Suddenly Chinatown is exploding with Korean restaurants.
I like Korean food, more or less… I like the barbecued beef… Kimchi takes some getting used to… The little dishes of stuff are, um, interesting…
But yeah, I like it. I’m definitely no connoisseur, but I’m looking forward to learning more about it over time. I like how they give you a pair of scissors to cut your meat with. It’s refreshing.
There are already a couple of Korean places in Chinatown. The oldest is Seoul House at Somerset and Percy.
This place has a real family feeling. They usually have the TV on, mostly tuned to wacky game shows with a lot of spirited yelling in Korean.
Right across the street from Seoul House, the old golf store is about to reopen as SooRa.
I didn’t really need to show you a picture of the old golf store now that it’s gone, but I wanted to show you the girl with the leopard shirt.
Today they have their sign up. It looks pretty nice. I bet Seoul House is scared. I would be.
Then on Somerset between Cambridge and Arthur, right next door to Yangtze, is Bulgogi Garden.
That seems to be a tough location to make a go of it in. I think it’s just depressing to be right next to Yangtze, which is a very popular spot for dim sum, and have to look out the window of your empty restaurant and see the people lining up to get into Yangtze.
Now right across the street, at the corner of Arthur, yet another Korean place is about to open. I don’t know if Bulgogi Garden is doing so well that they aren’t going to be worried about having competition right across the street. It’s going to be called Koreana.
They’re not in Chinatown, but don’t forget Joy in the Somerset Village area, or Arum next to the Korean market on Bank near the Queensway, or Miga, the newer one on Bank where they have the Korean beavertails.
I think no matter how much you like kimchi, that’s too many Korean places for a city the size of Ottawa. (Plus I really wish somebody would open a Thai place in Chinatown.)
For user-written reviews of Ottawa restaurants, try the Restaurant Thing.
2 Comments
Robin, you’re freakin’ me out. I took pictures of two of those restaurants on my way home today, so I could blog about all the new Korean restaurants opening up. You scooped me!
You know what they say about great minds, zoom.