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This restaurant boasts homestyle Korean cooking with homely decor to boot. Located on the second floor of Venezia Plaza.
First of all, I feel bad for this place because it has to share a parking lot with Michigan, Deer Garden, and Cattle which means parking your car to come to this place is a total gongshow. After walking into the restaurant after all the waiting however, you may walk through the doors of Haroo to be greeted into a very homely looking atmosphere.
The server (whom I presume is the owner....?) promptly showed us to our seats where we looked around the restaurant. Korean dramas are playing on two TV's in the restaurant and they have their chopsticks/spoons in these cool looking wooden boxes. Everything is standard but feels really relaxed, nothing totally OUTSTANDING but it was solid.
Let's talk about the food. The side-dishes arrived after we ordered our main courses and at first, we noticed the variety in the dishes they offered. There were 7 of them, including an appetizer congee for each person. The congee was GREAT; the rest is good but not mind-blowing. When asking for refills, the server seemed a little reluctant to give them to us. The salad (which is sized for one person no matter how many people are at your table) is non-refillable no matter how much you want it. We haven't had to go past one refill on the dishes though so I'm not sure if he puts a "limit" on it.
In the times we've visited, my girlfriend and I have ordered their Stone Bowl Bibimbap, Kimchi Hot Pot (which is like a set platter meal for 2~3 people), their tofu soup special (which I can't remember the name of) and they're all very tasty. The portions can be a little small though if you're big eaters. I remember the Bibimbap being smaller than I hoped but it didn't bother me too much since I just filled up with side-dishes.
The tea they use is a corn tea, which was good and new to me. Overall, I recommend this restaurant if you're into the homestyle Korean cooking type of thing. Do not raise your expectations however, as it caters to a specific type of taste.
I've been looking for good Korean food in Richmond and sadly I'm still looking. This place looks lovely and reminds you of home. Very spacious too. So props for that. However, their menu isn't as big as other restaurants; it doesn't have a lot of small dishes. They have meals, meat dishes, platters, and large hot pots. So we just had two personal meals. They are very stingy on the side dishes. Kimchi are not refillable. The owner was reluctant to even refill the other side dishes. I think there's only 1 refill on side dishes other than kimchi. The salad that comes with the meals was combined into one plate, assuming we want to share our food. But the salad was so small, it was meant more for one person. The seafood/beef tofu soup had mostly mussels and 1 half piece of shrimp. The bowl itself is smaller than typical Korean restaurants. they try to make this up by offered a few leaves of lettuce & a half bowl of congee. Medium was not hot enough for my bf and he found it lacked in flavor. It had almost no beef in it. I had the stirfried beef udon. There wasn't enough beef and many of the pieces had a lot of fat in it. However, everything was hot (but all Korean restaurants make this a priority) and the udon was quite tasty. Still not as tasty as Good Friends. But $9.99 per meal isn't worth it when we can get a bigger bowl & better taste for $8.95 that includes better & unlimited side dishes. The side dishes did not have enough variety and I didn't want to eat them all like I usually do at some really good restaurants. Perhaps their lack of MSG is the reason for the meal not being satisfying at all, but then I'd rather eat at another restaurant even if it has MSG as long as it tastes better. We left still thinking that the best Korean restaurants are in Burnaby & Coquitlam, with a couple in downtown.
| 1. | Sweet 23 (0 m) |  |
| 2. | Twinkle (0 m) | |
| 3. | Sun Tung Kee Hot Pot Restaurant (0 m) | |
| 4. | Rico Taiwanese Cuisine (0 m) |  |
| 5. | Deer Garden Signatures (0 m) |  |
| 6. | Soul Robata & Izakaya (2 m) | |
| 7. | Kebab & Kurry (2 m) | |
| 8. | Bei Jiang (2 m) |  |
| 9. | E2 Pasta House (2 m) | |
| 10. | Salle De Thé Tea Room (3 m) | |
