Seoul Ria, Sydney

I've never thought of going to Seoul Ria for Korean food, I honestly wonder why. Maybe because there are heaps of Korean restaurants on Pitt Street (where there are many Thai restaurants too), so it is always easier to pick from there - okay, this doesn't quite make sense. Nevertheless, a group of friends from home visited Sydney and another friend A suggested that we should take them to Seoul Ria, though technically I'm not qualified to take them there since I've never been there myself.

On my first visit to Seoul Ria, I was equally surprised by the price and the quality of the food. Not that it was surprisingly cheaper than other Korean restaurants, the food was actually pretty yummy. I didn't take any photos that first time because we were all famished and we could only take a group shot before digging in. A group of 10 of us were seated at the back of the restaurant, and it was so difficult to get anyone's attention! I can't remember if there was a buzzer on the side of the table like all other tables, but the wait staff was not that attentive for sure. Also, the staff don't acknowledge that they understood our needs (like asking for a pair of scissors to cut up the meat or for more water..), and sometimes they may end up bringing the extra pair of scissors after we already had two extra pairs. Our total bill worked out to be about $16 per person, which was superb!

Anyway, we visited Seoul Ria again because their seafood pancake was that good. Other than that, I don't ever think I'll visit again for any of their ban chan or dishes or hotpots.

Here are the pictures!

As with all other Korean restaurants, their ban chans are free of charge and you can ask for more whenever you're finished with any of them. Like always, the best way to know if you're ever coming back to the restaurant is to have the simplest dishes that they offer - the ban chan is definitely one way. Sadly, we have had better ban chan elsewhere (read about my favourite Korean restaurant Boom Bi Na here).

Here comes the bomb - the Korean seafood and shallot pancake ($18). Without a doubt, this has to be the best seafood and shallot pancake I've ever had in Sydney. There is a generous amount of seafood and an equal amount of chives/shallots in it and the pancake was pan-fried to perfection. The centre of the pancake was slightly dough-like and soft but not too much that it's not cooked. The sides were also crisp and the pancake wasn't bland that you need to dip into the accompanying sauce. Other than the fact that it's oily and this really can't be helped at all, there's really nothing to pick on this seafood pancake!

On the page for chef's recommendation, we picked their gganpoong gi ($28) which was spicy and sour fried chicken. Some pieces of chicken were slightly soggy, while others are crisp. The spicy level for this dish was beyond me so I could only have a couple of pieces. Otherwise, this dish didn't leave an impression on me.

The last we had was hae mul oden jeongol ($45), which was fish cakes and seafood hotpot. There weren't any pictures showing how the dish looked and it was seriously a gamble. The hot pot didn't turn out the way I thought it'd be, especially with all frozen food on skewers. However, the pot was so full that paying $45 was pretty worth. But I doubt I'll have this ever again because 1) it was so difficult to cook the individual skewers and 2) the soup stock was not that great. 

I wouldn't say service was pretty good when we were there. Despite having the buzzer at the same of the table, some wait staff sorta pretended they didn't see us "calling" for help. Also, we were told that the hot pot comes with two bowls of rice. When the rice wasn't served after a long while, we asked another staff about it and he wanted to add that two bowls of rice into our bills which was ridiculous. Not that we couldn't afford paying for two bowls of rice when our bill was almost $90, but the fact that we were told it was complimentary and yet we have to pay for the mistake by the staff who took our order. After going back and forth explaining the situation and how we were told of the complimentary bowls of rice instead of imaging that it was free, they eventually didn't charge us for it so all is good.. for now. 

Seoul Ria (urbanspoon)
2/605 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000

Se Joung, Campsie

Because I am a free bird now. Because I finished my exams. Because I finished uni. So here I am :] I'm pretty nervous about exams and results, I can't quite confidently say that I'll be able to graduate yet because the exam papers caught me by surprise, but right now it's the summer holidays so heck it.

Ever since I moved from the inner west suburbs to across from uni, I've been missing all the bargains and convenience that the inner west brings me. I certainly hope I could move back to the suburbs again because everything is a bargain. Because of a desire and need to visit Big W, we caught a one-hour bus down to Campsie. The bus ride was nothing less than bumps and aching bums. Nevertheless, so happy we got a couple of great bargains at Big W and also another chance to explore Campsie again. I love exploring suburbs, just looking and walking around to see what sort of suburb it is. I can't quite define what ethnicity Campsie is (like how Strathfield is little Korea and Cabramatta is little Vietnam), but it's definitely Asian fo sho.

Campsie didn't offer us much choices for dinner, so we picked the possibly only Korean restaurant in town - Se Joung. Reviews on eatability were promising so we were really excited about finally having Korean food again. We had pretty mixed feelings about this place, read on.

