Song Cook's Authentic Korean Restaurant

Dec 29, 2020

Champong, Bulgolgi and Jajangmyun

Champong is a spicy seafood soup and the Song Cook version had a good hearty broth with small shrimps, cuttlefish and some tiny mussels. It had a good flavour and wasn't too spicy which was nice. 

The Bulgolgi was a decent sized portion and pretty tasty, but once you get used to spicier Korean flavours especially gojuchang sauce, it's hard to go back to simplier flavours like sweet soy sauce marinated beef. 

The jajangmyun had an excellent onion sauce and good crispy cucumbers (definitely one of the better jajangmyuns in Toronto) and there was a ton of extra sauce too - so you could make another portion with extra noodles. 

These dishes also came with side dishes, but the kimchi went bad and the pickled radish wasn't good. However, Song Cook is usually a pretty good go-to for consistent, yummy and reasonably priced Korean food. 

Nov 21, 2020

I got another Ubereats code with 50% off pickup, so I went to a tried, tested and favourite Korean restaurant to make the most out of the deal. 

2 Spicy Kamjatangs (Pork Bone Soup) $9.99 each (one portion pictured here)

The kamjatang was really spicy - you could see all the seasonings and spices that went into this soup since they were so grainy. It was really good though with lots of flavour and it was a substantial portion with two containers per soup - the additional smaller styrofoam container is pictured above. We couldn't even finish one portion of the soup (especially with all the other food). 

L.A. Kalbi $25.99

The short ribs were okay. One of the short ribs of the 3 went bad, so we couldn't finish it and threw it out. Rather disappointing and I probably won't be getting the ribs here again. 

Jajang & Khanpoongki $19.99

Jajangmyun (sweet bean noodles) and khanpoongki (fried chicken with spicy sauce) combination. The jajangmyun here is one of the best Korean style sweet bean noodles I've had - even though they don't really use black bean and just use a sweetened sauteed onion sauce. The chicken was also quite yummy with nice breading and a tasty sweet and sour sauce with generous amounts of sauce (not spicy at all). 

Aug 29, 2019

Ddukbokki (Tteobokki) $9.99

The spicy rice cakes were pretty good (and on the spicy side). The portion seemed a little small though for the price we paid.

Pork Bone Soup $9.99

Very hearty with huge pieces of pork bone and the soup was pretty flavourful.

Champong Bap $13.99

The seafood soup with rice had lots of seafood hidden in the bowl. It was a really nice warming dish and not too spicy despite it's bright red colour.

Nov 27, 2011

(Photos courtesy of M.C.)

My foodie friends discovered this little gem north of Steeles and Yonge a while ago and to celebrate a friend's super belated by a month birthday - we decided to grab the BDay dinner here. The restaurant is actually pretty hard to find unless you know where it is since it's not visible on the street. It is located at the back of an easily overlooked plaza and I think the place primarily trades on word of mouth which works really well for them since the food is amazing and the layout is very traditional and authentic.

The best part about the layout? The floors are heated! So even if you have to sit cross-legged or kneeling - you'll be warm and toasty (Perfect for the Winter!)

In case the words are totally foreign to you, there's pictures with the food above the kitchen area which helps give you an idea about what it is you're ordering. 

Pork Bone Soup (KamJa Tang)

Pork Bone soup is a staple of most authentic Korean restaurants - it's everywhere! It usually doesn't come with a lot of meat on the pork bones because the meat is usually used for other cooking and the pork bone remains just add flavour to the soup, but in this case, there was a LOT of meat on the pork bones and the soup was loaded with other stuff (as you can see from the tower of veggies). This pork bone soup wasn't very spicy (i.e. perfect for me) and it was DELICIOUS - lots of flavour and a very hearty meal with the rice. 

Chicken Teriyaki

I love Chicken dishes and this Chicken Teriyaki dish is no exception. I feel like you can never really go wrong with chicken dishes. The chicken was perfectly cooked - moist on the inside and the crazy pile of veggies underneath made me feel like I was eating healthier than I actually was. Yum!

Beef Shortribs (JimKalBi)

Korean Kalbi is one of my favourite ways to eat ribs - the sauce is amazing! The ribs were very good and the waiters at the restaurant had the foresight to leave us a pair of scissors so we could cut up the ribs into smaller manageable pieces to eat. 

Deep Fried Dumplings (Gun Mandu)

These were delicious! I thought they might resemble Chinese Pot-stickers or Japanese Gyoza, but surprisingly they didn't quite taste like either one - the outside layer was crispier and thinner than what I usually eat in pot-stickers or gyoza and they offered us Ketchup to dip it in (with the pot-stickers and gyoza, you usually get vinegar aka "cho" or soy sauce). 

We also got the JaJangMyun and a few other things. The JaJangMyun is a black bean sauce with veggies (usually cucumber slices) and some meat. I've had it a few times at a few Korean places, but they've usually turned out terribly since I'm slightly biased in that I love the Shanghai version of JaJangMyun (because it's the one I've grown up with and most Shanghai places in Toronto do a great job making it well). So my expectations for this Korean version were pretty low, however, I was really pleasantly surprised! They made  a good version of the JaJangMyun! And Song Cook's is probably the only Korean place I've tried so far that can make a good one. So I would definitely recommend getting it here! 

Website: http://songcooks.com/