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214 Queen Street West, Toronto ON 416-263-9850 www.koreangrillhouse.com Map Approx $30 per person Local Food? some local ingredients Local Wine/Beer? very small selection |
Lunch Mon to Sun: 11:30am to 3pm Dinner Mon to Sun: 5pm to 2am |
Here’s the concept; You sit down for dinner with a group of close friends or your hot date. Impressions put aside, you’re going to be exposed right down to your bare traits. Forget the mini cafeteria-like atmosphere; you won’t be paying much attention to your surroundings in a few minutes, guaranteed. You’re at the Korean BBQ Grill house, and you’re the chef.
Cook-if-yourself grill houses aren’t rare in Toronto. I remember seeing quite a few western style establishments launch over the years, and I’ve heard many friends rave about the idea of cooking your own food in a restaurant. But this is Korean cooking after all. Not some silly sauté of veggies and chicken. At this place, meals are served buffet-style with marinated meat, poultry, and fish dishes served concurrently with an impressive assortment of vegetables for sampling, rather than for individual portions. The difference is, at this place you’re responsible for cooking your own food over the dome-shaped propane grill built right into the middle of the table.
The wait, in my opinion is the hardest part. Whether it be in you’re line or sitting at your table trying to figure out if you want the buffet or order a la carte. The place is distracting with the smells and the sounds of sizzling meat slapped on the propane stoves.
You can order a la carte from the menu. It’s ordained with a variety of soups, salads, noodles, and rice dishes. Particularly, the stew kalabi (short ribs) looks enticing.
Or you can go buffet-style. The basic barbecue menu features Beef, Chicken, Ribs, Salmon, Fish Fillet, Pork, Squid, and Ox Tongue. Cost is $12.95 per adult and $8.95 for children under 8. Add Lamb and Shrimp to the list and your cost is $15.95 ($11.95 for children). The waiter tells me that the meat dishes will be accompanied by a variety of vegetable assortments.
Fair enough, give me the works. I take the moment to note the Spartan-ish décor of the white-walled restaurant. I can hear the high powered ventilation system high up above me suck the smoke from the grills around. The ambience is busy, and very warm. Dress to eat, not to impress.
Our side dishes arrive. Kimchee of course. Perhaps Korea’s best-known dish. A pickled cabbage whose potency was addressed by more than one journalist during the Seoul games back in 88. We also had some deep fried tofu, some daikon soup, plain rice and lots of bean sprout namuls (Korean technique of marinating veggies). Space was quickly running out on our table.
A moment passes, and I see the waiter quickly walking towards us with a heap of white trays. We have tenderized cuts of pork, some bare shrimp, squid, Kalbi beef ribs, marinated lamb, bulgogi (one of my favourite Korean dishes), some chicken, and white fish fillets. The waiter instructs us that we can order more dishes when we’re ready. He turns on the grill, wishes us, and scurries away. We didn’t get any Ox tongue!!, oh well. Not a total loss.
I’m a little overwhelmed with the amount of food, but I dive right in with the bulgogi. It is one of Korea’s most famous grilled dishes. It’s made from sirloin or another prime cut of beef, sliced into thin strips. The meat is generally marinated for at least four hours to enhance the flavor and to tenderize it in a mixture of sesame oil, soy sauce, black pepper, garlic, sugar, onions, ginger, and wine. I slap it onto the grill and start the sizzling orchestra. It’s at this point that I realize the real seller for this place. Interactivity.
I can’t see why I wouldn’t recommend this place as the choice for a first date. In my opinion, the mere concept of the restaurant is an ice breaker for any date or gathering. Don’t even think for a second that you’ll be hogging the grill. Soon you’ll realize that cooking the food in front of you, is an adventure that you partake WITH your company. My date dives right in with the beef ribs, and she’s busy twirling her chopsticks (a skill of hers that I still can’t seem to pace up to no matter how hard I try) over the hot grill. This is amazing. You’re cooking some great marinated meat, and you’re in full interaction with your company. No uncomfortable silences, no need for filler conversations, no staring off into space. This is where you tend to ignore your surroundings and the lovely Asian paintings above you.
Slap on the meat, turn it over after a few seconds, pour some hot sauce or soy sauce, prepare according to how well you like your meat, and eat. The house also makes its own sauce from what I hear, so don’t forget to ask. The beef ribs were a popular item that night. I think we probably went through about 3 servings of the ribs, followed by the lamb and bulgogi. The squid is too tasteless and the unidentified fish fillet tends to stick to the grill quite easily. The shrimp is not marinated, and made me resent ordering it. If it wasn’t for the lamb, I probably would have stuck to the basic BBQ buffet. The salmon is great. Leave it on the grill on each side for about 20 seconds, and enjoy. Oh, and the chicken just slowed things down.
Service is quick and quite attentive giving that the place is packed. Every time I looked away from the grill, I was spotted by a waiter eager to fill my glass or help me with more servings. May I suggest some prune juice to help balance the over consumption of meat.
By the way, if you’re out late at night, the house has a ‘night owl’ special. From 10PM to closing, you can have the basic buffet for $8.99.
The Grill House is open daily from 11:30am (Saturdays till 2:30am for those late night meat cravings)
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