The contents of this blog are matters of opinion formed over one more visits. There has been some artistry applied and metaphors and similes should not necessarily be taken literally.
We ate at the Haymarket branch of 678 Korean BBQ on a Thursday night after my partner was jealous of me eating Korean BBQ with my colleagues from work the night before.
We thought that it was quite expensive for what you get. The side dishes are quite limited and were never refilled. I have heard that the more money you spend the greater the variety of side dishes but we spent $80 for 2 people and got barely anything.
To add insult to injury, by the time we had arrived they had already run out of many of the beef items.
CLOSING OPINION
Overall quite disappointing and I wouldn’t come back of my own accord.
I’ve been trying to go to Danjee since July 2020, when one of my Korean colleagues mentioned it as one of the best Korean places east of Strathfield. It took me until December 2020 to get there, at which point Danjee was still serving its very limited COVID-19 menu.
Danjee’s website would not let us make a booking for lunch as it only allows bookings at least four hours in advance, however when we called they told us that we could just walk in. When we arrived we found only one other group at Danjee during our Saturday lunch sitting – probably a bad performance indicator for the business, and probably due to the confusing text on the website.
Access to Danjee is through a little suspicious-looking alleyway off George St. The dining hall we were led to features normal wooden tables with no evidence of BBQ facilities, though this is meant to be a BBQ restaurant. I later discovered that there are two whole other sections of the restaurant – one indoor and one outdoor – that feature BBQ facilities – that had been closed due to the pandemic.
Side dishes
These were our side dishes. They were all pretty good, but they weren’t refilled at all throughout our meal.
Hot stone bibimbap with beef ($20)
The hot stone bibimbap with beef ($20) was good and fresh, but didn’t really come with much beef. The beef it did come with was in t he form of mince, and easily lost when the dish was all mixed up together.
Mul Bi-Naeng Myeon (buckwheat noodles with spicy sauce in chilled soup)
The Mul Bi-Naeng Myeon (buckwheat noodles with spicy sauce in chilled soup – $18) was alright. This was my partner’s first experience with Korean cold noodles, and she was initially taken aback by the floating pieces of ice, although she eventually grew to like it as the ice mielted I really wished that they would’ve provided some scissors for the noodles – without them this dish was quite difficult to eat. As we were settling our bill our waiter asked for our opinion on this dish. He said that he himself wasn’t a big fan, as he didn’t think that the soup tasted like traditional naengmyeon, and asked us to compare the flavour with that of other restaurants. Not being a huge naengmyeon connoisseur myself I gave some awfully unhelpful but honest advice – I told him that I thought the flavour was fine, but I would’ve loved a bit more meat. He looked taken aback. Evidently two slices of meat is the gold standard.
L: LA Karubi (Marinated beef short ribs cross cut style), R: Pork Belly
Danjee’s Korean BBQ offerings are unfortunately all cooked in the main kitchen before being brought out to the dining tables. There is currently no option for at-table cooking for lunch, and in fact we had to pay a premium for chef cooked meat. We had the LA Karubi ($21) and the Pork Belly ($220. Both were fine, though I thought the portions were quite small for the price paid. There was no leaf – lettuce, sesame, or otherwise – that was offered and it really felt like quite a barebones and negative BBQ experience.
VERDICT Danjee bills itself as “Korean Fine Dining”, though I find it hard to appreciate any “fine” elements to it. What I found at Danjee was quite middling food, poor service, and a disappointing stinginess on meaty goods. I would hesitate to come back to Danjee as is.
3/5
Danjee 1-7 Albion Pl, Sydney NSW 2000 (02) 8084 9041
PROLOGUE Picture this. It’s my 26th birthday, just about to cap off two years of living and working in Western Sydney. One of the shining highlights of the Deep West has been Kumiho, a small and casual Korean-Japanese restaurant that I had only eaten at once but at which I had savoured each bite. It might not be my girlfriend’s favourite Japanese restaurant in the area (that prize would go to Touka), but it is mien. I ask my girlfriend if we can go. She says no. We order some pizza instead.
It was twelve months later, after a year in the Eastern Suburbs tasting everything that the Inner West and CBD had to offer, that we found ourselves back in Parramatta, looking at apartments and planning our move back to the West. My partner, after some incessant nagging, finally agreed to let me go back to Kumiho and let me tell you – even after all of the Japanese food I’ve had this year, Kumiho is still among the best I’ve ever had.
