Krazy for Koreans Part 4

Dumpling Restaurant 

4385 Sheppard Ave E
Scarborough, ON M1S 1T9

(416) 293-8321

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I've been craving for the Gamjatang (Pork Bone Soup) in this restaurant for at least a month. Everyday when I'm on my way home from school, I always see this place. Everytime I pass the Dumpling restaurant, I'm always tempted to get off the bus and grab myself a nice meal. From my previous blogs, you may have noticed that I've mentioned "the best Gamjatang is at Brimley and Sheppard." Well, because I love you guys and I want to share with you everything I like, I went there on purpose so I could write up this blog. :) 

Fresh pressed Korean cold noodles. My friend had this and she loved it! It contains a lot of bold flavours including a chilled apple vinaigrette as the soup base with a lot of cucumbers, apple strips, a little bit of Oshinko, the yellow pickled Japanese radish found in sushis (if I remember correctly). At the bottom, covered by all the veggies, there's also sliced and marinated beef shin. Overall, this is a very refreshing dish for summer. It's kinda like the equivalent of a cold shower with a mint body wash for me on a hot day. :P 

*Drum roll please.......

Behold, the best Gamjatang (I've tasted) ever. No one has yet been able to beat this flavour, and ironically, the restaurant serves half Chinese and half Korean dishes. However, I know that the chef that cooks these is Korean. Just look at the size of this! The ingredients is literally exploding out of the stone pot! It's so satisfying every time I eat this; it just gives me this warm and fuzzy feeling inside. :P It gives you that punch of flavour with every bite and it doesn't fade. However, I DID notice that the ratios of different ingredients have changed since the last time I was here. They stopped using the Korean soy bean sprouts, and overall, there is less sprouts. More Chinese cabbage which is GREAT since it soaks up all the flavours like a sponge (way better than potatoes I find). The amount of fat on the pork bone is outrageous. My friend literally took out chunks after chunks of fat; thank goodness mine wasn't like that. :P The soup is also a bit spicier than I've remember but I'm totally fine with it since I think it's part of the experience that you need to drink LOTS of water afterwards. I mean, if it's not spicy, why eat spicy food right? However, if you can only take mild to moderate levels of spiciness, this may be too much for you. 

Overall Review: 

Food: 10/10

Not only these two dishes are spectacular, but other dishes are definitely up to par as well. If you're there, be sure to try their assorted veggies and meat dumplings. Zucchinis and meat or tomatoes and meat may sound like a weird match, but it is two of my favourites. The dumplings you have in other restaurants are all dry and hard even when it's hot. But at the Dumpling Restaurant (as if not obvious enough :P), they made it like Shanghai Dumplings (ones with juice inside). Definitely up to par with the Shanghai Dumplings in Asia Legend. Their beef and green onion wrap is also very good. Be sure to bring a big party and try all of them! :D

Ambience: 0/10

That is not a typo by the way lol. I must warn you, this place isn't the cleanest restaurant around. Not like the rats running around kinda dirty and not the diarrhea type of dirty, but consider yourself warned. One of my friend actually said he gets a stomachache every time he eats there; but I go there often and nothing ever happened to me or my friends or family. It's your call how far you're willing to go for food. :P 

Service: 7/10

We were seated immediately and we got our food really fast. The servers just don't seem very friendly; and I think they can only speak Mandarin and a little bit of Cantonese and a little bit of English. You could tell they were waiting to be off of work. Also, they did not let us split our bills.

Price: 9/10

If I remember correctly, for three people the bill was ~$22 tax included. The Gamjatang was $6.50. However, I feel like we could've gotten a bit more appetizers. In Tofu Village, we got 5, but here, we got 2 and I believe they're not refillable. 

Final Verdict: 8.5/10

For me, food always weighs more since that's what you're ultimately at a restaurant for. If not, the score would've been wayyy lower.