Location: Toronto, Canada
Address: 38 Wellington Street East    
Type of Meal: Dinner

Swish by Han has a deceiving name, you may think the restaurant is German or Austrian, but in reality, is a Korean tapas restaurant.  The price points are much higher than most Korean restaurants, but most of the food is prepared to a higher caliber.  I stress the word most because not everything is better and perhaps not better for restaurants that are “known” for a particular dish, but on an overall basis is better than most. 

During this visit, we started with the sweet chili and garlic prawns ($12).  The sauce is exactly as described, sweet, a bit spicy and a kick of garlic; all great flavours.  The shrimp were deep fried and then stir fried with the sauce.  Overall, the dish was good but not amazing and lacking a Korean flare to it.  In terms of value for money, the dish definitely isn’t worth what it’s asking for.




The lobster “bi bim bbap” ($18), was a dish I had on our first visit and loved, so insisted we get it again.  Sadly, it wasn’t as good as I remembered.  I believe the problem stemmed from the waitress putting it down and stirring it up right away (sorry, the picture looks like a pot of mess as I wasn’t quick enough to snap a picture before the destruction began).  I understand, this is the correct way to eat it – drizzle in the thick sweet and spicy gochujang sauce then mix until all the ingredients are disbursed.  But, this also makes the deep fried lobster mushy and doesn’t give the rice a chance to develop a crispy crust on the bottom.  I would have much preferred if they just served it, explained what the customer should do and let them decide when the moment to mix is.




Our last dish was the best of this evening, the “dak kogi” (chicken) ssäm set ($25).  The teriyaki type glazed chicken is served on a hot sizzling skillet with slivers of carrots, cucumbers and onion.  To eat, you take a piece of romaine lettuce, add the ingredients, top with any condiment you like (we were given gochujang sauce, raw onion mixed in a pickled kimchi sauce), then wrap it up and ingest! My first experience having ssäm, I really liked it and would love to go back to try the beef or pork versions.   








During a past visit, I tried the Swish Seafood ($30), which is like shabu shabu or hot pot.  A small pot of broth is brought to the table along with plate of raw shrimp, mussels, vegetables and noodles.  It’s a good option for someone who doesn’t like spicy or overly strong tastes – compared to other items on their menu.  However, for someone that loves bold flavours, I found it to be pretty bland.  Plus, because you’re only cooking a few ingredients within the broth, it didn’t develop that lovely deep essence I normally associate with broth based cooking.

Many reviews note the service here is poor, I didn’t find that to be the case.  I would say there were better servers than other – a gentleman that took our order was nice and explained everything and offered suggestions, while the lady server was a bit moody and offered one word answers (she was also the one that mixed up the bi bim bbap without asking). In the end, it wasn’t extremely friendly service but no one was overtly rude either.             

Overall mark - 7 out of 10

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____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

• Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
• 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
• 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
• 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
• 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
• 10 - absolute perfection!

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Location: Thornhill, Canada
Address: 8159 Yonge Street
Type of Meal: Dinner

Dahn, a known restaurant amongst the Korean population in Toronto, is one of the few that offers a set menu.  Akin to a tasting menu, except served family style, it's popular in Korea but hardly ever offered in Toronto. Having tried the typical casual Korean dining establishments, my friends and I agreed we had to expand our palettes. So, Dahn's set menu seemed like a great way to start.

The dinner menu costs $39.95 per person and has to be ordered by the entire table to be served. Given there are so many courses, in order to keep this review to a reasonable length, I'm going to only briefly comment on each.

To start came a bowl of red bean porridge. Is it normal to serve something so heavy to kick off a multi-course meal?  It was very thick and its gelatinous consistency makes it very filling so I only had a couple of bites to save room. It was bland and really no depth in flavour – this is no grits from Acadia.  I would have liked it to be hotter and perhaps have a sprinkling of fresh herbs on top to wake up the dish.



We were intrigued with what the "waterly kimchi" would be.  As soon as you see it, you realize the description pretty much explains everything. The presentation lacks colour and appeal since what arrives looks like pieces of turnip in dish water. Served cold, the "broth" is essentially the preserving liquid used to marinate the radishes. The soup tastes slightly sour and salty and could be refreshing in the summer. But, not a hit at our table as it gave the impression of drinking diluted pickle juice.




The daily salad looked appealing and colourful.  But, wasn’t anything spectacular given it consisted of ice burg lettuce, grape tomatoes, mandarin segments, a homemade  blueberry dressing and oddly a single maraschino cherry.  Not being a fan of fruit based salads I wasn’t a fan of the dish but one friend found the dressing good. Personally, I felt this dish didn't add much to the experience and Dahn should consider getting rid of it and making the following course larger.



The chilled bulgolgi salad was much better and one of my favourite dishes. The thinly sliced beef was well flavoured and had just the perfect amount of sweet and salty.  I loved that the marinade had micro pieces of garlic and shallots throughout.  Additionally, the crisp green beans at the bottom of the salad were unexpected and went really well with everything. I could have easily just made a meal out of this dish.