It was hell of a busy night at Se Joung. We were asked to shift from a bigger table to a smaller table, which barely had space for our overestimated amount of food. But we were extremely glad to shift anyway because we spotted a roach running out of the bbq! Imagine our shock. Eating from that bbq when a roach just ran out of it? We would have left the restaurant if not that we were hungry. But of course, most bbq restaurants always have this problem. I've heard of other scarier stories about other restaurants, so I wouldn't really fault them for it. Nonetheless, roaches grade restaurants.

The restaurant was so busy that night. Side dishes water + cups took pretty long to come that we had to ask a couple of times for them. The usual side dishes that most restaurants serve. I can't vouch for their honey potato though, no sweetness in it, just heaps of soy sauce.

The greedy us ordered three dishes, all of them are our regulars at almost all Korean restaurant. Ordering the same dishes at different restaurants seem boring, but it's a good gauge for us to decide if we were to return (even if the crowd and hygiene scares us away). The first we had seafood pancake, which was crisp and fried to perfection. As much as that, there were very few seafood and chives in it and it was bland. Maybe the bland-ness was to be complemented with the accompanying sauce, but it still doesn't feel right. 

I think the next dish we had was beef bulgogi or marinated beef, which was well marinated! We enjoyed this very much, even though our stomachs were already bursting with all that amount of food. We didn't have to cook the meat on our own, the staff will actually do it for you! This probably explains why service is mediocre even though there were so many wait staff around. 

The last we had had to be sweet and spicy crispy chicken. Sadly, it wasn't what we had expected. The fried chicken was soggy and soft and the sauce was way too spicy than sweet. There isn't a balance like what we expected (or experienced before), so we really had trouble finishing since I needed a spoon of rice with every piece I took - way too spicy. But of course, if you enjoy spiciness then maybe this will suit you. Otherwise, the soggy chicken pieces were really disappointing :( 

Conclusion - we probably wouldn't return to Se Joung. We could hardly get any attention from the waitresses (and even whom we suspected was boss of the restaurant) and the food is hardly exclusive and memorable. Nonetheless, it is my own honest opinions on them. 

Se Joung
Shop 364, 68-72 Evaline Street
Campsie NSW 2194

Boom Bi Na, Sydney

There is only one restaurant in my mind each time I crave for Korean food, unfortunately it is not the (in)famous Madang that everyone loves going to. I stopped visiting Madang after a while, because 1) the queue is always heaps long 2) you gotta go real early at 6pm sharp so you get a table right away 3) the service is becoming hostile and irritable sometimes 4) really, the food doesn't give me the 'wow' feeling anymore.

Thankfully, there is always Boom Bi Na on Kent Street close to Town Hall station. I've been there countless of times now, on some occasions we'll pick the same dishes (and get varying taste and renditions of them) and on experimental days we will have different stuff. Here is my mashed up review on the different days I've been to Boom Bi Na, pardon the lack of information on prices and perhaps names as well.

You can easily judge a good Korean restaurant by its banchan (side dishes), from the variety or the amount they serve to the taste of them. I'm not a great big fan of kimchi, so I won't be able to say something about their kimchi at all, but Boom Bi Na definitely has some excellent banchan with a great variety, despite the small serves (but hey, they refill it at no extra cost so no biggie about small servings). If I remember it right, my first visit at Boom Bi Na was to buy lunch takeaway. Not all restaurants do this, but Boom Bi Na packed  their banchan for us too! I was definitely pleasantly surprised to see cling-wrapped banchan in my takeaway boxes even though there were only a few pieces of the variety they offer. Well, better than nothing! 

There are a couple of "usual few" which are awesome. I absolutely love their honey potato and once I even asked if they sold that as a dish! I reckon the vegetable banchan like the spinach and beansprouts are pretty average, but it's definitely a lot better than really salty or really oily banchan elsewhere. 

On some days they also offer seafood pancake. Little cut up pieces, not fantastic since it's served cold and ain't crisp anymore, but sometimes you just crave for korean pancakes and having that big portion is just too much. Sometimes they have this little anchovies with caramelised peanuts, ooh those are yummy too.

Another dish that we terribly love to order is this ganpungi (sweet and spicy chicken) or dakgangjeong (sweet and crispy chicken). They are essentially the same stuff, but the taste differs each time we order this. On first time, we absolutely love this. It was so crispy, not that spicy (I can't take too much spice) and it was a huge portion which costs about $30? I think different chefs cook it differently, that's why we don't always get the same taste, portion, spice and sauce. You can probably tell the difference in taste from the photos below. Sometimes it comes dry, sometimes there is accompanying sweet and caramelized sauce which is totally yum.

