the Kitchen - Korean Restaurant

Restaurant: the Kitchen

Cuisine: Korean
Last visited: November 3, 09
Area: Vancouver, BC (Kerrisdale)
2110 West 40th Ave
Price Range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 4
Service: 3
Ambiance: n/a
Overall: 4.5
Additional comments:

• Wife and husband operation
• Literally & figuratively mom & pop style
• Very homemade (from scratch)
  
• Literally made by Korean mom "mom's recipes"
• Very authentic
• Hole in the wall
• Seats 10
  
• Pre-made cold appetizers available for take-out
  
• Attracts locals/Koreans
  
• Eat-in/Take-out
• Mon-Sat: 11am-8:30pm
  
• Closed Sunday

**Recommendation: Korean Pancake

Want to try: Korean Sushi

Their tag line is "the kitchen" - "the original Korean House Wife Cuisine with the Best Ingredients." They sure mean it! I'm not sure about the "best ingredients" part, that's self-proclaimed, but the "Korean House Wife" part could not be more accurate!

We ordered take-out and she literally packs it like how your mom would pack your lunch when you were in elementary school. There's so much care in the cooking and packaging. I even felt bad ordering the pancake because it was going to take her 20 minutes to make it (since it's all from scratch) - she even sighed. It wasn't a rude sigh though, it was one of those sighs like how your mom would sigh if you asked her to make a meal for you that took a long time.

For me, this was the most authentic Korean food besides going to my Korean friends' houses and having their dinners.

On the table:

• **Korean Pancake 4.5/6
• Pancake with assorted seafood, green onion and vegetables $12.99
• It took 20 min. to make because she started from scratch and that's probably why it was $12.99. It is a bit expensive, but it's because of the labour it takes to make it.
• This pancake or Korean style omelette was loaded with ingredients. There was lots of long pieces of green onion and bell peppers and all the veggies were sauteed until soft and sweet. It's all held together with this potato-egg batter. It's served hot with a light soy sauce for dipping.
• The outside is fried until brown and the middle is moist, creamy and a litle gummy - yet there's no cream or sauce. It's pretty thick and exploding with ingredients. I think she overcooked it a little bit because the outside was a bit too brown, but the inside was still very moist and the seafood was tender so it didn't bother me. I also liked that it wasn't too oily, because these can be very oily.
• The only complain is that she skimped out on was the seafood. It had some bits of squid and some baby shrimp in it. The amount of shrimp was I guess decent but hardly any squid. You just know that if she made it for herself or for the family she would have put way more seafood in it.
• It's usually eaten as a snack, appetizer or side dish.
• 
• Bibimbap 3/6
• Rice mixed with beef and vegetables served with a fried egg $8.99
  
• This is basically a Korean-style fried rice. It's usually served in a hot stone bowl and the heat of the bowl helps to crisp up the rice. You leave it for a while before mixing all the ingredients together. Since we got take out we didn't have the benefit of letting the rice crisp up, nonetheless it was still a good bibimbap. Best eaten upon order for sure.
• The vegetables for bibimbap vary from restaurant to restaurant. Here they used sauteed carrots, spinach, zucchini and bean sprouts. Some other places may use mushrooms, cucumber, daikon and even pine nuts (although pine nuts is very rare...but so good when they're in there).
• The Kitchen serves it with ground beef (most common) and top it off with a fried egg, some shredded seaweed and sesame seeds. I wish they gave more ground beef though. It was so minced up and it had a good nutty/sesame taste, but just not enough actual meat.
• The texture of the dish is great. There's different levels of crunchiness and then it's all saucy and creamy from mixing in the egg yolk and meat sauce. the rice is almost like Japanese sushi rice, it's all sticky and delicious.
• It comes with this chili pepper paste or sauce (looks like ketchup) but very spicy and you mix it into the bibimbap with all the other ingredients.
• Kimchi
  
• I like the kimchi here, she uses a lot more daikon than cabbage though. It's homemade and very saucy. Use it as a condiment or side with everything you eat.