Bori Korean Restaurant — Restaurant in North Vancouver

I was very excited about a new Korean place opening up in NV, the price was a bit high but I figured since the place is newly opened, the perfect time to try it would be now.

The restaurant is simple and clean, adorn with baskets of orchards to celebrate their grand opening, making me excited for the meal that’s about to come.

We ordered bulgogi and seafood pancake, food arrived promptly since we were the only table at the time. Portions for the dishes were shockingly small for how pricy the items were, both dishes were also very bland and singular in flavour. The side dishes were below average - radish kimchi was too fermented, bean sprouts were bland, and the garlic chives were far too fibrous to break up with my teeth.

Bulgogi ($26) had a sweet and slight soy sauce flavour, onions in the dish were undercooked and nearly raw, 80% of the volume was taken up by glass noodles, cabbage, onions and carrots. Nothing like the juicy, tasty, meaty treat one should expect from proper bulgogi.

The seafood pancake ($26) consisted of an even layer of green onion, along with a thin layer of batter, topped with 5 pieces of puny shrimp, same amount of squid, and some strips of imitation crab..to pump up the amount of ‘seafood’ in this pancake I assume. The edge of the pancake was nice and crispy, but the entire middle was soggy and oily. The dipping sauce…the only saving grace of this pancake..was barely passable as it appears to be made of a light soy with sesame seeds.

The raving reviews on this restaurant are just downright confusing, some say this is very authentic Korean food. No, that is incorrect, anyone who‘d set foot in Korea can tell you this food simply cannot compare. Others say the price point is amazing for what you get. I would have to respectfully disagree.

Overall, we spent $70 on 2 dishes and left the restaurant unsatisfied.

If you are in North Van and in the mood for Korean food, I’d recommend Busan Daeji Gukbap on 3rd for their wide variety and tasty flavours, as well as South Castle on 2nd for amazing value and their...

We dined in on a Saturday night an hour before close where the business was quite empty with two other parties. We came in with eight people and the server looked already quite agitated that we came in with so many people, even though there were seats available.

Already sitting down, the restaurant forgot to give us utensils for the entire group, we had to ask on two separate occasions to provide us with the utensils.

When it came to the meal we ordered the soondubu, bulgogi, japchae kimchi fried rice. The fried rice and bulgogi wasn’t terrible, just very salty. While the japchae never even made it out of the kitchen as the server had completely forgotten to even put it into the system. When it came to the soondubu, the soup came out and the visual was very unappetizing. Taking my first bite, a large clump of what looked like gum came out and it was very unsettling. When I asked the server what that was, she took it to the back and I was informed that it was a block of seasoning that was not dissolved. But to me, if a block of seasoning that big can make it into the dish, then it wasn’t cooked properly.

The server then asked me “what should they do about it”. Which perplexed me, because if a customer is complaining that their food that they know wasn’t cooked properly, the first course of action should be to replace. Also they never even bothered to apologize for the incident.

Throughout the entire meal, the service was abysmal. When we would ask questions or need anything brought to the table, the server wouldn’t even respond and walk away. We would need to walk to the kitchen to order additional bowls of rice as the server had never came by to check on our meals.

Overall, this was the worst experience I’ve had at a Korean restaurant in Vancouver, let alone worst experience at a restaurant in general. Take your money anywhere else than here. Hire some better staff or give them the most basic training in customer service and...

DELICIOUS. I was worried I was going to miss the traditional vibe of the previous owners (the old place was a Korean Time Machine!) but this place is so cute and the service is so fast and the food was so yummy that I think I found one of my new favourites!

As always, we tried the bibimbap first. We were worried because we do prefer the hot stone bowl style, but it comes in a beautiful brass bowl and it’s so perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned that for the first time we did not miss the hot stone. They use purple rice, YUM.

I had the dduck mandu soup, to try something completely new. The broth is amazing, pork bone, milky white, you can feel the collagen on your lips. It’s filled with perfect egg drops, delicious dumplings, nice tender, chewy rice cake slices, and some ground beef. Really hit the spot, the kind of soup you can have on a hot day or a cold day.

The side dishes are the usual suspects: kimchi (nice lactic taste), sprouts with sesame oil, and of course: pickled daikon radish with soy sauce, onion and surprisingly mild and delicious jalapeños. The jalapeños paired perfectly with the rice cake slices from the soup.

Service was fast and friendly, he was very knowledgable at explaining what my wife could order being a vegetarian who eat eats eggs and fish.

Great value too!

Gotta come back and try that fried chicken it looked amazing…

We are spoiled for choice with delicious Korean food in North Vancouver and this is a welcome...