GENERAL COMMENTS Kumiho is a mixed Korean and Japanese restaurant, providing authentic East Asian cuisine in a relaxed bar and restaurant setting. While it is part of the same group of restaurants as Sushi Hotaru, Wagaya, and Lantern, each venue offers a distinct dining experience – Kumiho being my favourite. Ordering is via tablet located at each table, a signature trait of these restaurants and helpful for those times when you just don’t want to interact with anyone. Service is fast, though it seems that the restaurant only has two jugs of water to share between all of its patrons, and as such you may be waiting for a long time for your water to be refilled. (No doubt at least in part to encourage you to buy drinks).
DISH BY DISH DIVE
The Tuna Tataki ($15) is brilliant. The outside edges are perfectly seared, with the inside retaining its sashimi quality. The tuna is fresh, high quality maguro, and the sauces complimented the flavour of the fish without overpowering it. Much better than the mess of failures in the seared tuna at COOH in Alexandria – a meal I’m still salty about.
The Unagi (Eel) Tempura ($9.20) was freshly fried, light and crispy. Each bite was filled with delicious umami flavours, and though it was smothered mayonnaise and tempura sauce I didn’t find it to be too overflavoured.
The Wagyu Bulgogi Hot Pot ($17) was quite good, and well priced for the size. My one complaint is that while I’m sure it was wagyu as advertised, I don’t think the fact that it was wagyu really added anything to the dish – the meat was not marbled at all.
The white fish with Korean miso handroll ($3.20) was a handroll of mystery fish and sesame leaf. The size was good for the price, but I don’t think either of us really enjoyed the unnamed white fish. Despite this, the rice and seaweed were of good quality. It’s a shame, though, and I think I’d still like to try some of their other handrolls.
The salmon belly nigiri ($2.50 per piece) was only slightly more expensive than the vanilla salmon nigiri, and well worth the upgrade. The salmon belly, complete with invisible flavour cuts, had a great texture and rich flavour. The kingfish belly nigiri ($3 per piece) was good, but unfortunately overshadowed by the salmon belly which provided a more special mouthfeel at a cheaper price (though it’s always good to have variety).
The Chicken Paitan Cloudy Ramen ($16.80) is an unfortunately weak temporary addition to Kumiho’s menu. Offered as part of a trial promotion, the ramen didn’t have much flavour other than salt and pepper. The pieces of chicken, whilst immersed in fluid, were paradoxically dry, and I hope this doesn’t become a permanent fixture on Kumiho’s otherwise good menu.
The Seafood Bowl with Miso Soup ($17) is an excellent chirashi don style deal with an assortment of sashimi (salmon, kingfish, and tuna) atop a bed of sushi rice and topped with some soy and chopped shallots. The pieces of fish were very generous in size and the ratio of fish to rice was on point. The miso soup was a warming and wholesome bonus to an already great bowl. A strong recommendation from me.
Both the Wagyu Skewer ($6) and Pork Belly Skewers ($4) were quite good and much better priced than most other restaurants. The beef was thick cut, not tiny peasant pieces at exorbitant rates as seen at places like Fugetsu and, oddly enough, Kumiho’s sister restaurant Lantern. The pork was thick and juicy, and the supplied white miso dipping sauce added a nice touch of umami. Both were good buys, though the pork was a bit better.
I quite liked the vegetable tempura ($11). Unlike most tempura dishes I’ve had in recent times, Kumiho’s tempura doesn’t take the easy way out by frying a bunch of root vegetables. Instead, Kumiho’s vegetable tempura features 2 pieces each of red capsicum, green capsicum, shittake mushroom, and carrot – a refreshing change, and a great selection of less-starchy vegetables.
The truffle kingfish sashimi ($15) is an experimental dish similar in vein to the tuna tartare, with diced sashimi kingfish, diced avocado, fried garnish, crispy seaweed, and truffled sauce in a large bowl. Whilst my partner liked the truffle flavours and thought that this was the rare dish in which truffle wasn’t just for added for show, I didn’t really like this as much as I did the tuna tartare reviewed above. It just felt a bit plain.
The aburi salmon nigiri (5 pieces for $11) features large, slightly thicker pieces of salmon with minimal sauce. They were great, especially considering that many restaurants make the mistake of drowning their aburi salmon in mayonnaise and tare.
The Korean pork bossam ($15) is a well priced and portioned plate, featuring pieces of fatty and lean pork, kimchi, cabbage, and shiso leaf for wrapping. The salad elements were fresh, and the meat generally well cooked, with the exception of some of the smaller morsels of pork which were a bit dry and overcooked. It is, however, overall a passing dish.
