Bündok — Restaurant in Edmonton

Until tonight, August 11, 2023, Bundok was one of our favorite restaurants. We've been going there since they opened, both as a couple and, for me, with friends and colleagues. It was always a special food and service experience. Tonight, we invited my sister-in-law who was visiting from Calgary to join us. She had never been there and we were confident everything would be as we remembered.

The evening started okay. We ordered the olives, the chicken skins, the squash blossoms and a bottle of wine, which were tasty and came to our table quite quickly.

The problem started when we ordered the kale salad, the gnocchi and the striploin. After more than 20 minutes when none of them had arrived, I asked the server how much longer we could expect to wait. She said, "He's working on it." No apology, no " sorry for the wait, your food will be right up." Nothing. About 10 minutes later, the gnocchi came, followed by the kale a few minutes later. Again, no apology from the server for making us wait. No indication of when the striploin would arrive.

Another 15 -20 minutes went by and still no striploin. Food was being served all around us. By now it was 7:15, we'd been at the restaurant for 90 minutes, and were being virtually ignored by the server. Our wine wasn't being poured and we had no idea when we'd get the striploin.

Finally, my husband asked for the bill, and said we weren't going to wait for the striploin. The server said, " Oh. Ok." She made no apology or attempt to get us to stay.

I stopped by the bar on the way out and asked if I could speak to the manager. The bartender said, " Your server is the manager. Would you like to speak to her?" I couldn't believe that we'd just been served by the manager.

When she finally came over, I expressed my disappointment and dissatisfaction with the evening. She asked was it the food or the service? When I said the service, she said, "Well, I'm sorry it wasn't up to your standards." Hardly an apology. When I told her that at other restaurants, when food was taking a long time to come out, I would usually get an apology or a reassurance or a complimentary dish or even in one case, an invitation from the manager for a complimentary meal at another time, she said, "Oh wow. I'll keep that in mind for next time." I said, " So you're not planning to do anything for me tonight?" She said, " I don't know what you expect me to do." I said, " You realize I'm leaving angry and that angry customers tend to leave angry reviews on social media?" "Yes, I know," she said.

As the result of a manager who seemed not to care about our experience at the restaurant, Bundok plummeted from the status of favorite to don't know if we'll be back. We were embarrassed at how the evening ended for our guest and totally baffled by the manager's attitude. I always give the restaurant the chance to make things right before going to social media but, in this case, I had no...

Our first time eating at Bundock was not the most enjoyable experience, nor was it memorable in any way. The food was odd … unlikely pairings that made no sense, where the ingredients absolutely clashed. Most of the dishes screamed out that the chefs were trying too hard to make something unique by pushing too hard to fuse clashing flavours rather than let the simplicity of each base ingredient speak for itself. Everything was “too much” … too many competing ingredients, too much seasoning, too many garnishes. Delicate and nuanced flavours of main ingredients were overpowered with too much smoke flavouring, too much lemon, shockingly poorly-paired garnishes or too many overpowering spices where the main dish got lost in all the junk toppings. This is not a restaurant that values simplicity or trusts the flavour of well-cooked, fresh ingredients to speak for the dishes it prepares. Lovely savoury dishes were drowned in sweet toppings or overpowering extra ingredients, ruining the enjoyment of both the base dish and the additional pairings in an unlikely clash of incompatible flavours. The grilled broccoli was burnt and acrid because it had been left on the grill too long, and throwing a deep-fried poached egg on top only made it taste burnt, acrid, and mushy. The gnocchi boasted a wonderful sauce, but the gnocchi itself was so overcooked that the dish was mushy, gluey, and tasteless. The panfried hen was overcooked and dry. We specifically asked if the scallop appetisers were made with real scallops, (or, as was our suspicion, pollock), because they lacked any texture resembling real scallops, and looked like compressed hockey pucks of “stuff” designed to look like a scallop. Our server swore that the scallops were real, and told us that she even checked with the kitchen to confirm, while they suggested that their preparation of brining and smoking the scallop might have eliminated the scallop texture and taste we were accustomed to. OK … I suppose it’s entirely possible our palate could be letting us down on the scallops issue, but we found the whole experience a poor...

I had heard incredible things about Bündok. It was recommended to me by several friends who noted that the food was absolutely incredible (the Parmigiano soup especially!) and they had a great cocktail list. My husband and I decided to go there for our wedding anniversary and check it out. We were greeted by a server who asked if we had a reservation and we said yes. She did not take us to our table but instead pointed in the direction of where it was and said “there’s your table”. We found that a bit odd, but brushed it off because it was quite steady at the restaurant and she was probably busy. The service continued to get worse. My husband and I ordered drinks—he ordered a beer and I ordered a cocktail. My husbands beer came to the table first about 10 minutes before my cocktail. The server nearly threw the beer down and said “here”. When it came time to order, our server would not make eye contact with us. I tried to be as friendly as possible but I got the feeling she did not like us from the moment we walked in. The service continued this way for the rest of the evening. Any time she came to check our table it seemed as though she wanted to be anywhere but there. She wouldn’t look at us and had her head turned towards the bar the entire time. Everyone has bad days, and I hope that this was just a one off. It was just too bad that it had to happen on a very special dinner my husband and I had planned for a while. With that being said, I must note that the food was incredible. The Parmigiano soup was the best soup I’ve ever had in my entire life! I do not eat pork and the kitchen modified my soup to come without bacon. We ordered a beet, plum, and goat cheese salad which was delicious. lastly we ordered the pan roasted hen which was cooked to perfection. A different server brought us our main course and was a breath of fresh air. She smiled, looked us in the eye, and even made some small talk with us. Would I go back? Probably. The food was awesome and so was my cocktail!!! I just hated feeling so awkward and almost scared every time the server came...