Red Top Restaurant - Merritt

Sushi in Merritt, what the....I'd say it's a safe to guess that Red Top Restaurant may be the only game in town as far as Japanese food is concerned, but I really don't know.  I'm not often in Merrit and the last time I was there, I was going up to Kelowna for a car show and my car broke down (numerous times)....one of my stops landed me up overnighting in Merritt.  On the way back, my group decided to make a pit stop in Merritt for food and we pulled into Red Top Restaurant.  From the outside, there was no indication it served Asian food, let alone Japanese/Sushi.

When we pulled in, our group of 1st generation Honda Civics grabbed a lot of attention from the locals.  Once we got inside, we discovered that though it was a Japanese/sushi restaurant, our cars were pretty much the only things in town that were made in Japan.

I didn't try my standard guage for a good sushi restaurant (Chirashi don) this time because I didn't think it was worthwhile.  How fresh could seafood possibly be this far inland?  But still, I was craving some sushi, so I just settled on a bento box.  It came with a decent assortment of sushi that was recently defrosted (so that's about as fresh as you're going to get), some tempura, a green salad of some sort, some deep-fried gyoza (very un-Japanese), and miso soup. 

Some of my friends stuck with the safer items like California rolls, tempura, salad and deep fried gyoza.  Kill it with hot oil.

My meal was pretty filliing actually, and I didn't get sick after eating it so the seafood must have been recently defrosted and probably stored well.  I was surprised to get ika (squid) as part of the nigiri sushi assortment, but it was a nice surprise.  The salad was pretty basic, and the batter for the tempura was slightly undercooked.  Deep-fried gyoza.......sigh.  Only in Chinese and Korean restaurants.    The miso soup  was pretty standard.  Anyway, it wasn't too expensive overall, so yeah, I'd probably go back if we stopped through Merritt again.

One thing that kind of irked me was that they didn't have Korean food on the menu.  Why Korean?  Because half-way through our meal, a busload of Korean tourists entered the restaurant and filled the place up.  The little steel rice bowls came pouring out of the kitchen, along with the little steel chopsticks, all the side dishes (sweet potato, bean sprouts, KIM CHI, etc).  WTF?  If I knew there was Korean food available, I would have ordered that!  It's not that I have a preference for Korean food over Japanese, but the Korean food served to the tour group looked pretty damn good....Oh well, next time I'm there, I'll see if I can get some Gahl Bee and a steel bowl of rice.

Seoul Express - Yaohan

The last stop I have on the Chinese food court tour isn't Chinese, it's Korean.  Haha, but it's in a prodominantly Chinese food court and they have good Korean food so it's on this list.  In an earlier post, my pal Vince warned me about claims to authenticity and the word "Express" in the name of the shop, but there's no doubt that Seoul Express' proprietors are very, very Korean.

Seoul Express has been a member of the Yaohan food court for years, and I occasionally go there when I need hangover food or something to burn a hole in my guts. 

I usually get their stone bowl bi bim bap.

This is a boiling vat of I-don't-know-what, but it looked very terrifying and angry so I took a picture of it.

My stone bowl with a good amount of chili sauce.  It really gives the meal character. 

It comes with a bowl of soup, side veg and a cup of tea, all required to enhance your experience with ring of fire later on.

Like I said, the place is pretty good and it's kind of a surprise to find it at the Yaohan food court of all places.  The service is is friendly enough  and the food comes fairly quick considering the prep work behind some of the dishes.....best thing of all, food court prices!

Jang Mo Jib - Aberdeen

What else would be open on Christmas?  Aberdeen and Yaohan, and pretty much every Chinese restaurant in the lower mainland.  It always reminds me of A Christmas Story when Ralphie and his family go to the Chinese restaurant when they lose their turkey to the neighbor's dogs.  Anyway, our family is no exception because we seldom do a turkey.  I went with my parents on a food court tour during the holidays and one of our first stops was Jang Mo Jib in the Aberdeen food court.

