Lim Ga Ne — Restaurant in Toronto

I hope my review will be seen by owner /manager of this store. I decided to write my review for the first time ever of one restaurant. I came here twice by my friends' recommendation. I will give 0 for service if I can! The first time, my friend got sick in washroom after eating just 10mins and myself was sick of MSG taste! I told my recommendation friends which we would never come back but they said "we ordered wrong items, they were famous about cooking table menu and we should give them one more chance!". Ok fine. We came back after a week and this time I brought 5 other friends. Fairly speaking, the foods were not bad in tasting but all of us felt so bad about services and MSG taste again! We drink a lot and a lot and a lof of water after that. We ordered 7 big courses, when we asked servers to refil the side dish (which is very small portion , seems like for just enough 1 person ) they refused to refil and said " first time is free, second time charged". We asked them back that we were 6 people and order many courses, why would only 1 round of side dishes, and then he brought 1 more round.

Not only for side dishes, for green lectuce which eat along with table cooking items, we got 2 big leaves, 4 small leaves for whole table which mean 1 person 1 leaf to eat ! We asked could they give us 1 more lectuce and we got an answer with Big NO " sorry no refil or got charge $5!". Seriously again???? Yes I answered No Way too! We came to many Korean restaurant and none of them said that to us !!! Wow may be they have a special way to eat .

We understand business owner may not allow them to refil but please bring enough portion for 6 people which everyone can eat at least little bit of everything with 7 big courses so we did not to ask to bother an other refil! We could not eat 1 cube of potato, 1-2 slide of kimchi, 1-2 slides of very thin and small fish cake...for one person and everyone had to look careful to each other when we ate side dishes!

Finally, the servers never said thanks and smile when we ordered food or asked refil which very lucky they accepted refils. They looked so seriously when spoke to us!

We hope if owner can read this, please change the way to serve so you can retain customers. We knew this is 24hrs and has opened for a long time established restaurants which many reviews from customers so may be they have had many customers already. May be No Care Anymore! But please consider to customer service...

What to try?

Be bold and try the dishes you can't find at other Korean restaurants. Try what I tried. Bulnak Jungol. It's octopus and beef bulgogi spicy stew.

When I first stepped into this restaurant, I was first impressed with the hours. Everyday it opens to 3 am and on the weekend, can go up to 5 am too. So for those late owls who are craving Korean food, this might be a good joint to bookmark for late night eats!

Secondly, I absolutely love the fact that every menu item has a picture corresponding to it. Everything. Up to item 70!! That's amazing! Especially when you're reading the description of the dish and you're like...I don't want to take the risk until I see some pictures or know what it looks like. That's really awesome.

Lastly, I loved my dish. I'm a huge fan of octopus and usually when I get octopus dishes at Korean restaurants, the octopus is usually chopped up or it's so overcooked in the soup, the octopus gets kind of chewy like rubber. But here, the pieces of octopus were big. They were not so cut up and each octopus piece I had was really fresh. The only thing with dish is that it tends to be on the sweeter side. Yes, it's the bulgogi flavouring that heightened the sweetness to this dish so if you're not a big fan of sweet flavors, perhaps order the other jungol or stews. Or maybe, you can tell them to hold off the sugar in the stew and add more spice!!

Last tip?

Don't forget that each dish comes with coups of side dishes so make sure you get that. And this dish comes with purple rice too (awesome!). I challenge you to try their Korean sausage, not found in a lot of restaurants or any of the other dishes that you can't find in many of the other Korean restaurants (common ones like bulgogi, gamja tang, bibimbap, etc) go for an adventure with your taste buds! Especially this restaurant has pictures for you to see and prepare...

Food quality here has taken a NOSEDIVE! When I first ordered here on December 22nd of 2022, I was astounded by the presentation and taste of my order. The Jayeuk bokkeum had a rich flavoring that seeped into the pork and vegetables, and the sauce was equally savory---despite being a generous excess that wasn't necessary to save the dish. Furthermore, the pork was tender and easy to chew. I didn't have to struggle grinding it down on top of the stringier vegetables.

In 2023, though? I order-out because I want to taste the work of trained professionals, but what I was served yesterday represented everything aside from what I desired.

For the same dish I ordered last year, the vegetables were tough, which was a major inconvenience for how bulkily they were cut. The green pepper barely seemed like it was provided enough time to soften in the pan, least of all develop its seasoning's flavours.

In fact, the whole dish was tasteless---except for the sauce. Which was a telltale sign of this place's decline---it has lost an intimate understanding of food which allows for its cuisine to stand on its own. Not only did the sauce's quantity lessen, but the degree to which it compensated for---not complimented---the dish was aggravated tenfold.

The pork was overcooked and difficult to chew. Unsurprisingly, this led to a stark regression in flavour---while finishing my dish, I thought I was tasting chunks from a Tim Horton's wrap.

I never cared for the miniature cartons of side appetizers, so I can't comment on that. I wasn't left with much of an appetite after finishing my main course anyway, considering how poorly it'd been prepared.

In all, this is a sad tale of a Toronto staple that used to outshine its competitors and has now become a run-off-the-mill eatery. No distinctive techniques, and a quality of cooking that's memorable in the worst type...