After several tries, we sorta gave up on this. Once, it was served soggy (sigh where are my crispy chicken pieces!) and it wasn't as sweet and caramelized anymore. Perhaps it was a bad day for the chef, there was added chili padi which totally killed my taste buds. We'll probably go back for this on a week night when it is less busy. 

Bimbimbap is what most people would order, common and a very safe choice. There was nothing bad about their bimbimbap but nothing over the moon either. Just be wary of the hot spicy sauce - if you can't have too much spice, don't add the entire saucer of it. Lesson learnt. 

I had a friend who visited from Singapore and was awfully craving for Korean food (she's a huge fan of the country, the beautiful stars and the language). The three of us met up and I'm really glad they loved the food as much as I do. We ordered four dishes to share (I remember it was food overrrrrrrrload) and it was nothing short of splendid. My friend Y was telling us about how Korean food in Melbourne was so horrible that she felt so comforted after having a wonderful Korean meal in Sydney (hehe thanks to me :D). We ordered dukbokki (Korean spicy rice cakes) because Y wanted to compare the lousy rice cakes dipped in spicy sauce in Melbourne and spicy rice cakes (I know it sounds the same but imagine it pictorially). The first dish on the top of the photo is that - spicy rice cakes. Definitely not a regret, Y finished almost every single bits of it. 

To accommodate the non-spicy food eater (aka me), we had this grilled pork with vegetables. It was pretty good, except that it wasn't salty enough and was too oily. But I wouldn't expect less oil with such a fatty meat. 

If I remember it right, this was grilled spicy chicken. It was spicy, but still acceptable for me. I reckon having a little of spicy food on a cold winter night definitely scores, whether or not the taste buds died.

Lastly, one of the specials on Boom Bi Na's menu - ginseng chicken soup. I've had this many times as well (about $30 too) and it never fails to disappoint. Albeit the chicken meat was tasteless, the soup was ohmygoodness yummy every single time. They will serve this soup with a small saucer of salt so you can salt it to your preference (to soup or chicken). The chicken is also stuffed with glutinous rice (it definitely has to be glutinous rice!!!) which makes this dish rather filling although it's all water. 

Definitely my go-to for Korean food. Writing up this post on Boom Bi Na makes me wanna eat Korean food now even though I had some for lunch yesterday (another post on that soon). Boy oh boy, can never be sick of Korean food. Week nights are the best with less crowd, but you'll still get a seat on weekend nights after a short wait. Service is a little slow (they seem to be shorthanded all the time), but they're still really friendly and don't take wrong orders (sigh, previous bad experience at Madang). 

Boom Bi Na 

Shop 2, 545 Kent Street 

Sydney NSW 2000 

Australia 

Photolog: Garden BBQ Buffet, Sydney

Korean BBQ Buffet at $21, I doubt we can find anything cheaper than this!

They offer a good range of cooked food and uncooked, so if you're too tired from cooking the meat, just go grab some cooked food. The buffet lasts one and a half hours so it's pretty good value. 

Garden BBQ Buffet
1-7 Albion Place
Sydney NSW 2000

O Bal Tan, Sydney

O Bal Tan

363A Pitt Street

Sydney NSW 2000
Australia

Sydney has quite a number of good Korean restaurants. I reckon it's easier to be a good Japanese restaurant than to be a good Korean restaurant, because of how consumers have a more peculiar taste towards things not easily available? Well I'm sure it's easier to find a Japanese restaurant than a Korean one. 

O Bal Tan is located next to the famous Madang Sydney (look at previous Madang write-up here). The birthday boy requested for Madang since he's such a big fan of it for his birthday treat, but alas Madang is packed on a Friday night and we will prolly never get our table until perhaps 9pm :/ We turned to O Bal Tan, looking at how there weren't people queuing and perhaps another try at a possibly good Korean restaurant? Lucky we persuaded ourselves to give this place a try, it's worthy. 

They seem to have the widest variety of side dishes (which are free of charges and free refills) among all other Korean restaurants I've been. Usually, restaurants would give the exact number of side dishes for the number of patrons present, like we would be given only two sides given that there were only two of us. O Bal Tan is definitely generous in their side dishes, I had a good time snacking on them despite not having GamJa JoRim (I think it's soy honey potato) which I absolutely love.

I guess this side is pretty common, I've seen this around in most Korean restaurants.

The other varieties they offered - the regular kimchi, spicy tapioca (?), onions in soy sauce. 

Interestingly, there was also Western pasta salad in our set of side dishes. Adds a little bit to our carbohydrate intake, nice. 

They also had miniature pancakes (can't remember what the filling was, sorry!), which were a little too cold. So we heated them up using the bbq grill, then it was all good. 

For our bbq mains, we usually have pork (either pork ribs or pork belly) and beef. I can't remember the cut for the beef, but I remember the meats that we had were pretty good! The marinated pork was tasty and the beef was slightly on the chewy side (maybe we bbq-ed them for too long). 

