{Review} Han Ba Tang, a hip Korean Restaurant in North York

Website: https://www.facebook.com/hanbatangON
Address: 4862 Yonge St., Toronto, ON
Cuisine: Korean-fusion
When I visited: June 2015, 4 people, dinner
Rating: 4

Lucky me, I won a contest from Han Ba Tang to enjoy a complimentary dinner for me and 3 guests. I brought my husband and sisters and we had the opportunity to try several dishes of our choice plus a drink each from the bar menu.

The interior of the restaurant felt like I stepped into a hipster restaurant downtown Toronto, but I was in North York’s Korean Town (Yonge and Sheppard area). The restaurant had a cool vibe with dim lighting with a young crowd. I recall the front of the restaurant did not have an English sign, so we had to make our way into the restaurant to know we found the right restaurant.

The food was mainly Korean fusion with menu offerings that included Korean fries, spoon pizza, Korean sweet potato chips, as well as tacos. They also offer more traditional favourites such as pan bulgogi and seafood stew.

The bar contained many drinks that combined the famous Korean soju. My sisters enjoyed their drinks including the Han Ba Tang (HBT) mojito and HBT Old Fashioned.

We started out with the pork tacos, black calamari and kimchi fries. For the tacos, I enjoyed the generous fillings with pickled onions and spicy mayo, but I did give feedback to the owners that the tortillas (that were not made in-house) were a little dry. I recall that I enjoyed the other two dishes.

As each dish came out, I felt like our dishes got progressively better and LOVED the following dishes!

The crispy king prawn had a crispy light batter and perfectly cooked shrimp, and generous portions.

The braised short ribs came out smokin’ and was served with Korean mustard. The slow braised meat was incredibly tender and the sauce had a touch of heat.

We decided to try out a traditional Korean dish from the menu, and went with the Spicy Seafood Soup and OMG, this had to be my favourite seafood stew in all of North York. There were tons of crab and shrimp in it, which really made the stew extremely flavourful.

 

Overall:

Han Ba Tang is a hip Korean restaurant in North York that has a great bar menu, and creative and tasty Korean fusion dishes.

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. As I won a contest, the meal was complimentary but the opinions in the post are my own.