Address: No. 45, Lane 188, RuiGuang Rd, Neihu District, Taipei City, Taiwan 台北市內湖區瑞光路18
巷45號
Telephone: (02) 8752-3222
Website: Samwon Garden Taipei
Hours: 11:30AM - 2:00PM , 5:00PM - 9:30PM
There's a lot of cuisine that I would classify under the heading 'easy to make good but very difficult to make spectacular.' Things like sandwiches, mexican food, and pasta would fall under this category. On this afternoon, the sister (or better known as my food guide, food guru, food inspiration... you get the idea) and I decided to have some Korean BBQ, and wouldn't you know it, BBQ of all kinds is another type of food i would pigeon hole as tough to make great but easy to be passable. Under the guise of needing to hit up the Costco also located in Neihu, we swung by Samwon Garden.. looking to curb the appetite before going nuts at Costco.
Pan Chan- Small dishes. Possibly my favorite part of any Korean dining experience.
Grill that sucks the smoke downwards. Prevents you from smelling like you just walked out of a smoker.
Walking around, it'll take some doing to just accidentally run into a Korean restaurant. They simple just aren't as prevalent as say... Japanese or Italian food in Taipei. I think there are a few reasons for this, the main point being that for the unknowledgeable, Korean food equals Korean BBQ, and that the people in Taiwan would simply prefer Yakiniku (Japanese style grilled meat) over their Korean counterparts. There probably is also just an inherit bias that exists here between those two countries.. but this is a food blog afterall.. and we'll stick to that over anything political.
Nice simple salad to start. Loved the dressing, a little sweet and tart.
Saved us the trouble of mangling the meat.
mmmmm~ Except that it wasn't cheap and as you can see.. there wasn't a ton of it.
Before coming here, my sister made the bold proclamation that she felt that this was one of the better Korean restaurants here in Taipei. Clearly this is a good endorsement for Samwon Garden, but it's sort of a big fish in little pond thing going on here. I found the meat to be of good quality and very flavorful. I like the fact that the meat was a little sweet, but there are those who prefer their Korean BBQ to be a bit less flavorful, so there is that.
Look ma! No bulky ceiling fans!
Its tough for me to judge where Samwon Garden stands in relation to other Taiwanese restaurants as I have very little experience in this regard, but what i can do is compare it to the multitude that I did get to enjoy back in the States. We also ordered the seafood pancake as well as the spicy rice cakes, and I found both dishes to be well executed and again, full of flavor. There are no criticisms of the food, except for the fact that once again, everything was good but nothing was great.
Beads of sweat are forming just looking at this. Again.. unlike some of the soups I find in Korean restaurants. They were very free in their use of flavoring.... very agreeable with my palette.
So really.. there is nothing much else to say. It is as good if not better than many of the places in the states, and i'm a big fan of the slight sweetness to the dishes that we tried. There is no question that I would return to Samwon Garden again, but when reeling off restaurants.. it just simply gets relegated to the back of the rolodex. For people who love Korean BBQ more than I, they might have a different reaction, but I will give credit where credit is due. Everything is spotless in the restaurant, and it is very spacious... the food will deliver the goods, but not blow you away.. so in this respect I would liken it to a work horse pitcher that will eat away at the innings and you can expect consistency but not those gems that you will occasionally get from the stars. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and we all need that sort of thing in our lives.
So overall, Samwon Garden receives:
Til Next time-
There were different types of seafood in it, including clams, prawns, mussels, squid, octopus and crab. Best Food Truck In LA
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