Song Cook's Korean Restaurant

Date: December 8, 2013
Location: 72 Steeles Ave W #6, Thornhill
Website: http://www.songcooks.com/
Cuisine: Korean
Meal: dinner

My thoughts:
I came here with my family to celebrate my mom's birthday, and knowing my mom weighs a restaurant's ambiance (more specifically the noise level) with the food pretty equally, I suggested this place. I was here a few weeks ago with MT, and liked it enough to come back.

Tonight, however, was a different experience. It started off with the seating. We were a party of five, and although about a third of the restaurant was vacant, we had to wait about 20 minutes and we had reservations. 

We were eventually seated off to the side in an area separate from the main room, and we should have known that that was a bad idea. We were pretty much left unattended for most of the evening. Anytime we needed something, we had to get out of our seat and flag a waiter in the main dining area over to our table.

Another reason why my experience today was not as enjoyable as last time was the food wasn't as good. Because there were more of us today, we were able to order more, and outside of what I had ordered last time, most of the things were not very good quality. Take, for example, the kalbi ribs, which is a specialty in Korean cuisine. The ones here though, both the BBQ and the braised ones, were by far the toughest and least flavourful kalbi ribs I have ever had. Up until today, I'd never tasted kalbi ribs that were not good - and I've had quite a lot of kalbi ribs over the years. This led me to believe that they simply did not exist! Song Cook proved me wrong.

We had a small order of the Kalbi Jim ($12.99), which according to the menu is "delicately marinated fall-off-the-bone steamed beef ribs with carrots and radish." Carrots and radish were there, but delicately marinated and fall-off-the-bone? Don't think so.

We also had LA kalbi ($11.99), which the menu described as "laterally cut short ribs marinated in sweet garlic sauce and grilled to perfection." This was better than the steamed kalbi, but I cannot vouch for what the menu claims to be "grilled to perfection." The meat was cut very thin and dry.

We ordered Combo H6 ($15), which included a half order of Ja Jang Myun and a half order of Khan Poung Gi. Ja Jang Myun is a chewy noodle dish with a thick black bean sauce. If you've never tried it, go. Now. Try it. Khan Poung Gi is sweet and spicy chicken, which like last time, was tasty.

We also ordered a whole order of the Ja Jang Myun ($7.50). This was a good size for the price, and everyone enjoyed it. This was the highlight of today's meal.

My family was not impressed with this place, and I was annoyed because we were here to celebrate a special occasion. I won't be back.