Honestly, i never liked Korean food, so i will very rarely opt to have Korean food for meals, especially when there is a wide array of other more interesting cuisines available in Singapore. However, just for the sake of giving this "A-to-Z Food List" some variety, i decided to throw in a Korean restaurant for "H".
There was many mixed reviews from various floggers about this restaurant, ranging from "the best and the only Korean restaurant i would ever go", to "....totally under-rated and disappointing...will never go back there again...", so i decided to try it for myself.
As with all authentic, self-respecting Korean restaurant, they must always have an array of complimentary free-flow side dishes before you start your meal. In Hyang-To-Sol, they have 10 different kinds, which i shall not take the trouble to name one by one.
With most of it involving kimchi (or its by-product) and vegetables and garlic, the only 1 i do not mind eating (and actually finished nearly the whole portion) is the potato salad. Basically mashed potato mixed with chopped raw carrots and cucumbers, its pretty refreshing and not too rich. Shall not comment on the rest, coz i dun like any of them.
Korean seafood pancake with spring onion ($22)
One of the symbolic "starters" for Korean cuisine, we chose the Korean seafood pancake out of all the other starters to try. Other than the portion being humongous (probably for 3-4 people), and the pro-active waitress automatically cutting up the pancake into slices for us on the table, it is a very oily pancake and nothing interesting at all. And did i mention that i couldnt find much seafood in it??
Ingredients for the beef hotpot: beef, mushroom, veg and noodles
all-in-1 beef hotpot ($33)
As we didnt want to end up smelling like the residue of a BBQ dinner (and the BBQ items are not cheap), we went for a hotpot instead. As usual, the same pro-active waitress did everything for us, from lighting the stove, cooking the food, flavouring the soup infront of us and even wanted to serve us individually! But being accustomed to helping ourselves to our own hotpot (which includes cooking our own ingredients), we politely declined the offer to serve us, and hinted that we can manage ourselves very well. For the 1st time, we actually felt the worthiness of the service charge!
Generally, the beef slices were very tender, mushrooms (shitake & oyster) and veg were pretty normal and the noodles remind me of a typical Korean ramen. The soup is pretty flavourful, although i wun mind if it was a little less oily. Nevertheless, definitely much better than the seafood pancake.
I don't know if i would come back here again, for the simple reason that i still am not very interested in Korean food. But for those who likes Korean food and likes kimchi (they have alot of kimchi-related dishes here) and likes to be served, you can definitely give this place a shot.
Hyang-To-Sol Korean Restaurant
Lev 2, Amara Hotel
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