Arisu Korean BBQ (Edmonds)

My son absolutely loves Korean BBQ.  I've never seen him eat so much in comparison to other cuisines.  So it was without a doubt that he would choose Korean BBQ as his graduation meal (yes, it is pretty clear I'm getting old...).  Although we like Arisu out in Burquitlam, we wanted to change it up a bit and visit their newer location out on Edmonds in Burnaby.  Loved the free parking within the complex, but not so much with the fairly tight booths, especially for a party of 6.

We ended up ordering a variety of dishes including, of course, meats for the BBQ.  With most Korean meals, we were served a variety of Banchan including cabbage salad, kimchi, pickled daikon radish, marinated sprouts and stewed potatoes.  These were all pretty solid where the kimchi had plenty of crunch and spice.  Potatoes were sweet and savoury while being soft without being mushy.  Naturally, we got a few refills of each.

Onto the BBQ, went for the Premium Beef Combo featuring boneless kalbi, premium ribeye, marinated ju-mul-luk and marinated kalbi.  Generally, the meat in this combo was very good.  We started with the boneless kalbi and each piece was buttery and tender.  The same could be said about the ju-mul-luk where it was nicely flavourful.  We found the ribeye more meaty in texture, but it was till tender.  The cream of the crop was the marinated kalbi where it was pure short rib meaty heaven.  It was delicious while the meat was buttery soft.   For good measure, we added the Pork Jowl and Chicken Bulgogi.  The pork jowl was pretty typical with a rebound texture that was tender.  With a sweet marinade, the chicken was able to char on the grill and due to the use of thigh meat, it was tender.

Although we were served soup already, we decided to tack on the Gamjatang as well.  This featured 3 really large bones with lots of meat.  The meat was generally tender, however, the bones could've used a bit more cook time.  The soup itself was flavourful with a mild spiciness as well as a certain meatiness.  Loved that they added some sliced rice cake as they soaked up some of the flavours.  On the other hand, the potatoes were undercooked and hard.

We ended up ordering 3 bowls of rice to go with our BBQ meats, but we still had to get the Dolset Bibimbap (like we always do).  Although the stone bowl came hot, it was difficult to actually get a proper rice crust.  This was even after I had mixed the ingredients and smashed the rice against the sides.  Despite this, the ingredients were good and the side of gochujang wasn't really enough, but of course we could've asked for more.

Since it was really hot inside (it appeared that their A/C was either not working or was very weak), we got the Mul-Naengmyeon.  This was textbook with chewy buckwheat noodles sitting in an ice cold beef broth.  We found the usual toppings of sliced beef brisket, cucumbers, daikon and a half hard-boiled egg.  This was truly refreshing as we were sweating just sitting there.  Loved the texture of the noodles and they stayed as such due to being cold.

Our last dish was the Claypot Steamed Egg.  This was fairly fluffy with bits of veggies strewn throughout.  Naturally, this went well with the white rice and was a nice interlude between bites of delicious meat.  Overall, the meal at this location of Arisu was quite good especially the beef.  Service was good with attentive and friendly staff.  It was really too bad that the A/C wasn't working because that made things quite uncomfortable.  If I was to go back to Arisu, I'll hit up the North Road location since their seating is more spacious.

The Good:

- Top notch premium beef

- Good service

- Free parking

The Bad:

- Seating is tight for any group bigger than 4

- Gamjatang ingredients could've been cooked longer