Ko-Lab Kitchen — Restaurant in Saskatoon

I've lived and visited a good number of cities and always look for the "best" of my favorite types of food. Usually one place does one thing best, and often in the case of Saskatoon -- nobody makes the particular item well. Saskatoon has a huge number of restaurants per capita but also the most restaurants with boring, uninspired, low quality, or just plain overpriced food. If you read the average Saskatoon Redditor's preference for food you'll get the picture.

Anyways, that aside, KO is at a glance a little confusing of a business. Ramen, Sushi, Fried Chicken, Smash Burgers, all of these foods that are usually specialized at a sit down restaurant. The take-out and delivery model is a little confusing and I can get how inpatient weirdos can be frustrated. Honestly, it's a very accessible place, extremely easy to order and pay, and there are a few booths to sit and enjoy your food at. The service is friendly and prompt. Wait times are minimal despite the volume of Delivery orders they are sending out.

Now the food. KO is either the best or in the top 3 locally for multiple foods. The sushi is excellent. Not 5 star like say Ari in Calgary -- but the only thing you can even compare to in Saskatoon is Sushi Raku.

The Korean fried chicken is the best in the city, with Hey Fried being a (sorta) near second. Great flavors, tender, juicy, and reasonable value. Bone-in is traditionally the way to go, but their boneless chicken is made with very good quality dark meat and is delicious.

The Smash Burger, an anomaly at an Asian restaurant, is almost dead tied with Deadly Dan / Hot Sauce Grill as best in town. Very reasonable price and great varieties of flavor. These two aside, nobody else in Saskatoon makes a Smash Burger that's above average. Like other items here, it's thoughtfully crafted, well prepared, and all of the ingredients seem to be good quality.

Ramen gets it's own mention. This is the closest to authentic Ramen you can enjoy in Saskatoon and it's available in authentic flavors that simply aren't available elsewhere. I would compare this to Jinya or other great Ramen chains. There's nothing else local even close to this. The cool thing is they've developed a take-home frozen version of their ramen that actually prepares extremely well. Yeah, frozen ramen better than the in-house made stuff at local Japanese joints.

The picture I'm painting is, this place despite having an obscure model has multiple dishes that are in the conversation for best in Saskatoon.

I'm disappointed in some of the reviews left by locals here who are being intentionally obtuse or extremely dramatic about their entirely minor perceived...

The first time we tried this place we loved it. I went online and immediately posted a five star review. After many disappointments I am done with that place.

There is never any consistency. The last time we ordered they told us the chicken is now a whole chicken randomly chopped into pieces and an order would consist of random pieces. It did not. In our last order we got 4 wing drums/ small drumsticks chopped in half, two small wing ends, and four pieces of back with no real meat on them. There was very little actual meat. More than half that order would be considered scrap in any other kitchen.

They told us specifically they included all parts of the chicken which is clearly untrue. It appears they strip the big pieces of meat off a chicken carcass for other menu items, and then chop us what remains into portions to be be fried.

This place has more often than not screwed up our orders. We always went back because when it’s good, it’s damn good. After this last visit we felt we were sold an order of mostly scraps and lied to about it. We’ve decided they are never getting our...

The items I have tried from here are usually quite good, I am a huge fan of the ‘by the pound’ dynamite tuna however even though it is always good-it’s never consistently the same. Embarrassing maybe-but I ordered the dynamite tuna twice in one day lol- and the first order was ABSOLUTE perfection omg so damn good. That’s why I ordered again for supper and yea it was good, it just wasn’t AMAZING. I ordered the sashimi (tuna & salmon) for the first time which will also be the last time. The pieces were so thickly cut that I may as well have made it myself to be honest. And your complaints are met with the standard ‘I’m sorry’ but IMO when I’m paying $20 for 8 pieces of fish I should either get what I have ordered, an offer for them to remake the dish properly or some type of store credit. I really enjoy Ko Lab however the more restaurants Saskatoon gets that serve the same dishes, I think this restaurant will dwindle due to its inconsistency and lack of...