Ho Ban Korean Restaurant — Restaurant in Toronto

My friends and I came on a sat night after badminton. The resto is located on Silver Star with the always packed parking lot (just park at No Frills, iykyk).

2 of my friends used to frequent this resto a lot back when it was called Ga Bin. They told me that they would often come here to order table bbq and the owner would always give them food on the house for being VIP regulars.

Anyways, the resto was super packed but we somehow got a booth in corner (the setup is funky; you enter through the main door and then it's built like a U-shape so you have to walk around the tables in the middle, up near the cash register before getting to where we were sat). There were 6 of us and we were squished into into one booth.

There was literally 1 male server manning the ENTIRE front of house the whole dinner period and we felt sooo bad for him! He was running around by himself to serve all the tables.

Gamjatang: So inflation has basically sent the price of pork bone soup to the moon. I remember when you could get a bowl for ~$8.99 at any korean resto. Now you're seeing restos charging 13.99 or more for a bowl. Seems kinda ludicrous to me but it is what it is. The good thing this place has going for it, is that they give you quite a lot of meat (I feel like they stack more bones in your bowl than most restos). Flavour-wise my friend said it was just ok.

Gamjatang ramen: Friend who ordered this said he would've rather gotten regular gamjatang as he felt my other friend got more bones than him (so he was kinda salty that he got jipped on meat). The ramen is also shin ramyun.

Saewoo bokkeumbap: I have no idea why my friend felt like trying this. It looked mediocre on the menu and sure enough, it also didn't taste that great. I gotta give the resto credit though. The rice looked exactly like it did in the menu picture lol.

Bibimbap: Smaller bibimbap portion than what I've seen offered at other family-run korean restos. The rice also didn't completely crisp up on the bottom and the toppings were scarce so it felt slightly like a rip-off.

Kalbitang: They gave me 4 bones with quite a bit of meat on them and the meat also slid off easily with just a slight tug. My gripe with this dish is that there wasn't enough glass noodles and the broth also tasted like hot water w/ added salt and pepper. Jinmee (which closed down in markham) and Huh Ga Ne in Koreatown in north york both have a kalbitang that absolutely blows this one out of the water.

Yukgaejang: My friend's gf ordered this and while it was quite tasty, she too, also remarked that it felt like she was skimped on ingredients.

Half & half chicken: For the 2 flavours we got honey garlic and original fried. The waiter asked us if we would like "wings" or "boneless". We said boneless. I think the menu for the kfc is misleading as others have pointed out, simply because it shows large bone-in chicken pieces but what we got were basically dark meat slivers in this weird cut up way (it almost felt like they served us chicken skins w/ meat attached to them). Idk if this was unique to K06 but I've never had korean fried chicken served to me in small cutup slivers rather than chunks. Flavour-wise it was pretty standard. Tasted nice. Quite crispy.

The banchan was nothing special to write home about. Myungdong Kalguksu and Sungwon in Unionville are still the king of banchan and nothing has swayed my mind so far haha.

I think the service by our waiter is what kept this review at 3 stars and not lower. He was absolutely swamped and topped off our banchan even though supposedly he said they don't do refills on banchan normally.

After tax and tip I paid around $35 for my meal. Do I think it was worth it? I can't say that it was. In my honest opinion, if I closed my eyes and compared what I ate to items from Owl of Minerva, I don't think I'd be able to taste the difference. They DO give a big portion for the gamjatang though. If I ever did visit again I think I'd order that because you get the most bang...

LAST PARAGRAPH IS THE WORST.

I came here twice and I ordered the same thing. I ordered the hot pot for two ~$24.99. Both times I ordered the same hot pot (there's a selection of 4 different hot pots with different soup bases and toppings). The first time we ordered it, it came with enoki mushrooms. The second time we ordered it, the enoki mushrooms were missing. It's inconsistent, but we didn't press on it because it wasn't a big deal.

Originally, my friend and I wanted to order the bbq meat. It was extremely expensive ~$35-60 for one meat serving and you had to choose two meat servings! I went with one friend, so if we ordered it the bill would have probably came up to $90 for two people! I really don't like their "you have to choose two meats" policy and I'm assuming their meat is expensive because they've advertised it as aged meat. I'm not sure how much different that would taste, but i've always had kbbq at yonge and finch (korea town) and it was around $35 and enough to fill two people with empty stomachs! The "must order two meats" doesn't make sense to me, because ordering a kbbq should get a lot of meat as it is.

The worst part about this experience, or my second experience, was the customer service. The bill came and I was paying the bill in cash. My friend leaves because she's covered most of the bill (she payed the bills) and i'm handling the change. As soon as she leaves a staff (ahjumma) rushes in, corners me so I can't exit, takes the bills and says, "YOU NEED TO TIP 10%. 10% TIP IS THE MINIMUM". I was so confused because she was speaking so fast and she just came out of no where. She's also standing extremely close to me and it was just a weird and uncomfortable experience. Until I could underdtand what she was saying I kind of just froze there. I'm quite shy in person and i'm not that assertive... People were staring at me because she was being so loud about it, yelling at me and giving me a dirty look. Lol, when I realized what she said I couldn't even explain myself. I was looking for change so I wasn't done paying the bill... I was going to tip 10%... I was scared and nervous so I found the largest change in my wallet and just gave it to her.. she gave me a dirty look when I left, or basically the entire time. I will NEVER be going back there again. Also, what happens if someone wanted to tip less than 10% because service was that bad? I had no intentions of not tipping, but if others wanted to tip less as a reflection of their service, will you stop them then? This doesn't make sense. If you had asked nicely, I wouldn't have given a one star review, but I felt extremely upset because I was accused. Why did I have to get a dirty look from you and who are you for coming so close to me that you block my exit, tell me I can't leave, and...

My experience there was truly horrible. I will not lie, the food was amazing, definitely worth the pay and quality however, one of the lady servers were very rude. She sat us down politely but as we cooked our food on the stove on our table, she came back giving us a 'you don't know what you're doing' look as she shakes her head in a 'no' gesture, took the tongs away from my hands and cooked it for us instead (rude gesture of taking the experience of cooking it ourselves away). Minutes later as my family and I were about to leave the restaurant, we asked for take away boxes and the first server said we could not take one home dish in particular, I asked her why not, I am paying for it, she later just said "no, no, cannot.". I was shocked by that answer but ended up taking the dish home anyway in a plastic bag given, as it is my food that I payed for. Later she checked me out and I did not tip her as much for my personal reasoning. As she took the receipt out of the machine after I payed, she questioned me "You did not give me tips." I lied and said, "I will leave it on the table." I later proceeded to walk out with a $2 tip from my $50 bill. As we left the restaurant, she ran out stopping us and saying "You did not pay me a 10% tip." I said "Yes, because we did not receive a pleasant service from you." She then said, "No. We are Canadians. You need to give a 10% tip. This is unfair and you did not give us a good service." I was surprised when she questioned my service, when it was her service that my family and I did not find pleasant or comforting. The fact that she stopped us to question why we did not tip her 'enough'? I thought tipping was a choice? Tipping a server is based out of giving back from a pleasant service that customers have enjoyed, and we definitely did not enjoy this, especially after being questioned from something that is a choice? She was very rude, I will never go back to this restaurant with...