Seoul House Royal Korean Restaurant

Melissa has been wanting to try out Seoul House for awhile now, and I always pass by this restaurant, but have never stopped to try it out.  Since I was playing MJ with Will and Melissa, we decided to head here for dinner and satisfy our curiousity.

Seoul House Royal Korean
1215 W Broadway, Vancouver BC
Tel#:  (604) 738-8285

We arrived at 6pm and the place is huge!  It was pretty empty when we came into the restaurant, but as we started to eat, the place filled up really quickly!  Mainly because a tour group bus had stopped here for dinner.

The rooms and the counter at the front of the restaurant was nicely decorated.  It was pretty clean and felt like it was new.  We enjoyed sitting in one of the rooms away from the booths in the centre.  It seemed quite hectic out there.

Same as Hanwoori, the side dishes aren’t served with every dish on the menu.   Be sure to read carefully if you’re hoping to have some of them.  Will and I decided to get Iced Tea and Coke. It’s nice that they provide the can along with a cup of ice, I like knowing that I’m really getting a coke and not PC brand…(will not name the restaurant that this happened with)

Melissa decided to go with the Bibimbab.   This was just average, the ‘hot’ sauce they provide you with is a bit different than the regular hot sauce you would get elsewhere.  It’s more salty and sweet, but not the least bit spicy.  Portion wise it was a generous amount, the beef was also in tiny bits/pieces which looked rather unappetizing.  Oddly, it also came with a Miso soup on the side.  Again, this was nothing special.

Will decided to get their Sun dubu Jijae hot soup.  There was a large amount of tofu in it with only a tiny amount of seafood..  He also decided to go with their Tang Su Yuk which is the Deep Fried Beef.  It had sounded appealing on the menu, so he decided to give it a try.  The above right is what came to the table.  Large slices of tomato covering the beef.  Unfotunately this dish was pretty disappointing, it was extremely tough and dry.  It also lacked any flavours, even the sweet & sauce on the bottom didn’t seem to help it.

And I thought the meal couldn’t get any worse, I decided to go with the Chicken Fried Rice which is supposed to be cooked with vegetables and chicken above left.  Once it arrived to the table, all you could smell was pepper. It seemed to be doused in pepper with no other ingredients.  Every bite was pepper filled, I did not like this dish at all.  Above right is their Kkan Pung Ki which is the Deep Fried Chicken with hot & sour sauce.  I’ve enjoyed this dish at other Korean restaurants, and thought it would be no different here.  The chicken was alright, not dry like their beef.  There was a bit of a mishap with this dish, so it didn’t arrive till I had already finished my rice, so I was not feeling hungry enough to eat a lot of the chicken.

Overall, I found the food here to be pretty disappointing.  What was even worse than my meal was the service.  Our waitress was friendly, however she decided not to write down our order.  That’s okay, I figured she’d be able to remember our choices, however she even confirmed if i wanted the deep fried chicken and I said yes.  After a couple of minutes, she comes back to ask Will if he wanted a small or large size for his beef dish.  He went with small.  Every item arrived to the table, except for my chicken.  We waited some more and the waitress plops down a huge plate of Deep Fried Shrimp.  Now, I’m not a fan of seafood so I did not want shrimp, I still wanted my chicken.  So we rang her back, and she took the shrimp away.  Now after seeing the plate of shrimp, Will decided he wanted to have it as well, so he asked if he could have that dish and would be willing to pay for it.  The waitress just tells him the dish is very expensive, but Will still wanted the shrimp so he asked for it.  The waitress seemed like she understood what he said, and took the shrimp away….never to return again.  Odd…  another wait..and my chicken finally arrives, by then I was already full.  Even though they have a button to press for service, it took much too long for her to come check up on us.  After 3 tries to ring her and a good  15-20 mins later, she appears and we can finally get the bill.  This experience definitely left a sour note for me.

Post by Colleen