Bonga & Garosu Gil – A few Korean spots Pt.1

Address: Bonga – 111-2nd AVE SE ; Garosu Gil – 704 7 Ave SW, Calgary, AB T2P 0Z1

I have visited these two places for more than 3 times each so I can guarantee they are both decent spots if you crave/want to try Korea food. In my dictionary, “decent” means they have a good variety of authentic Korean dishes, nice flavours and pretty good value for money (Garosu Gil is more expensive than Bonga, though).

On Bonga:

My friends and I came across this place one sultry afternoon when their deal sign caught our eyes: “$9 for jjajangmyun”. That’s a good deal, we both thought. We went in anyway even though it was way past lunch already. Climbing the old stairs in a poorly lit ground floor, a part of me wanted to turn back and looked for another place. I am glad I didn’t, because I would have miss out on really good food. I have tried a few Korean places in Calgary (limited to the Northwest because I don’t drive), like Insadong and Korean Village. Undoubtedly they were nice restaurants. Maybe it was the price, the distance, or just my mood but I never felt the strong need to visit again.

Another thing with Korean restaurants is that you can’t really eat on your own and feel happy (unless you go for Korean chicken or snack -> check out Sso Yummy for Korean snacks). If you go by yourself, you can only try at most 2 huge dishes, which can be a hit-or-miss. You really need to bring a few more friends to share 4-5 dishes to really enjoy the whole Korean dining experience. For Bonga in particular, I came with 2 other friends and we usually ordered 4 dishes in total, which were great for the cost (~$17/person) and each found her favorites. Mine was definitely the Gamjatang, or potato bone soup.

[insert photo here]

Potato bone soup.

Sure it doesn’t sound very delicious.

But it is, don’t you dare judge a food by its name! From various sources, I remembered someone told me potato bone soup was made from simmered left over bone soup, with a lot of soft potatoes to fill people up back in the days. Now, the soup is like 80% meat and 20% potatoes, but it’s still called “potatoes bone soup”. Not that more meat makes the soup less tasty – it’s the opposite. The Gamjatang from Bonga came out bubbling in an earthen bowl. First it hit me first the savoury aroma, and then the visual did – there was literally a huge piece of pork bone in the bowl. After carefully taking the meat of the bone, adding some rice, a piece of potato and spooning a little bit of the soup, I can then savour the mouthful all in one bite. I don’t even know where to start. Everything blended so well together. I didn’t even need to chew much and the flavour just came out. Before my mouth finished chewing, my hand involuntarily reached out again for another spoonful of soup. I think I’m feeling hungry again now lol…

Anyway, that was the highlight. The rest of the dishes, like kimbab, fried chicken, tteokbokkie, spicy squid bulgogi were okay, not excellent. Some were on the bland while some were way too salty and oil for my taste.

On Garosu Gil:

Similar story here, I was more impressed with only one dish and the rest were pretty average. They have great tteokbokki here. Tteokbokki is a dish with chewy white rice cake (not cake, more like big fat rice noodle in chunk) simmered in a tangy, sweet and spicy pepper sauce. There are also other things in the dish, like slices of cabbage, fish cakes and garnished with a boiled egg (I heard boiled egg is supposed to sooth your stomach from the spices somehow). It seems so easy to make this dish once you have all the ingredients, but in reality, it’s so difficult to get the blazingly red sauce to have the right taste, consistency and cook the rice “cakes” just right that they keep their bounciness. That was why I was impressed with the tteokbokki at Garosu Gil, it was done just right.

Another dish that I would have again at this place is probably their kimchi jjigae, or kimchi soup.

ANYWAY this post is getting way longer than what I intended, so I should stop here. May I get more chances to try more *expensive* Korean dishes at other restaurants too. Or just get a friggin’ plane ticket to South Korea at this point lol.