Arirang

I can't believe it's been a year since I last posted.  I mean to post more, and I have posts that are saved as drafts, but I just never got around to actually posting them.  Last year I didn't get to check out many places locally, but I did get to visit some pretty awesome places in Australia.  Since it was a while ago, I'm not sure what the best way of posting would actually be.

Anyways, locally, yesterday I took a friend out to lunch for a super belated birthday.  Due to her strict one hour lunch break, we had to stay super close to work.  The restaurant that we had both wanted to go to and was craving turned out to be closed Tuesday and Wednesdays.  So we went next door to Arirang.  Arirang is a well known Korean BBQ restaurant in Mississauga (from what I hear at least).  Since it was lunch time, we didn't go for the Korean BBQ option and ordered just a bulgogi bibimbap, and a soontofu with pork.  The first thing that arrived was a small, almost teacup sized cup of congee.  Tasted ok.  The banchans came next.  There were only 5 items, there was fried fish paste, kimchi, seaweed, bean sprouts, and potato.  Mostly ok, nothing special.  I would have preferred the kimchi to have been fermented a bit longer as it was still a bit too 'raw' for my liking.  Friend devoured her bibimbap, which came steaming hot in the stone bowl.  My soontofu came second.  The tofu that came in my stew seemed way firmer than what i'm used to seeing in the stew.  Then as i stirred i noticed there was seafood in my stew, which was one of the options of soontofu you can choose from.  I waved the waitress over and told her I didn't order seafood soontofu, and that I ordered pork.  She looked at me funny and said "You can't eat seafood?".  No lady, the problem isn't that I can't eat seafood, I don't want to eat seafood.  I did't order seafood because I don't want it.  She took it back without any apologies and later on brought what I had ordered.  No real complaints taste wise, just really not that special either.

We were too rushed to eat for me to remember to take any pictures, sorry!

Arirang
1177 Central Parkway W,
Unit  72
Mississauga, ON
L5C4P3

Phone: (905) 804-1880

Hours:  Monday - Sunday 1100a - 1100p

The Fry

My hubby loves fried food, in particular fried chicken.  Every once in a while, he requests to eat fried chicken.  And more often than not, I say no, not because it’s not healthy, but because my stomach is quite sensitive and I can’t handle all that grease and salt.  But this time, I agreed to eat some Korean fried chicken for a late dinner.  The place was packed when we arrived at 930p.  Could also be because the restaurant is quite small.  We had to wait almost half an hour for a table.

Korean fried chicken, to me is pretty much like any regular fried chicken, but with slightly less batter, and more Asian flavouring.  We went to The Fry on Yonge through a recommendation from my friend.  We kind of over ordered……  My friend had said repeatedly that we won’t need so much food (there was the 4 of us), and I didn’t listen.  My eyes were bigger than my stomach (old Chinese saying).  We ordered an order of French fries, boneless chicken with green onion, half chicken with soy garlic sauce, and half chicken original flavour.  Before the chicken came out we got some free appetizers.  Appetizers included lettuce salad, pickled radish, coleslaw, and this hot corn kernels dish.  The coleslaw I think was bought that way, nothing spectacular.  The salad, the lettuce was fresh, nothing wilted.  The corn kernels were hot and buttery.  The french fries were nothing special, just normal frozen fries.

Free Appetizers

French Fries

The boneless chicken pieces with green onion, was essentially original flavour boneless chicken pieces topped with a heaping stack of fresh/raw green onions.  The raw green onion was a good refreshing contrast to the piping hot chicken.

Boneless Green Onion Chicken

The other 2 dishes we ordered, half chicken with garlic soy, and half chicken original flavour, in my opinion was much better than the boneless.  I guess the bone in factor retains a lot more of the moisture, resulting in much juicer meat.  I preferred the original flavour over the garlic soy, but that’s just personal preference.  I just like my food plainer. 

