Yoon's Kitchen: New Korean Fusion in the neighborhood!

Seeing Sushi & Roll close down was disheartening to me, since I did enjoy their food, but seeing a new Korean restaurant in this area was equally exciting (I think it just opened this month, not even Yelp/Zomato official yet!). There aren't many Korean joints around this location, so it's a wonderful addition (I hope they can continue and stay!).



Restaurant:  Yoon's Kitchen

Location: 3017 St. John's Street
Cuisine: Korean, Japanese, Asian fusion
Price range: $20+ per person




Date of visit: November 29, 2017
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 4.5/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 4/5
Buck worthy? 3/5

The place was pretty empty when we got there around 6pm, 3 tables of people. We were greeted warmly and seated promptly. The place looked clean and neat. I guess the fusion part is that they still offer some Japanese sushi.

First to arrive was the Bossam ($18.99) which is a boiled pork belly dish with sauce and wrapped in greens. The pork was nicely marbled and seasoned well. The napa cabbage it came with was crisp and contrasted well with the soft, melt-in-your-mouth pork belly. I'm not sure what the spicy dish was but it tasted like radish, and added crunch and flavor to the bite. Side dishes weren't remarkable, there was kimchi, bean sprouts, zucchini slices, and a ball of sweet mashed potato.

I couldn't resist getting a sushi roll and I love scallops so I got Under the Sea ($6.95). This is a torched spicy chopped scallop roll with surprise cream cheese. I say surprise because it wasn't a listed item on the menu. Overall the taste was average, fresh scallops were overwhelmed by the cream cheese and sauce. I wish they had went easy on the spicy sauce, otherwise a well made roll.

Can't forget the Korean style rolls so we settled on the original Gyori Kimbab ($5.25) with fried egg, spinach, crabmeat, fishcake, pickled radish, burdock, and carrot. This was the only dish that was good bang for its buck. The roll was quite large in comparison the the previous and although simple, the flavors went well together and in good proportion. I enjoyed this quite a bit!

Onto hot foods! We got their Soon Dubu Jjigae ($11.99)--otherwise known as soft tofu stew. We chose the mix, which included seafood and beef. Considering how much I'm paying for it, I was disappointed with the quality of this. It wasn't as rich as I'd had at other places and a little on the salty side. No egg went with it either.

The rice that accompanied the dish was really well made though, and they pour cold water (which the waitress leaked all over my jacket and didn't notice, but we'll let that slide) over the hot stone bowl with the remaining rice to make a soft rice stew thing. The pot was so hot it boiled out of the pot!

Silly us, we got another rice dish, the Hot Stone Bibimbab ($12.99) had mixed veggies, beef, and an egg atop rice. Bowl was big but the ingredients only filled half the bowl, which kinda makes it look bad. It tasted good though! The hot stone kept the rice warm for the duration of our meal and we got crispy rice at the end, one of my dad's favorite parts of the meal!

Before we got our bill, the waitress brought us a sweet rice drink (on the house). I hear that rice water brightens and whitens the skin, so maybe this is the secret to how Koreans maintain their beautiful complexions! Anyways, it was a light sweet drink and quite nice to end the meal. My mom thought it was a little too sweet for her liking.

Overall, I enjoyed the meal. The food was above average and flavors were great. Service was friendly and almost the right amount (sometimes it was hard to find anyone since there's only two people running the front). Not that great quantity-to-price-wise because this isn't Vancouver, people will expect more food for the same price since there's a lot of competition around with equal quality and price but more quantity-- people want good food for a good price. Alas, they're still pretty new, I don't even know when they officially opened (or maybe they're not), a good location for them though and I see a lot of potential!

Munchie Adventure: St. James' Well, Port Moody

After an early morning shift at the hospital with my lovely clinical mates, we decided to go out for a fannncy nice lunch =) When we got there it was around 2, not many people inside...

Restaurant: St. James' Well (visit their website here)
Location: 248 Newport Drive, Port Moody
Cuisine: Pub, Western
Price range: $10+




Date of visit: March 26, 2013
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 4/5
Food variety: 4.5/5
Food quality: 3.5/5
Buck worthy? 3/5

I was  excited to try their ginormous platter of food that AL and KS mentioned  about sharing during their last visit! Glad I split this with DM and ADi, cuz I was really stuffed after =)

It was called the St. James' Well Platter ($28.00). Although it looks small in the picture, the diameter of that platter was around 16 inches! Just gonna break down this platter into smaller bits (except for the carrot and celery sticks, those were just cut up and put on the platter):

Chicken wings (1 lbs): We got the sweet chili, and it was quite chili! But delicious =) Although I must say, these wings are quite average, they've just met the standard.

