Hello friends! Kook Korean BBQ is a restaurant located on 1st Ave that opened earlier this year. There aren’t many Korean restaurants in this area so I was excited to try this one out. This Korean restaurant is not like any other we’ve been to before because it was modern and had an ambiance that reminded us of a bar.
Kook Korean bbq interior
The first thing you see when you enter Kook Korean bbq is a mural of the Vancouver skyline. Okay, it’s not exactly how the Vancouver skyline looks like but it did feature a bunch of Vancouver landmarks. They also had graffiti art along the hallway to the bathroom which was super cool to look at too.
Being that it is a Korean bbq restaurant, each table had a grill installed into it. I’m not a huge fan of tables like this because it means that you get less leg room but c’est la vie. Some thing that I did like was that they had baskets under each of the benches so that you could put your things inside while you eat.
I didn’t see any vents above the grills so I’m not sure how their ventilation system is like when all the grills are going on at once. Ventilation is something I pay attention to when it comes to Korean bbq places because no one wants to eat in a smoky restaurant.
Banchan
To be honest the #1 reason we came here was because they offer 15 different banchans. What we didn’t know was they only offer the 15 variety set when you order Koren bbq so we were only able to try 5. It was disappointing but there was no way Grayson and I could have finished 2 orders of Korean bbq.
The ones we did get were the bean sprouts, kimchi, potato salad, soy daikon, and squid. All of them were good enough for us to ask for seconds!
Even though the restaurant has been open for a few weeks, a lot of their menu items were not available which was confusing because you would think that they would be ready to serve everything by now. Nevertheless, the two of us were able to choose something we wanted in the end so all was okay.
Bibimbap
They have two versions of the bibimbap one with the stone pot and one without. We just opted to go with the one without so that it wouldn’t take so long in the kitchen. It came with spinach, carrots, bean sprouts, zucchini, seaweed, ground beef and a fried egg. It came with chili sauce so that you could make it spicy if you wanted. I liked that it came with the hot sauce on the side because this way you can choose how spicy you want it to be. This wasn’t the best bibimbap I’ve had but it was pretty tasty.
Stonepot soup
Since it was a cold day we decided to get a stonepot soup as well. This one had a miso base and was filled with zucchini, enoki mushrooms, beef and tofu. It also came with a side of rice. I was impressed with the amount of veggies in the pot because usually you’ll order a soup like this and all you get is tofu and a few pieces of meat. They definitely know how to make sure you are getting a good portion of items in your soup!
Quick bites:
1. Cool place to hang out with friends for drinks and good food
2. Not all menu items are available yet
3. So many banchan/side dishes!