TaKorea

I noticed this sitting on Wellington Street last Saturday morning (proud moment for me to be in Central on a Saturday morning) where a tea place used to be. Although the entrance is on the ground floor of Wellington Street, the store itself is actually in a basement which is closer to Pottinger Street. When you are walking into the restaurant you will think to yourself, oh dang, that's a hell lot of stairs. Don't worry, there is another exit in there that doesn't require you walking up a bajillion steps of stairs when you are done eating and in a food coma.

Though not a fan of Korean entertainment, I am a fan of Korean food, so naturally I was excited to see a new Korean fast food looking place in Central. Mentally I put this on my to try list and on my calendar for Tuesday lunch and tada, I made it there (with 2 other colleagues).

To be honest I cheated and looked at their online reviews before going and was quite disappointed that their price range is very similar to K-Roll. I've been reluctant to try K-Roll because I find it too pricey and don't really like Korean style sushi. In any case, I've been bored of my usuals for lunch so was determined to give this a try despite the price tag. We got there around 12 and was going to get it to go but then decided to stay since there were still quite a bit of seats.

The menu is super simple, basically, you pick one of each of the following:

• The base: rice, burrito or taco (comes in 3 small tacos)
• The "meat": beef, pork, chicken or eggplant
• add traditional kimchi or butter kimchi for an additional $10

Their "side" menu includes a fried chicken salad, kimchi fries, sweet potato fries, and something else that I cannot recall. As you can see... there really aren't that many choices, and the cheapest dish (the sweet potato fries) was $40. Not exactly fast food priced...



Taco flavored kisses

We got the beef burrito, chicken burrito and chicken taco. I went with the burrito as I saw online that it contains rice so I knew it would fill me up. We went baller and I added the butter kimchi instead as I've never tried it before. You can choose between no spice, regular spice and Korean spice (which is the spiciest). We skimped on the drinks because we wanted to get some Chinese herbal tea down the street after instead, and our bill totaled to $90 each.

Our food took around 10-15 minutes to arrive which was reasonable. My burrito actually tasted like a bowl of bibimbap with fried chicken wrapped in a burrito blanket. It was quite interesting but nothing life-changing... Plus bibimbap is not my thing. My favorite Korean dish is the japchae, and I think it would be so dope if they had they wrapped this in a burrito or in a taco and slap it on their menu. Bam, FUSION!

After the lunch the 3 of us were wondering how long they can survive for. The logic being that given it's setup as a casual eating place, the prices don't actually match up and the place isn't exactly obvious so not that many people may notice it. My colleague also doesn't think that people will actually go there for dinner.

The burrito

To be honest, Mana down the street is in the same price range (just under $100 for a full wrap), however their selling point is healthy, vegan, and glutten free food. While my colleagues are pessimistic about this place's future and I myself will likely not return (high price tag and not healthy enough), I think they have potential to become the next K-Roll.

Location: 55 Wellington St, Central
Website: NA