Daorae Korean BBQ Restaurant @ Sri Hartamas, KL

The first time I had a Korean meal was at Daorae and although I'm sure many would be able to recommend cheaper and more delicious Korean fare at other restaurants, I'll most likely return to Daorae just for convenience's sake. I'm no Korean food expert so can't tell if the food is really that good but it's good enough for my brother and I =)
        

Complimentary banchan

   
What I love about Daorae are the numerous and unlimited side dishes! They've got my favourite stir-fried spinach, pancakes and potato salad (though I wish they did not top it with chilli sauce >.< ). I also wish they had the caramelised fried anchovies that I love. I think they rotate the side dishes on maybe a daily basis (?) but I was lucky to get free pancake sides so I wouldn't have to order a whole pancake =P
        

Bulgogi (RM 25)

     
Here's the beef slices in some sweetish sauce that is yummy but can get cloying towards the end. A layer of oil sitting atop the gravy can burn your tongue if you're not careful.

       

Kimchi Jjigae (RM 18)

   
The quintessential kimchi stew with pork and numerous hidden goodies such as tofu, cabbage and glass noodles.
   
Sorry for the lack of comments but I guess I'm just not too enthusiastic about Korean food. They're good enough, yummy and comforting, and I'm actually kind of craving for them right now especially bibimbap but I doubt I'll be the one to initiate a Korean meal. Oh well, my brother who is as mad about Korean culture as I am about Japanese culture will be home soon and most probably (more like 99% likelihood) I'll be bringing him back to Daorae. Now who wants to join me so we can have a round of barbecued pork? =D

      

   
PawPoints: 4 Paws
Pawket: Tomato
          
Daorae Korean BBQ Restaurant

19 Jalan 23/70A
Sri Hartamas
Tel: 03 6203 2616
Daily

Ko-Ryo-Won Korean Restaurant @ KLCC, KL

Ko-Ryo-Won at KLCC is actually the sister restaurant of Go-Gung at The Gardens, hence the menus are totally identical.

   

Typical Korean motive

      

Ko-Ryo-Won

   

Complimentary side dishes

   
As usual, there were complimentary side dishes for the sets. This time there were, clockwise from top, dried beancurd skin, seasoned boiled potatoes, stir-fried spinach in sesame oil, kimchi and beansprouts. My favourites were the potatoes and spinach; I found the kimchi too pungent for my liking but my brother enjoyed it very much. Neither of us touched the dried beancurd skin save for the first slice.

  

Kimchi Jjigae (RM 25)

   
The Kimchi Jjigae was tasty as usual. I doubt any Korean restaurant would get it wrong...that's like an indicator of bad-tasting dishes to follow if the cook can even get the national dish wrong. Anyway this one was full of chicken pieces, tofu and tons of slurpilicious glass noodles.

 

Seollengtang (RM 30)

   
Feeling adventurous, we decided to try something new - soup made by simmering beef bones and beef slices overnight. The end result is a milky broth, probably the essence of the huge beef bones. It is certainly a nutritious soup with thin slices of garlic, sliced dates and glass noodles. It was also totally tasteless although there was a very slight hint of milky soup. To be fair, the menu did state that salt can be added once served but none of the waitress came over to ask if we wanted it seasoned so we resorted to dipping the beef slices with lots of soy sauce. It definitely feels very wholesome and nutritious but I doubt we would ever order it again =P
   
   
PawPoints: 3 Paws
Pawket: Tomato
    Ko-Ryo-Won

418-419, Level 4
Suria KLCC

Tel: 03 2166 6189
Daily: 11am - 10pm

Go-Gung Korean Restaurant @ The Gardens, KL

This is a very posh-looking (from the outside) Korean restaurant at The Gardens. As they had set lunches, I decided to go there with my brother.

We had the Kimchi Chigye set and the Bulgogi set. Each set comes with 4 side dishes, steamed rice and chive pancake. Below are the various side dishes we had.

Stif-fried spinach

Stir-fried bean sprouts

Cabbage kimchi

Anchovies and pickled green chilli

I was at a loss as to what the above dish was...it had the texture and taste of the thicker kind of seaweed but it smelled of chilli so after checking out other blogs, I can confirm that this is pickled green chilli =P It wasn't spicy at all and was quite addictive.

Chive pancake

I thought, being part of a set meal, the chive pancake must be rather cold and oily and soggy since they would have cooked this in batches for the set lunches but I'm happy to report that the pancakes were light and crispy and yummy even after they have cooled down, especially with the savoury sauce (I'm no expert on Korean food so don't know the equivalent Korean terms -_-").

Steamed rice

Kimchi Chigye (RM 20)

The slightly spicy soup came boiling hot with the usual ingredients of glass noodles, firm tofu cubes and cabbage. Very appetizing and went extremely well with rice.

Bulgogi (RM 25)

The Bulgogi consisted of a huge (and I mean HUGE) amount of tender beef strips, enoki mushrooms and glass noodles in its own sweetish marinade juices. We nearly couldn't finish this due to the generous portion of beef. Worth ordering, I'd say =)

Condiments for bulgogi

Fresh lettuce, spicy paste and raw garlic were provided for us to make lettuce wraps with the bulgogi. The tender beef tasted really good in the lettuce wraps. We tried eating it the Korean way where they stuff the entire lettuce wrap into their mouth but I had trouble chewing after that. I wonder how Koreans do it =.=

Anyway food was really good here with huge portions well worth the high price tag usually seen in Korean restaurants. The set lunches are quite a good deal as the ala-carte items are on the higher side of the price range but I must say that the drinks are quite expensive (RM 8 for refillable tea!!!).

PawPoints: 3 Paws

Pawket: Tomato

GoGung Korean Restaurant

Lot T-212, 3rd Floor

The Gardens
Tel: 03 2287 2981
Daily: 10am - 10pm