Ap Gu Jung
1642 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC
At work, I seldom go to lunch with my work colleagues. One of the main reasons is my wacky eating time, i.e., I usually go for lunch a couple of minutes before noon, whereas my colleagues usually go afterwards. However, if agreed in advance, I can hold off until then. In this case, I checked with a work colleague (whom works in a different department) to go for lunch. The reason? Well, I have known him for a long time and, since I started working there, I thought it would be a good idea to break bread with some good old pals. Unfortunately, we needed to go to a close-by place, as we both had meetings around 1:00 p.m. (some times, it makes me wonder why people set up meetings starting at 11:00 a.m. or 1:00 p.m….) And Ap Gu Jung seemed to be a good idea.
This is one of the few instances I did not take a picture of outside of the restaurants… Sorry!
Rather than ordering individually, we chose items to share. And, since my friend was feeling a bit under the weather, I let him do the ordering. Once that done, usual crazy discussion started.
In the case you were wondering, the cylindrical “thing” is for you to clean your hands.
Not long after, the food started to arrive. First, the side dishes, or banchan. These are usually served along with the main in Korean restaurants and here we have (from top left, clockwise: seasoned potatoes, seaweed, kimchi and bean sprouts). My friend can’t tolerate spicy food so the kimchi was left to me. As for the others, we had to ask for more seaweed!
The first dish was japchae, which is made with cellophane noodles and some thinly sliced vegetables (carrot, onions, peppers, et al). I won’t say I like it but I won’t say I dislike it either. It had a good consistency, just that it did not pack a punch.
The other dish ordered was haemul jeon, a seafood pancake-like dish. I have had this dish on its own previously and it is a hit or miss dish. While not as greasy as the one I had previously, it was a bit too soggy to my liking. Also, unless I grabbed the “bad” slices, it did not have that many pieces of seafood.
Overall, it was an OK lunch. As usual, meal companion(s), improved it; however, even then, the food was a bit too bland based on my previous experiences with Korean food. Given there are so many Korean restaurants in this area of Robson Street, I have no particular reason why I should come back.
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