When you drive on Yonge Street, near Finch Ave. and Shepphard Ave., you’ll see a huge Korean community is growing… Korean restaurants are slowly replacing all the other restaurants. The strange thing is, it seems that the market is still far from saturation. You can see most of these Korean restaurants have lots of patrons.
Where to eat is always the toughest question for the day. After the Indian buffet in the afternoon, I would not expect having any more spicy stuffs… BUT here I am, I suddenly decided to go to this Korean restaurant “Joons Restaurant” on Yonge Street. With its bright orange header, you can spot it from 2 blocks away.
Around 9:30p.m., there’re around 4-5 tables of customers. One table was having a really cool stuff, called the Dak Gal Bee (with Chicken and Veggie in a Hot sauce) in a pan. They’ve also added Mozzarella Cheese in it, so it kinda looked like a pizza =) Since some people don’t eat chicken, we ordered something similar, with beef, seafood, noodle, + sweet potato + dumplings.
Here’s how it looked like BEFORE…
and AFTER…
We’ve also ordered the Kamja Tang (Pork bone soup)… very fatty around the bones, but it’s delicious. Still remember when I was a kid, I eat all the meats and fat/tendon around the pork bones (those that mom used to cook Cantonese soups)
And we also had the Bibimbob (Beef, veggie, egg and rice with hot sauce in a hot stone bowl)… The first time I tried the Bibimbob, I was so amazed… I just love how colorful it is! (But I find Bibimbob a bit too oily in general though)
While dining, I took out my DC and took these pictures above… I can feel that the staff there were a bit uncomfortable with that… and that day… I might look a bit like an editor. Hope they won’t mind me doing that…
The experience was pretty good overall and the service was pretty good too. All the food + 2 pops + tax + 10% gratuity came to around $40. And you can see the portion was actually good for 3-4 persons.
P.S. I always want to ask a question about Korean cuisine… why do they always use metal chopsticks or even metal bowls?!
FYI: Joons Restaurant (Special taste of Korean food)
Downtown: 605 Bloor St. W., Toronto M6G 1K6; Tel: 416-538-2661
North York: 4852 Yonge St., North York M2N 5N2; Tel: 416-840-0589
wow… I’m hungry.. :P~~~~
don’t eat too late at nite =P
oh! look so good.
Why metal chopsticks and metal bowls?
1) Metal bowls keeps the rice warmer. So you say – it must be hot! Right – Korean customs mandate that you should NOT pick up the bowl to eat rice like Chinese do =)
2) Metal chopsticks. Notice that the shape of the tip is blunt but sharp enough like a butter knife. Many korean dishes contains pieces that needs to be cut, so Koreans use their chopsticks for that second purpose.
p.s. nice blog. I found your site looking for reviews for Joon’s so show my friends.
HAHA!!! Yea… that’s what my Korean friend told me later on… Unlike Chinese people, they’re not supposed to pick up the bowl while eating.
Thanks for the info!
You have a cool site too!
wow..this one looks really good!! I might go there someday to try it out ^^
You clearly have no tipping etiquette f you only tipped 10%. did you know servers have to tip out the house too? Thats why the minimum tip is 15%!
Dear Matrix, thank you for your comment, especially on this really old post of mine. I believe tip is something that depends on the person, the type of restaurant and the overall service. To me 10% was ok for this type of family restaurant.