Sooda Korean BBQ

Hello! Sooda is a Korean BBQ restaurant that has taken the place of Firepots. Sooda Korean BBQ is located along Lougheed Highway right across from Whole Foods. It’s been open for a while but I’ve yet to try it until now.

Even though I knew that Sooda was the only Korean restaurant in the the Brentwood/Willingdon Heights area, I was surprised as to how many people were waiting at the door when we got there. We had to wait a good 20 minutes for our table but we had to sit at a smaller table and squish together. Everyone after us in the line had to wait at least 30-40 minutes because the restaurant didn’t have a lot of seating and most people had larger parties and stayed for at least an hour.

Sooda box

★★★★

Since it was our first time there we decided to try their signature dishes.
​​​To start we got the Sooda Box which was similar to aburi sushi. It was a rectangular piece of rice topped with torched beef, cheese and slice of jalapeno. I wasn’t a huge fan of this because not only was there not a lot of rice/substance to it, the pieces were quite small for the price that it was as well.

​​​​​​​For half a roll it’s $15 and a full one is $25. Most people go for the full size because it looks very photo worthy when it comes to the table but it seemed too much for a roll for us. I probably wouldn’t order this again.

Banchan

★★★

Next came the side dishes of bean sprout salad, marinaded potatoes and kimchi. They didn’t offer refills of these (boo) and they didn’t give us much variety of side dishes either compared to other Korean restaurants. The most notable thing about their side dishes is their kimchi because while it had fermented flavor, it wasn’t wilted. The pieces of cabbage were crispy and a delight to eat.

Another specialty item that they have here are their hot plate dishes. Each one of these come with a protein, green onions, rice, corn, rolled egg, and cheese. They offer this in beef bulgolgi, spicy beef, or spicy chicken flavors. They also have another version of this that comes with a mountain of bean sprouts, pork slices and rice cakes!

Beef bulgolgi hot plate

★★★★

Since we didn’t want anything spicy, we opted for the beef bulgolgi flavor. After about 3 minutes, the pan was hot enough that the cheese started to melt. At that point, we mixed everything up with the wooden spoons they gave us and watched the cheese melt over everything. There’s no minimum time you need to cook it for since the beef is already cooked but mixing everything together thoroughly is key.

We weren’t sure how we were going to feel about the cheese mixed in with everything but it was actually quite tasty. It reminded me of the cauliflower doria I had at Dosanko or a rice gratin of sorts. The corn’s sweetness helped cut the richness of the corn and everything melted together nicely. My only thing is that for $40, I expected there to be a lot more food on the pan. I would say that this would probably only be enough for 2 hungry people.

Another thing we liked doing is putting the rolled pieces of egg directly on the griddle pan so that it would get crispy along the edges. This also works well with the rice and cheese if you want those to be crispy too.

Seafood Pancake

★★★★

Last but not least we got the seafood pancake. This is one of those dishes that is either a hit or a miss no matter where you go. Either you get one with a lot of filling or it’s all batter with nothing to it. Luckily, this one was filled with shrimp and veggies.

The pancake was $20 and it came with 6 large slices topped with crispy bits. The topping added crunch to the pancake but it wasn’t all that necessary because the pancake itself was already crispy on the outside. The sauce it came with was soy based and nothing too special in my opinion. Again, I’m not sure that it was worth the $20 but it was better than most I’ve had before.

Quick bites:

1. Lots of specialty dishes that you can’t find at other Korean restaurants in the Metro Vancouver area
2. Small portion sizes
3. Come early because they don’t take reservations