EPILOGUE Kumiho provides great tasting Japanese and Korean food at a great price, with quality comparable to or exceeding its competitors in the Parramatta region. Keep your eyes peeled on this page as it gets updated throughout the year. I’m going to be living 3 kilometres away for the next twelve months. I’ll be sure to go back again and again.
After finishing lunch at Danjee at 1PM my friends wanted to go to Bornga that same evening at 8:30PM. I think this was probably my own fault, as I essentially incepted them by telling them I was having Korean that day.
While Danjee bills itself as Korean fine dining, I think Bornga is more suited to hold that title. Bornga’s interior, with its booths, decorations, and BBQ facilities is actually quite nice. We partook in a mixed meal of Korean BBQ and other non-BBQ dishes.
The side dishes were pretty adequate. They were not refilled on their own, rather we had to ask for them to be refilled.
Jap Chae
The Japchae (stir fried glass noodles and vegetables – $23) was delicious. It was a nice and warm dish with lots of umami and sesame flavours. I liked how easy to eat and minimally chewy the glass noodles were. I’d get this again.
Bornga’s Bibim Naengmyeon (spicy buckwheat noodles – $17) was the second serving of Korean cold noodles that I had of the day. Compared with Danjee’s this one had far less soup, though I think there was a separate item on the menu with soup to drink. The noodles were much easier to eat, helped by the fact that we were given scissors to cut them up. Eating this dish helped me to realise that I shouldn’t have been so critical of Danjee’s naengmyeon’s minimal serving of meat – two slices is probably the standard. Not bad.
The Yesan tteokgalbi (grilled short rib patties – $23) was a sliced up patty made of marinated beef short rib meat and rice cakes, served with some creamy mayonnaise-like dipping sauce. It was quite good, fatty and moist and juicy, with a sweet flavour to it. It was reminiscent of a fatty and highly minced hamburger patty. Apparently it is rare to find this dish in Sydney, so if you’re at Bornga and there’s room in your tummy it’s worth a try.
The seafood and green onion pancake (haemul pajeon – $25) was the eggiest seafood pancake we’ve ever had. As you can see from the photo almost the entire exterior surface was covered in egg. My colleagues complained that there was not enough seafood within the pancake, however each slice I had did come with some seafood packed inside – not to mention the extra seafood my partner snuck into my bowl (she loves seafood pancake – hates seafood). I would agree, however, that this does not even reach my top five seafood pancakes that I’ve had in Sydney, and would recommend you not get this unless you have a distinct craving for it.
Salad leaves
These are salad leaves. I’ve presented a photo of them here to help differentiate against Danjee, who didn’t give us any salad leaves.
Our ex-surgical colleague cut and cooked our Korean BBQ with incredible deftness. We had the wagyu kkot sal (wagyu short rib – $42), Mansinchang Samgyeopsal (marinated pork belly – $24), Woosamgyeop (beef loin – $23) and Samgyeopsal (pork belly -$22). All the meat was of high quality, though a bit expensive. We were keen to order some vegetables to cook on the BBQ as well, but their vegetables were out of stock. The only vegetables we were able to BBQ were two piece of onion, two of pumpkin, and one mushroom with the Bornga logo stamped onto it.
Bornga Wagyu Bulgogi
The Bornga Wagyu Bulgogi ($43 – Korean bulgogi hot pot with beef and vegetables) was quite a large servingf and delicious. It was really packed with a lot of greenery, mushrooms, and noodles. One of my colleagues had a lot of this dish.
.VERDICT $265 at Bornga bought more than enough to feed 4 large Asian boys who often get confused for one another and 2 normal sized women, including a bottle of makgoli to share. Bornga’s food is of high quality, reasonably priced and delicious. I can definitely recommend Bornga as the best Korean I’ve had in the Sydney CBD to date. Make sure to book ahead.
La Vigne, with a name you probably shouldn’t say in front of your mother, is one of Eastwood’s many places to get a bingsu on a hot Summer’s day. The surprisingly large cafe features two internal dining areas separated by a sun-drenched courtyard (very warm).
I enjoyed the mango bingsu with flavoured ice, mango, mango sauce and cake blocks. My partner, the driving force behind our recent bingsu binges, was less pleased with the artificial taste of the mango sauce, though this didn’t stop us from finishing the whole thing.
The citron pastry was not very good.
The chocolate cream puff was quite good, though I didn’t expect it to have chocolate filling.
During a subsequenttrip to La Vigne with colleagues KSEL, ACHT, KS, MJC we had the mixed fruit and red bean bingsu ($25). I think it was better than just plain mango, and despite it having red bean my partner might have liked it more.
Overall I can recommend a quick visit to La Vigne to a friend or colleague.
