Namsan Authentic Korean Cuisine — Restaurant in Calgary

Our first experience with Namsan started in a worst way possible. A month ago, we picked this venue for our early dinner, upon entering the premise, we're first in line waiting to be served. A lady told us to wait and she will be right back with us. 15 minutes later, we were still waiting and there were other groups of patron waiting alongside us (we were all walk-in customers) and no one ever came back. After about 20 minutes, another server came and ask everyone our information (e.g. number of guests), and as he began to lead us upstairs to our table together with another 2 guests who queued after us, he gave them a big table for 4 first, and gave us a small table of 2 afterwards (he didn't check who arrived first). We thought perhaps the other party have more people coming over, but that was not the case as they were 2 people sharing one beef soup order. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem for us since it make sense to sit 2 guests at a table for 2, except this time the table we were given was so small with insufficient space to place the 3 items we ordered on our table and we couldn't help but feel a huge contrast looking how cramped our table is and how we struggled to place even our water glass or smartphones on the table, versus our neighbour with an extremly spacious table for just one soup order).

The small space of the restaurant as a whole amplified the chatter from other patrons, together with loud music, we can barely hear the servers' responses when we interacted with them. The menu was confusing enough and we were unable to get answers on whether the dishes have rice included (some does, some doesn't) or the portion they come with. The servers were always busy and difficult to get a hold of (perhaps because we were sitted near the wall with other tables separating us from the servers). Moreover, we were not provided with the complementary appetitizer platter, and had to ask the server towards the end of meal when they came to clear the plates. We were very confused throughout the dinner of whether we were eligible for the platter as we saw our neighbour table receiving the platter (along with many others) while ordering the same item we did (the soup) and have to resort to checking Google reviews to confirm that the platter should be complimentary for all (our server did not explain this to us and he didn't come around after we ordered - although we saw him often went to a table he is familiar with and kept chit chatting and taking photos there).

We had hoped with such sub-par environment and service, the food must be great for the restaurant to be so popular. Guess we were wrong, as the food we ordered (beef soup, ribs, seafood jeon/ pancake) were quite underwhelming. The seafood jeon had a long human hair underneath it which was very upsetting (the venue did took it off the bill and took away the dish, which was fair since we only took one bite before discovering the hair).

Overall, perhaps the food tasted worse than it was because of the poor experiences, or perhaps we didn't order any speciality of the house since we were not able to enquire the menu with the server (place too noisy). Either way, we wished we had picked another venue for our dinner, we left with $70 less in our pocket, a disappointed and upset mood after the experiences, and unsatisfied appetite. We had to cook supper...

Namsan Authentic Korean Cuisine is an interesting place.

On the outside, it looks like a restaurant that occupies an entire, distinct, reasonably well maintained building, which apparently it does.

On the inside, the overwhelming color theme is black. Black walls, black ceilings, black tables and black chairs.

Upon entering, the smell of food is inviting. The general state of the interior however looks like the last renovation is already a number of years in the past.

The chairs looked tired and the [black] paint on the tables chipped. We were seated upstairs, the banister had a sticky feel, as did the table we were seated at.

The menus came promptly. While they did a great job conveying the nature of the food, they too, looked delaminated, roughed up and tired.

Clearly, facilities is not Namsan's priority.

We ordered 4 plates to share. a seafood cake, which was unexpected and delicious glass noodles, which were equally good a plate of thin sliced cold cuts with (what I perceived was a variety of kimchi, pretty interesting a plate of pork bulgogi, which was underwhelming. Perhaps because of what I remembered of what beef bulgogi tasted like in my distant memory.

One thing to be aware of is that the food (at least the items we ate) is very garlic forward. I only noticed that after the fact, a few hours after the meal.

With this, we received a complimentary plate of appetizers, which was also unusual (for me at least), with the expected quota of kimchi, but not just. At the end of the meal, we also received a pitcher of a fruity soda-ish drink, also unusual but not bad.

Overall, Namsan is all about the food experience. On that chapter this restaurant is completely successful (except maybe for the pork bulgogi). The portions are generous, the food is fresh, tasty unusual and interesting, the service is courteous and prompt as well.

We visited Namsan on a weekday and by 8:00 PM, the place was full. A restaurant, after all is said and done, is all...

They have a nice selection of dishes on the menu, for both sharing and individually portioned. The side dishes that came prior to the meal was standard and enjoyable. We had a few things refilled once.

We ordered a medium dak galbi, which was very delicious however the chicken was scarce and there weren’t a lot of rice cakes. It was mostly vegetables in the pan, which we felt was unjustifiable at that price point and portion size.

We also ordered the special of the day, which was pork belly with cold noodles. Apparently since the pork belly on the menu required a minimum of two orders, the special of the day also had that requirement. It was hard to understand, because why would you make a special of the day that also requires two minimum orders?! Anyway, they offered to cook the pork belly for us in the kitchen since our table was too small to fit the grill so that was nice. However, The pork came out pretty over cooked hence tough, and the lettuce that was provided was clearly the wrong lettuce (see photo- how am I supposed to make a lettuce wrap with long skinny lettuce?!). The server also did not provide any chili peppers like they do for any lettuce wraps and we had to ask for it. The cold noodles came at the very end and were nice and chewy, just the way I’d like it, except the beef that came with it was also very chewy like rubber. That was inedible.

The server was slammed the whole evening, being the only server in a two-storey restaurant. I felt bad for him, because he didn’t have the necessary tools to do a good job. Our water jug was only filled once even though it was empty for the majority of the time, and it was hard to get anyone’s attention when the whole restaurant only had one server. Unfortunately we probably won’t come back due to our...