Garlic Soy Half Chicken

Original Half Chicken

One thing I did like was that it wasn’t overly salty like Popeyes or Kentucky Fried Chicken.  What I did notice was that the chicken wasn’t as crispy on the outside.  My friend said that normally it’s crispier and maybe it was just an off day.  Means a repeat visit will be required one day.

The Fry 

4864 Yonge St.,

North York, ON

M2N 5N2

Phone:  (416) 546-6159

Hours:  Monday - Saturday 5:00p - 3:00a

             Sunday 5:00p - 12:00a

Cho Sun Ok

I’m really starting to feel my age nowadays.  As a kid, the days seem to go on forever and never end because I wanted to grow up.  And now, time just seems to slip through my fingers and I just don’t know where the time goes.  There just isn’t enough time in a day to get all the things I need to get done, done.  This is the main reason why I haven’t gotten a chance to see my friend in a very long time.  I love eating with my friend.  Minus cheese, she’s willing to eat anything and anywhere, a perfect dining companion.  In fact, she's more of an adventurous eater than I am.  We were debating between Cho Sun Ok or another Korean restaurant, and because of the very delicious looking photos in Yelp, we decided to try Cho Sun Ok.

Cho Sun Ok, according to reviews, were known for their cold noodles.  Again based on the reviews, other places that serve cold noodles, just open a pack and cook the noodles and add the broth.  Here they specialize in this dish, no opening of packages here.  Cold noodles on a cold night?  No problem, we’ll just balance it out with some hot noodles as well.  The hot noodles was a perfect meal according to my husband and friend.  There was instant noodles, rice cake, sausage, pork belly, spam, kimchi all cooking tableside on a hot pot stove.  If my husband could eat that every meal and not die from high cholesterol, he would probably do it.  To me, its not something that I would crave, but it’s definitely cold weather comfort food.

Hot Instant Noodle Dish

I have never had cold noodles before.  And when I mean cold, I mean the broth is partly frozen, think slushy consistency.  At first, it was kind of weird, the frozen broth, I’m used to eating hot soup noodles, not cold.  The taste of the broth was pretty good, almost a little sweet.  I’m not sure what gave it that sweet flavour.  It was topped off with an egg, some thinly sliced radish, and some thinly sliced Asian pear.  I didn’t like the Asian pear in it, I actually thought it was radish when I grabbed it.  But I think it has to do with the fact that I’m not a fan of the salty sweet combos.  I loved the noodles itself.  I’m not sure what type of noodle it is exactly, it was a darker colour, and had a somewhat chewy texture.    I’ll definitely come back, especially during our hot summer nights for another bowl of these noodles!

Cold Noodles

We also ordered a side of fried dumpling.  I love dumplings and deep fried stuff so it was a great combo.

Size of Fried Dumpling

Cho Sun Ok

7535 Yonge St.

Markham, ON

L3T 2B3

Phone:  (905) 707-8426

Hours:  Monday 11:00a - 10:00p

             Tuesday CLOSED

             Wednesday - Sunday 11:00a - 10:00p

http://www.chosunok.ca

Joons

I've heard so much about this place, and how good it is.  And i've been meaning to try for years.  I didn't get a chance till recently.  School was finally done this term, time to relax and catch up with some friends.  The most famous dish from Joons that I kept hearing about is the dak galbi, this dish with rice rolls, chicken, and cheese.  Sounds like a weird combo, Korean food and cheese, but hey, Koreans make good KFC (Korean Fried Chicken).  The dak galbi wasn't anything super special.  It was yummy, but I just kept thinking, I can make this at home if I buy the gochujang sauce (which I already have at home), so I'm not sure i'll be coming back specially for this dish.  The kimchi fried rice was tasty, just the right amount of seasoning.  The stew was good, and light.  Good contrast to the dak galbi.

Dak Galbi

Kimchi Fried Rice

Stew with Dumplings & Meats

Again, the food here is nothing too special, it is good comfort food, or if you have just drank a little too much.

