SOUP CURRY GARAKU RICHMOND — Restaurant in Richmond

I have never tried soup curry before coming here so I have nothing to compare it to but I was pleasantly surprised. It has been a while since I’ve visited a new restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed my meal, I recommend trying it out if you haven’t had it before. We dined on a Sunday right at 5pm (when they open for dinner) so we didn’t experience a wait or line.

What I ordered: Kakuni Pork Belly Strawberry Lassi

Food: 5/5 I ordered the Kakuni Pork Belly, Mild with a Small Rice. The soup itself was very flavourful but quite liquidy, for an Asian curry, I was expecting it to be thicker but I guess that’s why they call it soup curry. I had no issues with the consistency though, it was just different than what I’m used to. The Pork Belly that it came with was decently sized for the bowl, it was soft, and tore apart very easily, the fatty parts just melted in your mouth, not dry at all. It came with a variety of vegetables (5-6 pieces) and a quail egg! There were also bits of chopped cabbage(?) in the soup, which I had initially mistaken for onions, the cabbage as a nice touch/filler veggie. The spice level was definitely mild, but there was just a touch heat in it which is likely from the spices they use. I can handle a bit of spice so I probably will try the next level up during my next visit. The portion of rice was actually small though, I would recommend ordering a larger sized rice than normal as I had leftover soup in the end which would’ve been perfect to eat with more rice!

The Strawberry Lassi was also quite nice, it was a yogurt drink with a strawberry jam(?) at the bottom which pairs really nicely with the meal - especially if you’re ordering a higher spice level. I liked that the strawberry mix was not chunky and completely dissolved when properly mixed :)

Ambience + Pricing: [Rating: 3/5] Does the smell of the place count as ambience? When you first walk in, it immediately smells like spicy. I think the restaurant needs better ventilation as when we left we reeked of the spicy smell that was coming from the kitchen. It stuck to our clothes and in my opinion was worse than Korean BBQ, it’s definitely something to keep in mind when visiting here. I am providing a 3/5 purely because of the smell. Otherwise, no complaints. The price was standard in my opinion, considering the quality. I paid about $28.80 after tax and tip, I left feeling full and content.

Service: [Rating: 5/5] The service was attentive, fast and friendly for a relatively newly opened restaurant I was quite surprised. There were many servers who consistently filled water, were readily available when we needed napkins/our bill and checked in on us.

Overall: I would definitely recommend dining here, it’s way different than your traditional Japanese and Thai curry. The flavours were balanced and not like anything I’ve ever had before. I thoroughly enjoyed my meal and will definitely be back in the future for their pork and to try...

Food was delicious but customer service was absolutely garbage. Showed up early so we didn’t have to wait in line, but took over an hour to get our order and give us our food . A big party showed up about 30 minutes after us, sat next to us and had their orders and food taken before us: when the food finally arrived, they never gave us our rice even though the waiter said he would give it to us shortly. 10 minutes later, I asked for the rice, and the one of them had the wrong size. Asked for the bigger size and the waitress never came back. So because of how long it took for us to get rice, the food was a little cold. I wanted to enjoy this and the food was yummy, but service is a no for me.

Responding to the message below: I was told specifically by your staff when the dish arrived that the rice will be on its way. I waited for a while before having to call someone to bring it. So this isn’t a miscommunication but your staff did not only not follow through with what they said they would do, they forgot an item. Then brought two rice and one was the wrong size. I told her it was the wrong size and she apologized, said she would get another one and never showed up. So, I did not actually get to enjoy my meal with rice at all, which is ironic when step #2 of your guide on how to enjoy curry is to soak the rice in curry. Second, it took us close to 30 minutes to even get an order in. You did not take one hour for a dish to arrive, but it took an hour for everything to go through. We sat at 6.30 and left close to 8 (around 7:58 ish to be exact). I checked my time constantly while I was there because of how long it took and also because we had plans at a set time after. I’m sure some people had better experiences as a handful of people sat down later than us and still manage to leave before us, but we had a horrible experience and due to the many delays, we did not have an opportunity to even enjoy the food. I am not exaggerating the times and hope no one else will experience the same...

Tried out this new place today for lunch and I have mixed feelings about the place. The food was good but it was quite pricey and it wasn't wow-ing. I didnt feel the need to come back to try the rest of the menu. We ordered the fried chicken leg and the pork belly. The soup curry itself was good, I really liked the vegetables in the curry and how it was prepared. The fried chicken leg was super tender and fell off the bone easily, but it was on the saltier side. The pork belly was alright but it was a bit tough and overcooked. The soup curries come with rice which I found was a little bit hard. The last thing I noticed about the food was it didn't come out hot, despite us waiting a long time for our food to arrive.

The service was upsetting. The male servers were more friendly, and more attentive than the females. The females walked by us a couple times with water pitchers but didnt bother to fill out empty water cups, but the male servers did. Another thing that was bothersome was we were sitting for a while and they never came back to check if we were ready to order. I managed to catch the attention of one of the servers and asked if we could have our order taken and she told me to wait because she was helping the table next to us, but the table next to us wasn't ready to order and was still looking at the menu which was a little annoying because we had to wait even longer for the table next to us to figure out what they wanted to get while me and my friend already knew exactly what we wanted. Food also took a really long time to arrive.

The last thing that bothered me was the cleanliness of the restaurant. When they seated us in the booth, there was rice all over the seats.

Overall, I think I would come back if someone suggested it or wanted to try it, but I...