My mom ordered the Chicken Bool Go Gee for $7.95 and it came with the usual side dishes plus rice and soup.  It was the first time I'd ever eaten this dish and what I found was that it was spicier than hell fire, and a little sweet.  It tasted good, but I could already feel an ulcer developing.

Now the menu said this was Gam Ja Tang($5.95), but I call it fire soup.

Apparently my parents have this a lot after their daily walks...I have no idea how they can stomach this stuff so much, it would burn a hole through my guts.

I stuck with what I knew was good -  Gahl Bee ($9.95)

Inside one of the Korean gyozas.

Like I said, my parents come here a lot, and it was the first for me.  At first, I was a bit skeptical, but after taking my first bite into the beef short rib, I was hooked.  Now, I'm no expert on Korean food because most of it is way beyong my spice tolerance, but one thing I do know is beef, and the beef here is damn good.  Koreans know beef, and they know it well.  The Jang Mo Jib location at Aberdeen Food Court makes a pretty mean gahl bee.

We were walking around the mall at around 10am and when I placed my order here, the staff there looked like she was just waiting for the first customer.  She didn't speak much English or any Chinese for that matter, and my Korean is non existant, but I managed to point to what I wanted to eat and she figured it out with a friendly smile.  Actually, it was just about the friendliest service I had ever had at a food court, let alone Aberdeen Food Court.  Anyway, by the time my food was done, there was a line up and people were piling up to order at this place.

The food is good here, near as I can tell.  The service was wonderful that day, and well, the prices are reasonable I suppose.  It's got a pretty crappy review on http://www.urbanspoon.com/ but maybe I just don't know Korean food.  Would I go back?  Probably, but I hardly ever go to Aberdeen.  The parking lot is a nightmare, and I grow a new white hair everytime I go there.

Insadong Korean Restaurant

Clean...haha, that's about the most memorable thing about this place.  I was here a while back with some friends and family and ended up getting a room in the upper floor.  Finding parking was aggrivating to say the least.  When I arrived, there was a cloud of smoke hovering around the entrance from some of the patrons who still thought that smoking is good for the health. 

       

Upon entering the restaurant, I felt like I was.........in Asia. 

I know it's bad, but I love eating raw garlic and the miso chili paste with the meat.  I smell rancid for days, but that's the price you pay to enjoy good food.

Everything was clean, and neat.  There weren't sauces and meat-juice spilled all over the table, and the servers were careful enough to maintain this all during service.  I was pretty impressed....well, I get impressed when our server doesn't have their thumb in the food when placing the dish on the table.

Some kind of cold, seafood noodle salad....Lol, sorry, I am probably the last person you want to be asking for a review on Korean food. 

It's hard to tell in this picture, but most of the portions were generous.The japchae (no idea how to spell it) was done perfectly from what I can remember. Loads of meat, very little oil.  Some places, you see the noodles swimming in a pool of oil....not here.

The meat was of excellent quality, very fresh, and no sign of anything being frozen or recently defrosted.  My favourite for the nite had to have been the kalbi, but no images here...ate it too quick.

Overall, the food was good, the prices were okay and the service....well, the service could have been better, but it's not like the staff wasn't trying.  I think it was just a matter of the place being understaffed.  The restaurant is quite large and capable of seating a lot of people.  But it was also the spacing I guuess.  We were in a room on the upper floor so we were spread out and far from the rest of the dining area so maybe the staff had to do a little extra leg work to get to us. 

Would I go back?  I probably wouldn't go back unless someone else was driving.  Insadong isn't exactly close to where I live so I doubt I'd make the effort to go out that far.

Dai Jang Kum

It's pretty tough to find a decent Korean restaurant in Richmond with the exception of  maybe Seoul Express in the Yaohan Food Court, but other than that, I haven't had much luck outside of Downtown Vancouver or Coquitlam.  Dai Jan Kum is Richmond's other exceptions.With the whole authenticity aside (last time I checked, it was authentic), the food and service here is pretty good.