Joons
4852 Yonge St.
North York, ON  M2N 5N2

Myungdong Kalkuksu Noodles and Shabu Shabu

This place has the biggest dumplings I've ever eaten.  I'd estimate them to be the size of my fist.  Filling has a lot of meat, and some cabbage.  Good balance I think.  I love the fact that the dumpling skin is so thin!

Korean Dumplings

But thats all thats good here.  Noodles were so-so.  We didn't try the other hotpot dishes.  And I don't think we would be going back again.  The service here is horrid.  All the waitresses look angry all the time, they all have permanent scowls on their faces.  We've tried this place twice.  The first time, when we ordered it seemed like they were very impatient with us.  Made us feel so uncomfortable.  This second time we went, it was with a very large group, 13 of us.  When we told them how many, they gave us a WTF look and walked away angrily.  A table for 8 opened up and they told us to sit down.  We politely told them that we have a total of 13, they said well they're not here yet and it's busy.  We just assumed that they would give us the table next to us when the customers leave.  The customers leave and they give the table to other people.  We ask the waitress and she responded, look how busy it is and left.

This is no way acceptable for customer service.  No matter how good the food at the restaurant is, I wouldn't go somewhere where they treat customers with such bad manners.

Myungdong Kalkuksu Noodles and Shabu Shabu
8194 Bayview Ave.
Markham ON, L3T 2S2
905-707-0168

Dumpling Restaurant

I find dumplings so comforting to eat.  Reminds me of the days when I was a kid and would help my mom wrap dumplings for dinner.  Mom's dumplings are always the best.  I try and make them at home now, but they never taste the same.  Every so often I will buy frozen dumplings from the supermarket because they're convenient.  They don't necessarily taste very good, but they will do when you're hungry and need something to put in your instant noodles.

Whenever I pass by Peachtree Plaza, I see this very plainly named restaurant, named Dumpling Restaurant.  We went on a Saturday night for dinner, restaurant was quite empty.  Which usually isn't a good sign, but there's so much competition in Richmond Hill/Markham for Chinese food, that I just ignored it.  I was just expecting to see dumplings and noodles on the menu.  Strange enough, there's a Korean food section.  I guess it may have something to do with competition with the Korean restaurant right next door?

I have to apologize, I didn't take pictures of all the dishes we ordered.  And because it has been a while since we ate there, I may not remember all the dishes we ordered either!  From what I remember, we ordered a cold Korean noodle, bibimbap, steamed dumpling, pan fried dumpling, and deep fried dumpling.

This was the very first time i've tried the Korean cold noodle.  My cousin has told me many times before how good it is.  But it's kind of strange to see a piece of fruit floating in a savoury broth.  I'm not a fan of the salty sweet combo, so I just avoided the shredded Asian pear.  It was so delicious and refreshing.  There was also kimchi, cucumber, boiled egg and some sort of meat in there.  The noodles were the sweet potato noodles, so it had a good chewy texture.

Cold Korean Noodles

The bibimbap was nothing out of the ordinary.  Just like any other bibimbap you order at a Korean restaurant.

Bibimbap

The dumplings were very good and seemed very fresh.  I think we ordered a pork steamed dumpling and a deep fried seafood dumpling.  The deep fried dumplings were so good!  The skin was nice and crispy.  We also ordered a pork and leek pan fried dumpling but I forgot to take a picture of it.

Steamed Dumplings

Fried Dumplings

For dessert we ordered a caramelized sweet potato dish.  The sweet potato is cooked and covered in a sugar syrup that is cooked to a hard ball stage.  You take a piece of sweet potato and dunk it into a bowl of cold water and the sugar becomes hard and crispy.  I've had it at other restaurants and it's usually pretty good.  But here, there were some pieces that were good, and some that seemed uncooked.  I'm still wondering if it was uncooked or if the sweet potato was bad.  Next time I come i'll probably just stay away from dessert.

Dumping Restaurant
8362 Kennedy Road, Suite A5
Markham, ON L3R9W5
(905) 604-7288