DIY Korean BBQ with a club vibe
WHILE MEAT IS THE MAIN THING, Seoul Chako has plenty of other offerings, including seafood and sushi rolls
1824 Ste. Catherine St. W. (Near St. Mathieu St.) Phone: 514-989-8886 Website: n/a Licensed: Yes Credit cards: All major cards Wheelchair accessible: Yes Vegetarian friendly:
Not really Open: Mon.-fri. 11:30 a.m.11 p.m., Sat. and Sun. noon
11 p.m. Price range: All-you-can-eat lunch $13.99-$14.99, supper $21.99-$23.99
Among the new restaurant signs on this section of Ste. Catherine St. – and there are quite a few in New Chinatown – Seoul Chako’s is the biggest and boldest. Those bright red uppercase letters are hard to miss, and the interior of this two-month-old address follows up on the flash. In the entryway, there’s an illuminated sculpture that slowly changes colours. So does the backlit bar that glows in the cavernous space, where young male waiters in dark outfits flit by, carrying trays of beer or rolling carts of cooking equipment. The lightscape brings a clubby edge to what’s essentially a big black box of a room, outfitted with dark booths with such tall backs that it’s easy for you to feel lost in your slot, or start doing Darth Vader impersonations, until a
Not much else is left to chance: there are lots of instructions for handling raw ingredients,
friendly staff member pokes his head around to see how you are.
The specialty here is Korean barbecue, and the fun is centred on in-table burners for grilling your own meats. The built-in units, different than the tabletop grills more common at local restos, are dome-shaped above a gas power source. While customers are left to DIY, not much else is left to chance: there are lots of instructions for handling raw ingredients, and urgings to use different utensils for the raw than the cooked. An emphasis on cleanliness is apparent.
The approach is all you can eat – the owners also run the all-you-can-eat sushi place next door – and while that sounds straightforward, there are calculations involved. Prices begin at $13.99 for a weekday lunch and max out at $23.99 for supper on weekends. (Even kids portions are pro-rated, starting at $2.99 for the 4-and-under set – which I found kind of cute, even if my 3-year-old ate only a single edamame bean and two bowls of ice cream.) What’s not included: drinks, potentially sake, as there’s quite an extensive list. Nor is the lettuce, if you want to eat your food wrapped, or ssam style, which you most definitely do. (It’s another dollar per person, or $1.50 for the table.) All that said, choose as many and as much as you want from menu categories like cold dishes, meat, seafood and sushi rolls. To stop sheer gluttony, note that there is a $1 fine for unfinished pieces.
To start, I got a small bowl of pork bone soup. With morsels of tender meat and whole slow-simmered bones, wafers of seaweed and tiny cubes of tofu, it was rich and musky-sweet, and just the thing on a winter afternoon. The miso soup was also pleasant, more full-bodied than expected. And those warm edamame pods had a sprinkling of spices instead of salt.
Next were the side dishes that are such a great part of Korean dining. That meant kimchi, because no meal would be complete without it, and I particularly liked the chili-stained cabbage here – moist and bright and manageably limp. There were also big, fresh, crunchy sprouts, cubes of chilled fried tofu and somewhat dull pickled daikon. We passed on the sushi – I wasn’t feeling it – but as we left, I noticed a fish counter with dedicated staff and an offer of hand rolls on weekends. Encouraging signs.
Meats are the main thing, specifically beef. The thin slices, which took just minutes to cook, came out tops in a well-balanced salty-sweet marinade; the toothier short ribs were a close second. And the effect of the warm, seasoned meat tucked into a fresh, delicate and moist piece of lettuce – well, there in your hand is the reason Korean barbecue has taken off internationally.
Vegetables are not the main thing, however. Some had seen a lot of air, and were too dry to coax much deliciousness from: the sweet potato, zucchini and pumpkin just wound up with charred exteriors. There were plenty of other proteins, from fish to chicken, but I didn’t want a menagerie on the burner.
Lunch ended on a high note, with two kinds of ice cream: green tea and mango, both quite lovely. And the capper, with us having shown up just after Valentine’s Day, was that we each got a rose. Apparently, there were a lot of leftover flowers from the night before, which the waiters were sweetly distributing.
That surfeit of roses shows the ambitions at Seoul Chako: It’s definitely a spot that can embrace crowds, and is very much designed to do just that. Given the size of the place and its buffet formula, it’s almost as though the food has to sizzle a bit louder to compete with the clubby environment. Somehow, it didn’t have the frisson of my best Korean barbecue experiences. Still, there are many points in its favour: It’s got a clear concept, it’s great for groups, it’s cheap for tots and it’s got a ton of things to cook up – sole, calamari, chicken, pork, salmon and even beef tongue. In other words, plenty reasons to go back.