Greater Vancouver is a very multicultural place, but you’ll still find that certain ethnic groups still congregate around roughly the same neighborhood. There’s more Greek and Italian influence along Commercial Drive, for instance, and the “Burquitlam” area between Burnaby and Coquitlam can be roughly described as Koreatown. This is particularly true just south of Lougheed Highway.
It is in this area that I discovered House of Tofu Soup. I’m generally not the biggest fan of tofu, per se, but I have had some great experiences with Korean tofu soup. I also very much enjoy other Korean cuisine, so I figured House of Tofu Soup was worth a shot.
The menu is very simple. There are three pages, but there is only one page’s worth of menu items, as the three pages are three different languages: English, Korean, and Chinese. As is expected with all other Korean restaurants, House of Tofu Soup also treats you to a variety of complimentary side dishes.
For our dinner, we ordered two entrees and one appetizer. The appetizer is man-deuk-ee, which consists of fried dumplings and some Korean rice cakes in cylindrical form. The dumplings were fundamentally the same as Japanese gyoza, but since they were drenched in the Korean hot sauce, it made for a different flavor profile. The rice cakes were nice and chewy.
The first entree is, of course, the tofu soup. That is the name of the place, after all, not unlike Han Ju Tofu Hot Pot Restaurant in Richmond. For the tofu soup, you can choose the spiciness level and the main ingredient, including beef, seafood, kimchi, and “mix.” We went with seafood.
The bowl may not look very big, but it was chocked full of goodness. There were several clams in there, as well as a fair bit of shrimp and cabbage. This is served with a bowl of rice.
The other menu item that we ordered was the stone bibimbob (sometimes spelled as bibimbap or bibimbab). This is a bowl of rice, topped with mushrooms, carrot, radish, beef, and a raw egg. The key is paying the extra dollar to have it in a stone bowl/pot, because this helps to contain the heat and, as you consume your meal, it makes for “crispy rice” that sticks to the stone.
Stone pot bimbambob has to be one of my favorite Korean dishes and House of Tofu Soup certainly didn’t disappoint. There were lots of toppings and the crispy rice was great. The tofu soup was full of flavor and at a “regular” level of spiciness, it was the right level of heat too.
All said, after tax and tip, the total bill came to $33. Service was very friendly, the dishes arrived quickly, and the food was both reasonably priced and very tasty. I will definitely be back. There is also a location in Richmond, but it has received considerably worse reviews that its Burquitlam cousin.
Mmm, looks very interesting, Mike. I have never tried Korean cuisine myself. It looks like it sets itself apart quite nicely from the other Asian cuisines like Chinese, Thai or Pho even, all of which I love. Must give it a try one of these days for sure.
You can see some of the inspiration from the surrounding cultures, as there is “Korean” sushi and so on, but it is distinctly different. 🙂 Korean BBQ is very good too, as is the pork bone soup — some may say that the latter is a little bland, but I like it.
It all looks interesting Michael. I am going to have to stop up to see Shihan Wong to have him take us to some good Korean in the area down here.