The must-have to order in Korean restaurants - Seafood pancake. You can tell the standard of the restaurant from the most common dish. I reckon their seafood pancake wasn't very nicely done, there was a very little seafood taste in this and I felt like it was just dough with little bits of seafood. 

I would definitely visit O Bal Tan again for their bbq meat because they were really nicely done. Might give another try at their seafood pancake again, maybe it was just my luck that I had to have dough pancake that night. 

PS Typing this entry makes me crave so badly for Korean food. 

PPS I have final exams coming up, I really shouldn't be blogging. 

Sydney Madang

Following on my last entry, I went to Madang after my visit to the Sydney Opera House Open Day 2010! I couldn't believe that we actually walked all the way from Circular Quay to Town Hall just to get to Madang, we could have taken the bus if we wanted to spend on expensive bus rides :( Anyway, it was my second time at this Korean restaurant, the first being on 25 May this year with my secondary school aka high school friends D and J! I do have photos of our dunch (dinner + lunch) in May, but the photos are too blur.

Sydney Madang
371A Pitt St
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia
(24 October 2010)

Here's one of the clearer photos I took using my bil's (bro-in-law) Canon Powershot Pro 1 that I had earlier this year. We had barbeque (bbq) then, and it was hell load of food! The pork wasn't very fresh though, D reckon it was frozen meat :( I remember D was very disappointed as well, she's been there heaps of times but that time was really bad.

So, my second time at Madang, I went with C my dinner date and G. C wanted some Korean bbq fix, so I thought about giving Madang a second chance since another friend kept telling me that Madang is really good. P.S: the photo quality isn't very good this time, I kept forgetting to change the settings on my G11 and I was too hungry :(

Definitely at all Korean restaurants, there'll be side dishes which you can top up! It's free of charge and the best thing, they come in 5 little bowls so you get to have a bit of everything. I reckon the side dishes varies everyday, because I don't remember having the awesome honey potatoes the last time round! Well, the last time I had some horridly spicy radish thingy that stung me pretty bad :/ Must try the honey potatoes, I love them so much I tried finding recipes online before! But of course, it failed XD


Here's our main item! When we saw this thingo on the menu, we thought hey bbq! But it turned out to be some semi-bbq-semi-steamboat, which disappointed C pretty bad. Well, she was really desiring for some bbq fix! Lucky for us, this definitely didn't disappoint us at all! Well, for me at least since I didn't have a good first time. The beef was really really really good (omg I'm lost for words)! We kinda bbq-ed the beef on where it was sitting, then it really got cooked! Well, we didn't know it was like a bbq-cum-steamboat initially.... After which, we threw all the greens and shrooms into the soup and make it some sort of Korean veggie soup heehee. But I must say, the soup kinda tasted weird to me. There were like some sort of herbish after taste, maybe it was ginseng since it's somewhat a Korean thing. But anyhow, the beef was really really really so good! Yums, I can still remember how it tastes like XD Oh, and this comes with two bowls of steam rice too :D

Yetnal BulGoGi (for 2 people), Palace Style Marinated Beef (Cook on your table) -- AU$32

Also, somewhat a must-order dish at Korean restaurant I reckon it has to be the seafood pancake! I had it twice already, the first time was disappointing because it was really oily and there wasn't much seafood taste. This time, it was still oily (I mean, that's alright since it's fried), but I felt better having it. There was still more flour than seafood, but apparently it's meant to be like this. I tried making this sort of seafood pancake before, with the seafood marinara that I bought from Woolies and the flour from Korean supermarket, but it turned out real bad because I didn't have a non-stick pan :( I had to put it into the oven toaster after failing at trying to fry it, fail. I'll try it again when I have a non-stick pan, grrr.

Seafood pancake -- AU$12

Yay to third time! I'll definitely go back to Madang, since the standard of my favourite Korean restaurant Ceci dropped after it shifted from Strathfield to Burwood (now it's just right below my apartment!!!). I'm still drooling on the thought of the beef, yums. Maybe drop the seafood pancake next time?

I feel good today, because it's finally the last day of academic semester and I can finally start doing serious revision for my finals! This week had been a great battle, handling one individual assignment due on Tuesday and one group assignment due today! The group one was really, phewwwww. I'm so glad it's over, even though we didn't have many people contributing despite a strong group of 8 peeps. Thank goodness for peer evaluation? Heehee. I've heard many stories from other groups, how a couple of peers started appearing in their discussion after they heard about the peer evaluation! It's kinda typical, but it didn't happen in my group. Some people disappeared and never came back :/Well, I do hope I score  good grade for it, need it to bring my stress level down! :P