#cheolpanddeokbokki

[missguomeiyun]

lunch @ MiGa Korean Cuisine

Did you guys know there is a “K-Mall” in Edmonton??? cos I didn’t until earlier today, when I had lunch at MiGa Korean Cuisine. It’s in Millwoods, & from what I read, they opened fairly recently. They are 2 stores down from Ginseng Korean BBQ & next to it is another Korean restaurant called Pocha Seoul. Additionally, diagonally across this K-Mall is another K-restaurant *sigh.. why do I not live near here? lol

Anyways, the purpose of today’s meal was. .. to catch up with Christina, who was unable to attend my bday dinner @ State & Main so... here we are, a belated bday dinner (treated by Christina)!

MiGa Korean Cuisine: 9261-34 Ave.

The view when we arrived & sat down. You know.. .for a Friday lunch ~11:30am, I wasn’t expecting many customers here, esp in this area, where it’s mostly industrial businesses. However, when we left, there were 4 other tables of customers (at least 3 ppl each).

Christina & I were kindly greeted by the staff & was served some tea.

After we decided what to order, these sidedishes were brought out. This was my 1st time seeing this combo of sidedishes haha there was a marinated fish cake (top left), macaroni salad with some light mayo (top right), kimchi radish (this was the best one out of the 5), a light cucumber salad (bottom left) & a bean sprout salad (bottom right).

& then our entrée came!!! The staff member 1st brought out a portable gas stove. Most tables in the restaurant had a built-in stove (for hot pot/bbq) but our didn’t come with it so the stove was brought out separately. Then he brought out this.. .masterpiece! It is the cheol pan ddeokbokki, aka sizzling hot plate spicy rice cakes.

I don’t think this exists anywhere else in Edmonton yet. .. but it’s the typical spicy rice that every Korean restaurant (should) have but it’s on a hotplate & it is continuously sizzling so it’s remains hot. At the same time, it keeps the fried dumplings, fried vegetable balls, & the corn warm/hot AND cooks the egg AND melts the cheese. Because it was our 1st time here, the staff kindly cooked the egg for us & explained to us that once the cheese all melts, we can dip everything else in it.

A closer look...

I REALLLLLLY liked the fried vegetable balls! Something different & unusual. It’s not like tempura where the individual vegetable item is fried separately; instead, the “main” batter is made up of the typical flour/egg combo plus yam. So it’s quite dense but at the same time, very soft (bcos of the yam texture & other contents). Each ball had some corn, broccoli & some carrot pieces in it. It was SO good with the melted cheese. The dumplings were good as well, supppppper crunchy; the ingredients inside included some glass noodles & pork. Corn & egg.. .well, they’re corn & egg! haha & I love them in any form. The ddeokbokki part of it was good except for the glass noodles. The noodles became very soft & borderline mushy towards the end of our meal, & I would’ve preferred the dish without the glass noodles (personally). However, the rice cakes were good till the end & I, of course, really enjoyed the triangular fish cakes. YUM!

^what happened after 1.5 hrs.

So yeah... very good 1st time visit - service was good, food was good... the highlight was the fried vegetable balls! 9.5/10~