HAN COREA (MACLEOD) — Restaurant in Calgary

Place is spacious and new compared to their old location at Fairmont dr. Got a seat quickly. Food was alright… a little over salty. I’d say service is one-star. We brought homemade birthday cake to the restaurant and asked if we can place it in their fridge. The waitress said yes, but they won’t provide us any plates or cutleries for the cake. So my friend texted me to go get plates and cutleries immediately. My friends also asked the waitress if it’s ok for us to eat our cake here at the restaurant. She said okay. (Now I must say that not all waitresses acted like this. The other waitresses treated us very kindly and respectfully. But this one waitress with short, dyed hair was another story) under permission, we asked for our cake after our meal. One friendly waitress came and cleared our table for us. She also provided us plates and chopsticks for the cake (now remember that at first this short haired lady said she won’t provide us any plates) we were a little surprised when another waitress provided us plates. So we also asked for a knife to cut our cake. They said no… oops then never mind, we’ll just cut our cake with chopsticks, no problem. But then while we were enjoying our friend’s birthday cake, the short hair waitress came to us and said “normally we don’t accept outside foods, so you guys will have to take care of the garbage yourself. We won’t be responsible for it” we were a little shocked here. So after we finished our cake, we had to clear out the disposable forks and napkins by ourselves. When we asked for the bill, they told us to go up front to pay. So I did, then the short hair waitress told me to go somewhere else to pay. So I did… when our table had been treated like this, I wanted to deduct the percentage of their tips. Then this same waitress stopped me and said “sorry you have to press 15 percent because we are serving 6 of you”. We weren’t informed when we were being brought to the table. Nor did the waitress automatically punch in 15 percent tips for me when I attempted to pay. Anyway, I paid for it. So we checked their menu after all and it did say in the corner that 15 percent must be charged on a party of six or more. So fair and square. I paid what I’m suppose to pay. But we left the restaurant unhappily. We just want to give our fellow friend a good birthday celebration. We don’t want to cause problems anyway. This waitress just made us feel uncomfortable. I’d probably go back to the old location instead...

About 11 years ago (2013), I wrote pretty much the first ever review on Yelp of their original location. Back then, their first place was a little place (still is kinda) that had literally Korean on menus, only Korean speaking staff, menus on the walls, Korean newspapers on the walls as decor and a pretty interesting style of operation with do it yourself rice and hot beverages and such. Luckily, there was an English speaking customer who was able to help translate some of the menu so that the very first meal I had at Han Corea was utterly fantastic. Little did I know, that first Yelp review would be the one that launched their reputation and name among the non-Korean population., and would lead to them evolving (you should have seen the first hilarious korean to english translation menus that they made when non-Korean people started to try them out) and now, growing (well, their second attempt at a 2nd restaurant) to a very successful and modern restaurant on Macleod Trail.

I love this restaurant, and it's awesome that the food quality is just as good here as the original (though I'll probably go to the original more often out of nostalgia). Great vibes, excellent food though the service was a bit slow. It's still early in the operation, so it'll be interesting to see how...

I frequented the other location near Chinook with my friends for the past 5 years, so we decided to give this place a try. Unfortunately, we were disappointed, especially by the food quality. My friends and I ordered S3, S2 and S13 on the menu. While the one with the ox bone broth tasted decent, the other soup had absolutely no flavour at all. We tried to season it with salt and pepper along with the seasonings that they provided on the side, but compared to the food quality served at the other location, this one was just extremely bland and lacked the flavour that I was expecting. I ordered my usual: dak bulgogi (spicy pepper), which also happened to taste super bland and it was burnt at the bottom. The portioning level was also quite small considering its price of $25.

Fortunately, they offered friendly service (although sometimes a bit slow - 20 mins just for the side dishes and rice refill), and the overall atmosphere of the restaurant is cozy. I loved how it was near to a lot of other places such as the mall and Greedy Donuts if you’re looking for dessert afterwards. However, I still personally prefer the OG location...