Poong Moon — Restaurant in Toronto

If you like 중화요리 (Korean Chinese Fushion), you’d want to go to Poongmoon (풍문) for some jjambong (짬뽕). It seems to be their specialty vs the 짜장면. There’s a slight fire 🔥 flavour, which is how it’s supposed to taste, to bring the flavours out. They have a number of jjambong options that are less spicy as well (mostly nude or white in colour).

There’s more quality vs. quantity when it comes to portion sizes. The bowl of jjambong is more than enough for me but they have dishes like 탕수육 (deep fried pork with a sweet tangy sauce), 깡풍새우 (shrimp drizzled in spicy/sweet sauce; depending on the restaurant style), and most, if not all dishes is up to par.

PARKING: There is free parking but spots are limited, especially as there is a condo being built directly north of the building.

TYPES of Payment: They accept all forms of payment (credit card, cash, debit); they may not receive Amex as it is common norm for amex to not be accepted at Korean/Asian restaurants (likely high service charge).

RESERVATION: So probably best to call in advance to see if they have room since they can quite busy. As of now, they only open on weekday evenings and throughout the day on weekends, so be mindful for their hours of operation.

Especially if you’ve culinary class wars (흑백요리사) and have wanted to try these types of dishes, like 동파육 (cooked pork smothered in soy gravy like sauce, surrounded by vegetables), it’ll definitely be...

I’ve been there for dinner on May 5th. The food was good, the waitress and manager(owner perhaps) were nice and very kind to change our table to a vacant window seat very quickly.

So we reserved a table for 7 at 7:30pm again for Mother’s Day. Five of us arrived first and there was only about 30% occupancy. They prepared a table with a hard, narrow, shallow bench for us at the back. As we are all tall and big, and there were several tables available at the windows so I requested to relocate our spot. The waitress tonight(not the one I met on 5th) tried to refuse combining the tables for us even I said I don’t mind having a person sitting at one end. She ignored us and made us stood there like idiots until I asked her again. Finally we have seated at a 4 person table waiting for her to pull one more table to our side. When I came out from bathroom my brother and his gf arrived standing beside our table(my brother said they stood there almost 5 mins and the waitress ignored them).

Finally we gave up waiting and take the narrow bench seat as the waitress wished. My elderly mom and I felt back pain after sitting on the approx. 12inch deep non-ergonomic bench and needed my 6ft+ 200lbs+ bro to switch seats with us.

It was a bad experience for Mother’s Day dinner caused by a rude stubborn waitress.

Again, the food was good and worth 4+ stars but sadly the waitress...

TL;DR: Excellent Korean Chinese fusion place with delightful taste, economic price, and generous portions. The Champpong is now one of my go-to especially in cold weather.

The Cream Champpong is light and delicious. There are a generous portion of seafood and I love the chewiness of the noodles (akin to a hybrid of Chinese thick noodle and ramen). I thought the broth would be thicker like the Carbonara sauce found in other Korean dishes, but it is very similar to much lighter sauce from Creamy White Wine Mussels with quite some black pepper (warm and hearty). I also ordered a Mandarin Rolls on the side, the crust has the right amount of crispness.

We (group of 4) went in a Friday night and the place is small and quite crowded. We're lucky to be able to walk-in and get a table right away. But I would recommend reservation ahead if you're planning to go for dinner.

What truly shocked me is that this place beat my expectations despite the sketchiness. When you grow up with certain cuisines, you get sixth sense to detect red flags from restaurants. This place checks off quite some that I almost skipped this hidden gem, but I'm so glad that I haven't!

Fun fact: The restaurant name Poong Moon sounds like 旁門 (side door) in Cantonese, which makes up the idiom 旁門左道 (heterodoxy/deviation from orthodox standards). A very befitting name for a fusion...