MaMa Chef Korean Restaurant — Restaurant in Toronto

When it comes to a restaurant like this, I always like to run through some repeats before leaving a review. With a couple of years of MaMa's food, I figure we've got a pretty good picture of what to expect. For those reading this review now, you're probably going to be looking to order in, and since that's the bulk of our time these past two years, I'd say that's a pretty good place to start.

MaMa's menu is a pretty traditional look at a do-it-all Seoul spot, with a few gems sprinkled in between. What you'll find with Korean cooking is that many of the dishes hinge upon a solid foundation. For rice dishes, it's about the quality of meat and veggies. For soup, it's all about the broth and meat quantity. All of MaMa's dishes are plentiful, even as I write in the age of shrinkflation. If you order a meat dish, you're getting meat. If you order something with veggies, you're getting a full tray.

But where they really shine are in the jjigaes/stews, as their base broth is some of the best on the strip. The broth is both meaty and flavorful, while forgoing the heavy dread of being salted to death. While there are some broths that require a lighter touch, the stews need the punch and added depth that I've come to know from MaMa's. If you're really trying to intro to Korean soups and stews, I highly recommend their pork bone soup (mild to wild), as they make my favorite in the city; not just for the best of breed broth, but because they give a healthy serving of pork, which is a rarity in the best of times.

I have yet to experience a bad dish at MaMa's, and I've pretty well gone across the board. I'm also pretty sensitive to additives and other garbage, but have never walked away from a meal here feeling anything but great....okay....overly full, but that's a different kind of problem. Fresh produce, honest portions, and fair authenticity make this my go-to place when I need a taste of Korea. I'd wager a solid 4.5 stars, as comfort doesn't come...

I hate to say this because our server was very nice, but the food here is very lacklustre. Perhaps the fried chicken or other dishes would be good, but we ordered jjamppong and yukgaejang and they were disappointing and inauthentic.

The jjamppong had mostly frozen seafood (the mussels didn’t even open actually) and soup did not taste like jjamppong, it was more like a salty spicy Chinese stew. It also did not have the typical torched flavour that makes jjamppong taste the way it tastes. Furthermore, it seemed like they used pasta noodles which were way overcooked and tasted weird to us.

The yukgaejang was actually decent and had good flavours with a beaten egg, but it was missing the traditional bean sprouts and the beef didn’t taste like brisket. It was ok, but left me a bit disappointed as I was expecting something authentic being in the heart of ktown and the name being “mama chef”. We also ordered the dumplings and they were alright, boiled with a thick skin. Again, not very authentic, but I rather enjoyed them.

Finally, despite the shortcomings of the food, our server was attentive and was helpful. She did not speak Korean which was a bit surprisingly, but that was not a problem. She ultimately asked us what was wrong with the food since we didn’t finish the jjamppong and we just mentioned it wasn’t to our taste.

All in all, I would not recommend coming here with so many authentic options in ktown. You would be much better served eating at Damda or Jin Dal Lee if there isn’t a line. There is a good reason why you don’t see many Koreans eating here, but you see them all around those other aforementioned locations. We took a chance and were disappointed by the flavours, but perhaps you would have a different experience as everyone has a different preference.

All I can say is that this place is inauthentic and if you’ve been to Korea or are Korean, you would not...

안녕하세요, I think it must be my first time really giving a first star to a restaurant and mostly a korean restaurant. I have been to Korea, I’ve tried many korean restaurants around Canada due to my work and decided to try Mama Chef because one of my favorite 짜장면 restaurant was unfortunately closed.

First of all, nothing against the waiter but sadly we had to wait a long time to get our food to take out. She said 20 minutes but it ended more to be 30-40 minutes. I would understand if the restaurant was busy but we were the only one waiting for our delivery. Note that the waiter, she was polite and very nice and I have nothing against her customer service.

The food. Such a huge disappointment. I would’ve like to have stars for the food and stars for the customer service separately so I can give 0 for the food and at least good rating for her Customer Service.

The 짜장면 소스 was very sour and the deep flavour needed to make this sauce amazing was missing. Basically if you know Chapagetti, even the powder from the Chapagetti would’ve been better.

For the 탕수육, there were basically almost NO meat inside. As a comparison, it is like eating dumplings without filling or cheese sticks without cheese inside ... It just doesn’t make sense to give customers a dish like that. I was literally eating the batter and wondering “where is the meat” 🤭 which you can see by the photos.

I don’t think I will go back or...