Restaurant: Sharon Garden

Rating: 3.5

I liked that they have a bell to call for service and another button to ask for the bill. Unlike some restaurants, someone actually shows up soon after the bell is pressed. The restaurant is quite large. We had a big group and were in our own section so we never felt rushed.

I had the jajangmyun and dumpling combo. I always wanted to try jajangmyun again. Once upon a time, I did not have a good experience with this dish. However, I keep seeing that people love this dish (on Korean variety shows anyways) and wondered if I just had a bad memory. Since it was available in half portion, I figured now would be a good time to try it.

And I'm glad I chose it. I did enjoy it and I do think a half portion was good enough. As I got to the end of the dish, I found that it was a little too much to eat this dish on its own. I liked having the dumplings to balance out the flavours. Otherwise, it would probably feel like a never ending dish of the same flavour and I would probably get sick of it before I reached the end.

While I enjoyed my dish, my friends who had any of the stews found it a bit bland so I think it could be a hit or miss depending on the dish you choose.

Restaurant: Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu

Rating: 4

Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu is a Korean restaurant that only has nine items on it's menu. Six of these items are tofu stews. I chose to have the kimchi stew.

When they bring your meal over, it comes with purple rice in a bowl. The waiter then scoops out the rice into a separate bowl, and fill the hot stone bowl with water. You can drink this soup at the end of your meal.

They also give you a raw egg with your meal. Be sure to crack the egg into your tofu stew while it is still hot so that the egg will poach. I had a mild kimchi stew and it was not spicy at all. It was still delicious though. It may not look like a lot but the whole meal was really filling. All that for $7.97! No wonder they are so busy.

Restaurant: Joon's

Rating: 4/5

Joon's is a Korean restaurant that specializes in table cooking. You can spot it's orange sign on Yonge street near Yonge and Sheppard. This is very close to Sheppard station on the subway. It also seems like there is parking at the back since we saw many people come through the back doors. Upon arriving at 6:45pm, the restaurant was about half filled with customers. We were seated promptly and served with water.

The dak galbi is popular here. With any of the table cooking dishes, you have to order at least two portions of the entree. With a group of four, we ordered three portions of the dak galbi with rice cake, vegetables, noodles and sweet potatoes along with four bowls of rice. We ordered it with the Joon's spice level. I usually order it with cheese but opted out this time. This was more than enough for us (two males and two females).

It took quite a while before we were served our food. This is because they cooked it inside and just served the pan to us, rather than having it cook in front of us with a portable stove. This meant that the dish started cooling down a bit through our meal. There were also four side dishes - potato, radish, broccoli and kimchi. The dak galbi was delicious with a good mix of all the items. I did find that that it was not as spicy as it was in the past. There was still a kick to it since I reached out to my water a couple of times.

Dak Galbi

It did get busier through the night, and that's when it was hard to get any service. It took a few tries before we were able to get more water. It also took a bit of time to get our bill but you can tell that the employees were trying to work quickly. I do enjoy the food here and order the dak galbi every time that I am back.