Next came a dish of cold seared tuna. The fish was cooked well with a great evenly seared ring.  But, I found it very bland as there was no notable crust and too little ponzu sauce topping the tuna.  Perhaps there was a flaw in the order of serving the dishes;  I would suggest serving this mild flavour tuna before the flavourful bulgogi dish.



The following japchae or Korean glass noodles was one of the best I’ve ever had.  I liked that they were less cooked so that the texture held up and didn’t cause the noodles to stick in a mound.  Additionally, the sauce had a great spicy undertone that added a little punch to the noodles.



Another popular dish followed - Korean pancakes. There were two flavours chives and mungbean.

• The chive pancake was a beautiful colour but lacked texture as there no actual pieces of chives in the batter. 
• Meanwhile, the mung bean version was much tastier with pieces of green onion throughout and a crispier crust.

The dish needed more of the soy dipping sauce as the pancakes themselves aren’t well flavoured.  Unfortunately, we ran out of the sauce so my second pancake ended up being relatively flavourless.



The deep fried marinated pollock was tasty but didn’t seem very Korean as was covered in a sweet chili thai sauce.  I liked its presentation in an edible bowl and deep frying the fish bone to add a decorative element.  Dahn gave a generous portion of fish so it was more than enough for the three of us.



More fried seafood followed with shrimp and pumpkin tempura.  The batter was very crispy but was too thick for my taste.  I certainly wasn’t expecting tempura at a Korean restaurant but then remembered their cuisine is influenced by the Japanese given Korea was occupied by Japan for a while.  I would have liked if they cooked the prawns another way since we had just been served deep fried pollock.



Korean barbeque followed with a platter of beef!  The assorted barbeque is a meat eater’s dream with cuts of flank steak, sirloin, short-ribs and marinated flank. The sirloin and marinated flank were definitely the highlights.  I would have like to have trade in the regular flank and short-ribs for a few pieces of kalbi instead.  I enjoyed the tradition of wrapping the beef in pieces of lettuce and topping the wrap with thinly sliced shaved onions. 



After all this food you finally get to the “main”.  Here, you get to choose from three options - chilled noodle soup, hot noodle soup or nurling (some rice dish).  We thought it was a shared plate like all the other courses so opted for the chilled noodle soup as we heard it was most popular.  But, it turns out each person gets their own dish; so, we would have rather have one of each so we could see the differences. 

At first I was weary of the chilled noodles as they arrived looking like they were in the waterly kimchi broth again.  But, it was less sour, and after a few bites really started to grow on me.  The best part was the texture of the noodles – they were very different from anything I’ve ever had and had a great al dente bite.  Next time I would like to try to hot version instead as found the cold soup a bit strange.  However, the dish was a great contrast after having all the heavy fried foods and barbeque beef.



The meal ends with a plate of fresh fruits (cantaloupe, strawberries and orange segments) and a choice of tea or coffee.  I opted for the traditional Korean cold tea which is prepared by brewing tea leaves with fruits, roots and other grains.  The result is a strongly flavoured beverage that doesn’t really resemble tea anymore.  Ours tasted like it was infused with mandarin orange peels and too sweet for my liking.  But, it could be that by then I was absolutely stuffed and just couldn’t handle a bite or sip of anything else!





 
I liked the restaurant itself – larger and cleaner feeling that most of the uptown Korean establishments.  Plus, they have private rooms that you can close the door at if you want some alone time with your companions.  The staff is friendly and there are so many food choices available. Their menu consists of many “favourites” (done better than most) and some more traditional offerings that I haven’t seen elsewhere.  Ultimately, I would definitely return to Dahn, albeit next time I’d just order off their a la carte menu. 



Overall mark - 7 out of 10



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____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

• Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
• 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
• 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
• 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
• 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
• 10 - absolute perfection!

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Location: Toronto, Canada
Address: 19A Finch Avenue West
Type of Meal: Dinner

After visiting Urraca Resto Lounge’s professional looking website, it was a bit of a shock to enter the restaurant itself.  Painted and furnished in all black, the place reminded me more of a small university club than a lounge.  Even their menus were in dismal condition – photocopied, caked with spilt drinks and numerous menu items crossed out. 

• Seafood rice cake ($12): Korean rice cake sticks mixed with a sweet and spicy gochujang sauce, cheese and seafood (mussels, shrimp and fish cake).  The seafood itself appears to be frozen so overall unimpressive and really could be substituted with any protein.  But, the rice cake sticks were chewy and had a great flavour, just a hint of spice but not over powering so really anyone could enjoy.

• Kobe beef sliders ($12): although I couldn’t decipher the Korean part of the dish, the sliders were juicy and packed with flavours.  Cheese, a salsa with jalepenos and a spicy mayo sauce covered the thick tender meat patties providing a mouthful of tastes with each bite.    

Overall mark - 5 out of 10


____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

• Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
• 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
• 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
• 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
• 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
• 10 - absolute perfection!

Read More