulgohgee. The kitchen was open and it was a little messy, but as long as it was clean :) It got a little stuffy/hot inside though from the kitchen..

The bulgogee was pretty good, although I found the beef to be sometimes too tough. I couldn't eat some of it.. The seafood tofu hotpot was o-k and the bibambap had a lot of veggies and rice. But I think I prefer the one from seoul dookbeangi (sp) much more. Everything cost 50 bucks at the end.. a litle expensive imo..




Next we went to Benkei Ramen.. My parents were so used to eating in hk they were ready for another meal. Me on the other hand just wanted to go there and see what it was like :)
We went at a very busy time, having to wait in line for about 20 minutes.. The good thing about this place is everyone just wants to have a bowl of ramen and that's all. No one is dwelling around or having a big feast, hence there's always an in flow of hungry customers and outflow of happy ones :)


Upon looking at the menu, I was glad they didn't have a minimum charge of 8/person (a la kitaro and motomachi) because I was really full and wasn't exactly in the mood for a big bowl of ramen after the rice and beef at jang mo jib. I ordered a cha siu onigiri. my parents each ordered a bowl of of ramen (the light miso one and chicken and tonkatsu). The onigiri was not good. It was way too salty for my liking and fell apart so easily that it was really hard to eat. The bowls of ramen were normal.. however I think I prefer them over the ones from motomachi. They weren't as salty and more light tasting.

Seoul Doogbaegi

When people say korean food, I automatically think about korean bbq. That was basically what I thought all koreans ate (and kimchi and rice) up till a year ago when I ventured into a korean restaurant in koreatown (end of robson) and ate a disgusting seafood pancake. This is also a pretty ignorant comment since my best friend for like 8 years and counting is korean...but she's practically white like me. and it doesn't really help when another good korean friend of mine always answers me he is eating korean bbq whenever I ask him what he is eating for dinner.

Anyways, tonight before going back to school, me and my family decided to try a real authentic korean restaurant. After the disaster at Joesphines, I was a little weary about going into a restaurant where chinese/english was not the predominant language. Nonetheless, I've seen all these pictures of the rice in a clay pot with an egg on top and I really wanted to try it (bi bam bap)

The restaurant is simple with beautiful food pictures all around the room. Everyone was korean ranging from young to old. There was only one server who did basically everything (besides cooking).. she was pretty efficient I must say.

We ordered bi bam bap, chicken ginseng soup, and bbq beef. The little side dishes came and the potatoes were delicious! omgosh I ate all of it within a minutes. They were so tender with a subtle sweetness to it. yummy.

The bi bam bap came with a soup first. Then she whisks my empty potato bowl and goes off to help other customers. The bi bam bap was pretty bland and I love it that way. I basically cut out salt from my life (when I can control it) and I don't really use any dip sauces in anything (Soy, hot, etc) so my taste has been towards blander things. After mixing the egg yolk into the rice and veggies, it was so delicious I could have eaten the whole thing.

She quickly comes back with the bbq beef and another delicious bowl of potatoes! :) I didn't even have to ask her and she just got it. how nice. The bbq beef was a little too saucy for me.

Then the ginseng chicken soup came. it wasn't very authentic apparently and the inside of the chicken was ice cold. well, at least she apologized, took it back and reheated it...
Although I don't think I'll be coming back here.. I enjoyed the bi bam bap and potatoes :)

Monks and etc

so on Wednesday, me and my friend ventured to Monk Mcqueens for lunch because we had a coupon and I wanted 1000 points :) We were an hour early so we went to Ocean 6 seventeen for dessert. The place was really empty which was saddening because it is really cute inside and the food doesn't sound too bad. The people are really friendly even though I accidentally ignored the cute chef (sorry!) We had a chocolate pot de creme which he whipped up freshly for us. :D I am definitely coming back for lunch one day.

That cannot be said for Monks. I do not plan on ever coming back. The crab cakes were probably the worst I have ever had. The salad wasn't very good either. my friend had the oysters and she liked it. Maybe it was just today.. but the place smelled bad too (from the oysters but still, it was pretty rank in there)

On Friday, we skipped the last hour of marketing to go have lunch. We went downtown to the mill marine bistro. We shared a baked brie with bread. It wasn't bad but it was not worth 13.75. Are you serious? the menu was a little pricey for what they were serving.

We were still hungry so we went over to the Seawall bar at Westin Bayshore. The prices there were cheaper than the mill! We shared a goat cheesecake. It was really yummy. I love cheesecake
We ventured to Osada above Relish. The place seemed pretty authentic. We shared a bbq chicken wings and flaked salmon and avocado roll. They were both pretty good and good prices. Then we went to Bin 941. I think I like Bin 942 more just because it's a bit bigger. We shared the grilled asparagus. Hum.. one day I'll go there and eat something more than 7 bucks (last time we shared a mashed potatoes :( ).

Lastly we went to Spice Alley and shared the Seafood Jeon. Ew. Way too much batter.
All in all I spent around 25-30 bucks on food the whole day but I spent 100 bucks on clothes :( and I just bought 2 pieces of clothing! A dress for clubbing and a tshirt. ack!