Review: Joons Korean Restaurant (North York)

Joons Korean Restaurant. Click to enlarge.

I was first recommended to Joons by a friend when I asked her where she thought I could get the best ddukbokki (spicy rice cakes, the dish I reviewed in the Toko review). Ever since then, my friends and I visit the restaurant often whenever we are in the area.

One of the unique things about Joons compared to other Korean restaurants is the table-top cooking (and no, this does not include Korean BBQs). It's pretty fun to watch your server cook the dish right in front of you. Plus, it takes out all of the suspense and (possible) anxiety when it comes to waiting for your food. Of course, the table-top cooking only comes with a couple of their offerings.

Click to enlarge.

So, we entered the restaurant and were promptly seated near the window, which was good since it was a sunny day. After about 5 minutes of looking at the menu, we had all made our decisions and ordered. The server then brought out cups and cold water for us to drink. Although I like having water with my meal, I would've preferred having some hot tea instead. I'm not too sure if you could request this from the servers; maybe I'll try next time.

The menu itself offers a good amount of variety and is easy to follow. The table-top cooking dishes are actually the first dishes to pop up as, presumably, it is their specialty. They even have nice pictures to go along with the dishes, which is a nice touch especially if you are new to Korean cuisine.

The interior of Joons. Click to enlarge.

The interior of the restaurant is very plain, but could probably use some changes in order to breathe some new life into this place and bring it into the 21st century. They tend to play some classical and oldies music in the background which is okay, though it would be kind of cool if they actually played Korean pop (sorry, I had to add that in since I'm a fan of KPop). I'm sure people won't mind if KPop was playing in the background; it sounds similar enough to North American Pop.

Two of my friends ordered dak galbi which is basically chicken, stir fried in gochujang with a bunch of veggies (more information here). This is actually the first thing on their menu. I believe you need to have a minimum of two "orders" of this (~$8 per order) in order to actually select it; an order can correspond to one person, or if you're really hungry, you can put in two orders for yourself. It is highly recommended to put in add-ons when ordering this. Joons' preparation does not automatically come with dduk (rick cake). Some other suggested add-ons are mozzarella cheese and ramyun noodles (if you're feeling really indulgent). You also get to choose what kind of sauce you'd like for them to put into your dish, which I believe is either: "Mild", "Original" or "Suicide". A word of caution when selecting "Suicide" sauce; according to my friends, it is VERY hot and could render the dish uneatable, unless you are able to withstand really spicy food.

My friends ordered this with 3 add-ons of dduk and 1 order of mozzarella cheese (bringing it to ~$15 per order, ~$30 total). Another recommendation of mine when you order this: make sure to only have 2 orders in each pan. One time we ordered 3 and decided to put it in one pan and it ended up not really filling any of us up. You get more full if you only put in 2 in a pan. I'm not too sure why, but just remember this rule! About 2 minutes after we got our water, the table-top stove already arrived and the dak galbi was already being prepared!

Table-top cooking of dak galbi. Click to enlarge.

After about 5-7 minutes after the dak galbi started cooking, the side dishes (pickled radish, sweet potato, broccoli and kimchi) and the remaining orders came in (since the rest of us decided to try something new than our usual order of dak galbi).

Side dishes. Click to enlarge.

The side dishes were quite flavourful. The radish had a really nice crunch and tang to it and the sweet potato had a nice, fluffy texture. The kimchi was nice and not too sour, definitely a lot better than other restaurants that most likely get their kimchi from jars that one can easily buy from an Asian supermarket. The only disappointment to the side dishes was the lack of bean sprouts! They're always a favourite of mine whenever I go to a Korean restaurant and I was sad to see it MIA in this case.

My friend's dolsot bibimbap (~$7). Click to enlarge.

My other two friends ordered dolsot bibimbap, a very popular Korean dish (details here), which was about $7. Trust me, whenever you have the opportunity to get dolsot (stone pot), take it! It's much better than the regular version. According to my friends, the dolsot bibimbop was good. However, one of my friends thought there was too much gochujang. She could handle the spiciness, but she felt that the spiciness was just overpowering the overall flavour of the bibimbap. Although Joons version of dolsot bibimbap is definitely a bit bigger than other places, I did find it quite surprising that they didn't give us a squeeze bottle of gochujang as what other restaurants do. They actually just put their own amount of gochujang in the dish, leaving the customer at the mercy of whatever was given to them. This is actually a bit of a disappointment since it would be nice if the customer could actually control how spicy they want the dish to be according to their taste buds.

My gamjatang ($5.65) with rice. Click to enlarge.

I ordered the gamjatang (pork bone soup, more details here) which was $5.65. When the server came in with my order, she warned me that it was really hot. This was courteous of her since some servers in other restaurants don't really warn you at all if they serve you some piping hot food. Anyway, in terms of soups, I usually order galbitang (beef short rib soup) since it's much easier to get the meat off of the bones, but I was feeling a bit adventurous today. The soup base had a nice, pork flavour to it (as how it should taste), not too fatty and had just the right amount of spice. The pork itself was very tender (almost fall-off-the-bone) and salted perfectly.

My friends' dak galbi with dduk and cheese (~$15 per order; $30 total). Click to enlarge.

A couple of minutes after our food arrived, the dak galbi was ready to eat. My friends who ordered it described it as "excellent, as usual". The chicken was nice and the balance of flavours were just as how they liked it. In fact, they both got really full and couldn't finish the whole pan, so we all got a chance to eat some of the dak galbi. No complaints about this dish whatsoever on my end (though, I personally would've added more cheese since I really enjoy cheesy dishes).

The service was pretty fast and efficient, though it would have been better if the servers were at least smiling or expressed some type of enthusiasm in their job. Nonetheless, they are still pretty nice though and won't give you any attitude. Some people on Urbanspoon stated that they thought the service here was terrible. I'm not too sure of the contexts of these complaints, but I have personally never noted any terrible service during the numerous times I have visited this place (and this did include a busy dinner service).

The rating for Joons Korean Restaurant are as follows (detailed ratings system here and out of 5):

Flavour = 4
Value = 4
Atmosphere = 3
Uniqueness = +0.5 (Table-top cooking)

OVERALL RANKING: 4.17 / 5

Overall, Joons is a restaurant that offers very flavourful dishes that you'll most likely recommend to your friends. To improve, they could adjust some aspects of their dishes (ex. giving the customer a squeeze bottle to adjust the amount of gochujang in their dolsot bibimbap to their taste). Also, this place needs an interior designer to dress up the place as the decor is too plain and a tad aged. The servers should also smile and be enthusiastic as this can also add to the customers' experience. However, I feel that these are quite minor and won't really detract from the awesome food they serve.



Type of Cuisine: Korean
Price Range: $5-18
Atmosphere/Attire: Casual

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