The meats and veg were all very fresh, and as far as raw stuff is concerned, Dai Jang Kum even gets a couple of points for presentation.  Where most other places serve the raw stuff in a plate that pools the dripping, defrosted blood (not that that sort of thing reall bothers me), this place keeps everything pretty neat and clean.

The noodles weren't drowned in grease like at some of the other places.

The seafood pancake was pretty good overall, chock-full of stuff, and very little filler.

I've only been to Dai Jun Kum once, and as I'm writing this, I am wondering to myself why that is.  The service was friendly and quick, the prices weren't horrendous, the food tasted great , the restaurant was pretty clean overall, and there's plenty of parking....what the hell?  I think I should go this weekend. 

Kyung Bok Palace...serves prison food

On a scale of crap to 10, this place ranks about 2 or 3, pretty much on par with another dive called Shabusen.  Earlier I did a review on Seoul House, and though it wasn't a great review, I'd have to say that Seoul House is infintely better than this place. 

My pal Jimmy was getting old.......it was his birthday and for some strange reason, we decided to punish him by taking him to this place.

The side dishes were run-of-the-mill, nothing toxic about them but a bit bland....same goes with the dipping sauces.

Bland, a bit raw in the middle.

I think they tried to pass off this stuff as "tempura"

Beware of Korean BBQ places that have sushi on their menus.....

The meat itself looks nice and marbelled, but it would have been nice to have some dipping sauce that was actually flavoured.  The overhead fans are probably only decorative because we saw a cloud of smoke hovering above us, and floating around the fan intake, which was pretty much doing nothing.  That's not necessarily a bad thing for some places, especially when it's all part of the experience (small shop, good food, cheap prices).  But in this case, you're paying a hefty dollar considering you get bland, tastless food delivered to you at a snail's pace by moody servers.  I really don't have a reason to return to this place.

Shabusen

Arguably one of the worst all-you-can-eat Sushi/Korean restaurants in existence, but for some strange reason people still flock here to stuff their faces.  On two separate occasions, I've experienced food poisoning from the location on Granville.  Obviously, this place is not Japanese or Korean operated. 

BBQ beef ribs, just about the safest thing you could eat as long as you cook them long enough.

You're taking your life in their hands if you dare try anything uncooked here.

Okay, so, you're wondering why I'm being so harsh on this place?  Well, there are a few reasons.  First, the service really blows.  You'd think that since it's a Japanese/Korean restaurant, the staff might try to emulate the mannerisms and etiquette of a Japanese restaurant.....but not so.  At Shabusen, you are greeted with contempt, as if you are a nuisance, rather than their source of income.  The washrooms are disgusting and I had a peak in the kitchen and it's equally filthy.  The salad bar is a joke and here's where my story gets good.  On one of my early visits, years ago, I went like everyone else to stuff my face and get my money's worth.  At the time, I really wasn't concerned with quality as much as quantity....what can I say, I was a starving college student, working my way through school.  I stuffed my face with everything I could get my greedy little hands on, and even tried the shellfish.  Needless to say, that was a huge mistake because several hours later, I was puking my guts out......my college education wasn't quite good enough to help me put two and two together.

A few years later, I ended up going there with my brother and a bunch of our friends.  Most of us were still not quite over the all-you-can-eat craze so we were still going to places like this.  We had almost everything on the menu, including some shellfish.  Waddya know, hours later, I woke up in the middle of the night, returning everything I ate to the ocean (via white porcelain receptacle in my washroom).  I returned to bed, defeated, when I heard more wretching.  I thought it was one of those moments where you are being violated so badly, you distance your mind from your body and it sounds like someone else is suffering.  But no, that was my brother, puking up a storm of his own.  Images of filthy washrooms (and equally filthy sanitation standards of the staff and food workers) and shellfish left outside without refrigeration flashed before my eyes.  

Needless to say, I haven't been back since, and I wouldn't recommend anyone go there, unless violent projectile vomiting as a result of food poisoning is your thing.