Sandong Banjeom — Restaurant in Calgary

This place’s MO seems to be to hide poor quality ingredients under gobs of breading, sauce and noodles, and ride on the lack of competition in the area for Chinese style Korean food. However, of the few dishes I’ve tried I can find better quality (if not always directly analogous) variants elsewhere. When it comes to strictly Korean-Chinese dishes like jajangmyeon, I’d sooner make my own than take my chances here again.

During my first visit I ordered the seafood noodle soup for takeout, only to go home to find it was mostly noodles with a sprinkling of seafood as a garnish (for comparison, I used to order this soup at Korean Village when I lived in the Beltline. At least at that time, they served a more flavourful and spicy version with more seafood and veggies for only a couple dollars more).

During my second visit to San Dong Banjeom we ordered fried chicken and jajangmyeon. The fried chicken was essentially heavily sauced, breaded and deep fried chicken fat (for $22!). After noticing that the pieces were unusually chewy (and wondering if the meat had been undercooked) I started taking them apart, only to find that the chicken inside was shot through with fat. After this disappointing and somewhat repulsive discovery, we continued in this way, picking apart the pieces and cutting off the fat to get to whatever tiny pieces of actual meat we could find. In the end, most of the pieces contained probably more than 50% fat, and at least a third contained no discernable amount of meat at all (i.e., the filling consisted entirely of chicken fat). While they were ostensibly using white meat, it was obvious they were using the cheapest, fattiest cuts they could find. We ended up leaving a lot of it behind.

Aside: It’s fashionable to throw shade on Western Chinese food these days, but when two of the Western Chinese places I’ve tried in the area (Hot Wok Cafe and Lemon Garden) can sell breaded, sauced and fried chicken with good quality white meat (and very little, if any chicken fat) for $13 (and still presumably turn a profit) - it’s hard to justify paying almost $10 more for a poorer quality variant just to get slightly crispier breading and different sauce. Either of those restaurants (or any of the Korean fried chicken chains such as Olive Chicken) will serve up better quality cuts of meat, with similar or better quality breading. Again, not directly comparable stylistically, but better food quality and value.

When the jajangmyeon came out it initially looked promising, given that the noodle to veggies/meat ratio looked reasonable (the sauce/veg/seafood mix appeared to be about 2/3 of the volume of noodles with which it was served). However, on closer inspection, the dish consisted largely of fried, diced onions (few, if any other vegetables were present) and sauce with a sprinkling (essentially a garnish) of the smallest pieces of seafood I’ve seen served at a restaurant (for example, there were maybe 2-3 rubbery, dime-sized scallops in the entire dish). While I was expecting a lot of sauce, I was expecting more than cheap filler veg and the poorest quality seafood money could buy.

In sum, while this place may not have any direct competitors, any of the restaurants above (or other Korean restaurants in the area, particularly Hodu Namu, but also Bow Bulgogi) are much better contenders for your money. They may not have jajangmyeon, but they have enough respect for their customers to provide good quality food that’s actually...

San Dong Banjeom serves up huge portions of great Korean food!! I'm not Korean so I can't comment of their authenticity but the dishes that my table ordered tasted really great! None of the dishes left me thirsty nor too salty, greasy, or any of that sort.

My table ordered the following:

#2 (half portion of #1 (noodles with Korean style black bean sauce) and half portion of #9 (spicy seafood noodle soup)): Great opportunity to try 2 different but very popular dishes for the price of 1! The noodles in black bean sauce was exactly that (savory, earthy, slightly salty) while the spicy seafood noodle soup had a red chili flakes taste. It isn't too spicy unless you decide to drink a lot of the spicy soup.

#8 (tray of pan fried noodle with black bean sauce): it's important to note that this dish costs $22.99 but it serves 2 people! It's a lot of food! Also, this noodle dish is mildly spicy, with the type of spicy sauce that burns slowly at the back of your throat. Great savory, black bean sauce! I really liked the texture of the rings noodles too! The texture is similar to Chinese egg noodles but not that.

#47 (assorted seafood and vegetables with mustard dressing): I learned you're supposed to mix it all together. It becomes a light noodle dish with fresh veggies and cold seafood. It's cool and refreshing. The mustard sauce is like a watery horseradish/wasabi sauce (it'll clear out your sinuses for sure).

#48 (assorted braised shrimp, pork, mushroom, & bamboo shoot): There's plenty of sauce in this dish which makes it a great candidate to be served alongside a bowl of rice or noodles. Plenty of mushroom flavor in a savory sauce with some shrimp and pork.

#49 (stir fried green pepper & pork in oyster sauce + 6pcs of steamed buns): the buns are ever so slightly sweet. They make for a great side to eat with the veggies and pork. The flavors were mild and savory (not spicy, not salty, not greasy)

As for the environment: it's a casual dinner-in restaurant with light Korean pop music playing in the background. You'll see groups of friends, families, and whomever all...

We came here after a long day at calaway. Service was friendly and waitress let us know that food may take longer because staff were on lunch break. They were kind and gave us dumplings on the house (thank you). When food was served, i was very surprised at the big portion size. It reminded me of korean seafood noodles i use to eat back in university days. The noodles were chewy and delicious. In the soup, they add ample of ingredient (variety of vegetables and meat), and you can tell, they put a lot of love and care into making the food. I tried the broth of all the different noodles my family got, every single one was different, but tasty. Service was attentive throughout, they refilled water, gave us more pickled radish and asked how the meal was.

I have only 2 complaints.... Why did i just discover this place after all this time!!! (I would rate this the top 5 restaurants I've been in this past year, and that includes places i went to overseas) The location is a little out of the way from my house :(

I look forward to coming back in the future :D

Re-edit: Being back here 3x already. Happy to say that this place still remain to be my top 3 restaurants past 8 years in Calgary/US cities/Japan ...everywhere

Service is still great, but I'm nervous because now it was discovered on Facebook foodies page and it might get...