Chungdam Ahn

A nice little Korean place Chungdam Ahn off Cardero and Robson, we went there after having purchased a $30 for $15 off Living Social. Not sure what it's like on a Friday/Saturday - probably packed - read your groupon and in case you didn't know, you get free rice wine cocktails Sun-Thurs.

 For every party of two, you get a strawberry one and a banana one to try.  They'll ask you which you prefer afterwards so I think it's probably part of a market research. Personally the banana one rocked, you could taste real banana puree and it was very flavorful, didn't notice the rice wine which could be a good thing.  The strawberry felt a bit watered down and not as sweet as it could've been but this might be a seasonal thing.

Food-wise you're spoiled for choice and the waitress runs down the menu with recommendations and explanations for some of the dishes. While it's tempting to go with the tried tasted and true staples, it's usually good to try out new dishes. So without further ado, we decided on the Seafood Nuroongji (hotspot type stirfriend seafood with pressed rice), a kimchi dish off the special menu and we couldn't quite resist the traditional Korean pancake.

The Seafood Nuroongji was thick and savoury - excellent while hot, though still good with warm.  My one issue with out would be the need for more pressed rice, even on the side to go with the amount of seafood and liquid.

Sadly I can't remember what the kimchi dish was called and it's not listed on their online menu. It came with rice though and wasn't that spicy - probably best eaten hot as well instead of lukewarm by the time I got to it.

Seafood pancake, you can only go wrong with few ingredients, a lot of starch and a lot of oil.  Their seafood pancake was full of squid and other ingredients and not oily. There is a bit of starch but usually the squid will draw your tastebuds' attention.  It's huge though, so definitely make sure you share between at least 4 when ordering other dishes.

Next time I would love to try the Bulgogi and Seafood Japchae (glass noodles). Everyone at other tables ordered pretty much entirely different dishes that looked and smelled so good! The one that we did see ordered by several parties though was the Bulgogi.  It's served either just meat (lots of meat) or with a stone bowl rice.

Recommend: yes