Lamb sliders (x3): Quite good, sauces were too overwhelming, ruined the texture. Otherwise good bun-to-patty ratio. Props for the nice assembly, I was happy =)

Chicken strips (x3): These were pretty good, very fresh for sure. Tender, but average juiciness levels. Accompanied by honey mustard sauce (which had some curry in it) and a ranch sauce I think? (I don't like sauces, so I just skipped out on them)

Stuffed potato skins (x4): Not bad, 5mm of potato on the skin, so it wasn't all skin, which I like. Topped with bacon and cheese, they were a bit cold and dry though.

Yorkshire pudding (x4) with dipping sauce: I've never had yorkshire pudding before, so nothing to compare it to. Just gotta say, don't like it that much. It was topped with this mustardy sauce, beef slices inside didn't seem to go well with the whole pastry, which in itself was sickening after the first few bites. But me being me, of course I finished it. The dipping sauce didn't help much either =(

KS ordered their St. James' Wells burger ($13.00) which came with yam fries. He said the burger was average, nothing special. The yam fries weren't bad, I had a few, again, just average.

Actually AL and KS ordered the platter and Poutine ($7.00), which ADe also ordered. The fries were soggy and the cheese was too melted, which isn't how we liked it. We like the cheese curds to be slightly melted with the gravy, not re-baked, which made the fries too overcooked and dry =(

Overall, the prices are decent, considering many pubs charge much more for their food. I didn't expect too much from them, so I wasn't that disappointed. I paid $13 for lunch-- and since it's a pub, that's not too bad. On the bright side, at least the food didn't taste too greasy (although I know it's just fat-loaded). I was full for the rest of the day! Probably won't see me back here again. Until next time!

Munchie Adventure: Fuji Sushi, Port Moody

This just opened where the old Carefree Restaurant used to be, and I'd have to say, this was a pretty fast turnover rate. Feels like they're trying to compete against Namoo Sushi though, which is located a few units down. But this is Japanese owned and operated, whereas Namoo is Korean. Always adventurous, and saw that every night this place was packed, we went to go try it. Sadly, their food just wasn't to par, and I wish I had gone to Namoo instead. First off, I was disappointed at how the rice was still warm for the sushi. And I didn't know they existed somewhere else for a long time before relocating here. I heard the rice used to be hot, so I guess warm is an improvement? ^^"

Restaurant: Fuji Sushi (visit their website here)
Location: 3017 St. Johns Street, Port Moody
Cuisine: Japanese, Sushi
Price range: $10-15 per entree




Date of visit: September 13, 2012
Atmosphere: 3/5
Staff/service: 2/5 (would've been higher, cuz it was fine when I went, but my brother re-visited and the service was crap, they were ignored for so long...)
Food variety: 4/5
Food quality: 2/5
Buck worthy? 2/5

I gotta say, I might've got too excited and ordered a bit much, but I just wanted to try a variety of everything they offered. Everything we ordered came with a miso soup, except for the udon, which makes sense =P

First we got the Combination B ($10.50), and it was pretty good besides the rice being warm. I liked the tamago the best, it was very traditional. The fish was fresh too, but the fried stuff was cold *sadface* The daily special was fried salmon cake thing, which was cold too =(

I got the Sushi Combo C ($9.75) because I really like sushi, and wanted to try a bit more. It was nice how they used sockeye salmon for the sushi though (even though I don't like it), since it's usually more expensive =P Shrimps were a bit too gingery though.

Next was the Maki Sushi ($7.00), which is a pretty good deal. It looked a bit ugly though, the sushi looked messy, and again, the rice was warm.

Had to try something hot too!! Nabeyaki Udon ($8.00) was my choice, since I like how there's a bunch of ingredients on top :) The egg wasn't cooked properly though... still runny, so I was a bit worried, had to let it sit in the soup for a while first. It came in a cool pot! =D The udon was frozen udon, so it was really chewy and good. Teriyaki chicken was ok, but I wish they had put the tempura shrimp on a separate plate, since it arrived soggy.

It came with a complimentary tuna maki though =P

Last thing, Sashimi combo ($12.00). My brother wanted to try it, so we got it =) It was a bit...not what I expected. There was the sashimi, which had five pieces of tuna (I don't like tuna fyi), two tiny octopus, and two salmon. There was also rice, pickled squash/cucumbers and potato salad. I dunno, just not my thing to have hot rice with sashimi xD It was fresh fish, but I would've preferred more variety.

I don't understand why there's so many people at night, maybe the food is better at night? Or people just like how it's "new" and Japanese owned =S