Korean BBQ

I went to the "Lee House" on the weekend, and it's the second time I've been there in the last few months. It opened roughly about 6 months ago, and it's an expansion from the first restaurant that's located near Whyte Ave. First impression, it's in Chinatown, so obviously for anyone that's been in downtown YEG, they know it's the straight up ghetto. Not that you should let that stop you from going there, heck some of the best places look like total dives-but are actually delicious.

Now, the interior is fairly nice when you go inside, especially considering the location-you can tell it's pretty new still. It was larger than I expected, and there were plenty of tables-mainly empty ones even though it was a Saturday night, but still it's a pretty new spot so one must take that into consideration.

 

The food itself definitely seemed pricey; understand that Korean food is not cheap. Almost any good Korean BBQ places are fairly expensive, no matter where you go. If you're thinking it's going to be cheap like Pho, or Westernized Chinese restaurants, you'll be disappointed. Good quality Korean food is something you pay for, it's not extremely expensive to make-but it is extremely time-consuming in a sense, to make. Kimchi and Bulgogi or Kalbi takes days to make properly.

I ended up ordering the Stone Bowl Bibimbap, L.A Kalbi, and spicy soup. I would say for the price, the portions were a bit small, but the quality was pretty good. Not a lot of options for the BBQ meat, there were only a few choices, but it was nice because you could cook the food yourself or have it cooked in the kitchen before it was brought out to you. 

Those three dishes would've been a bit less than $60, but then we grabbed two bottles of Soju- Korean alcohol. They look like Asian beers, but don't be fooled because they're 19% and like $20 per bottle. (That we did not realize, or would've only grabbed one!) Whoops! Yeah we figured out they weren't plain beers when the server brought out shot glasses to drink the Soju with.

Otherwise, the service wasn't the greatest, we had to ask for obvious things like bowls and cutlery, as it wasn't immediately brought with dishes that required them. I'm not surprised, as many Asian restaurants are not well-known for their quality service.

Overall it's a decent Korean restaurant, not the best I've been too by any means, but then Koreans are very picky with their own food, and I'm no exception. It was nice that it was located centrally, as many of the Korean restaurants are in the south side so it's more convenient for many.