Shilla Korean Restaurant

Shilla is a new restaurant that took over a well established Korean restaurant in the area (which used to be one of my go-to Korean restaurants).

I like this place! Pretty good food, reasonable prices, interesting menu with a pretty good number of items to choose from.

However, if you care about fast and/ or attentive service, this may not be the place for you. Maybe my experience was a one-off though, it is still kind of the holidays after all.

I was in on Jan 2, and the place was pretty packed. There were less than 3 employees on the floor at any given time for probably around 20 tables.

We were seated and given menus, utensils and cups fairly quickly upon arrival. Our tea was forgotten by the harried servers. It took us a few minutes and a few tries to flag down someone to get tea for us. We noticed that every table had a jug of tea, but we were given just cups. The server explained that they were out of the jugs. Oh well.

I ordered the spicy beef tofu soup, and my partner ordered a pork hot plate stir fry. Shortly after, we received our side dishes, which were decent.

Thankfully the food didn't take too long. I was served my soup first, and my partner waited for maybe a few more minutes before his dish was served.

My soup had pretty good flavour to it, and the ingredients were also on point. One of the better Korean restaurants imo. I also tried my partner's dish, which was an impressive portion and also quite flavourful and adequately spicy, albeit a bit greasy (but it's supposed to be that way!). Only thing was I wish it was a bit hotter - the dish would've tasted loads better if it was sizzling on the cast iron plate it was served on.

Every time we needed something (which was not too often), it would take us glancing around and craning our necks for a few minutes, waving at the scurrying servers (who may sometimes pretend to not see us) a few times before we could get service. This does get tiring after a while.

When we do get service, they were nice and friendly. They just looked so busy. I guess it has been hard to hire food workers.

I'd come back on a weeknight to give it another shot. Lots of people ordered their fried chicken and I'm quite curious about it. This may become one of my regular haunts, until I tire of the service.

My family got three whole chickens here for takeout--honey garlic, yangyeom, and regular.

They were all really good! The chicken pieces were huge, tender, crispy, and juicy. They weren't battered too much. Wonders for a soft mouth! Honey garlic wasn't too sweet--it had the perfect balance. Yangyeom was surprisingly good! Also not too sweet. The regular was of course good. Flavours were on point.

My only complaint is they gave us two tiny daikon containers for three whole chicken orders. I don't know if we could have asked for more free of charge, but it was too late by the time we got home.

It took around 30 minutes to get our chicken, as to be expected. Luckily the restaurant has a really large waiting area. Very nice and spacious.

Great place for a get together. After a Zumba masterclass with friends we booked at this place. And ohhh it didn't disappoint us. Food was great and deliciously prepared. The place was cozy although we were really loud from laughing and storytelling however our servers were really on point.

Been a customer, and dare I say supporter, for many years, even before their renovation. After the renovation, the interior is now much cleaner and more modern feeling.

Customer service was not great. Slow on food even though there were only one to two other tables there. I guess there were also take out orders. But they only ever refilled our tea once and would take a while even when we asked. The tea pots were small and the food were salty so we naturally wanted to drink more liquid-- but yeah, one refill only.

Honey Garlic Boneless Chicken
-- skin was way too thick and not crunchy enough. I had to rip off most of the skin and just ate the inside, granted it was tender and juicy! The honey flavour was awesome, but didn't quite taste the garlic.

Corn cheese
-- usually a huge fan of corn cheese, but this one was not great. For $10, I was only able to get four bites out of this. It was a super thin layer abs not satisfying at all.

Seafood pancake
-- had the perfect crisp and was definitely the highlight of all the dishes we got. Generous portion too!

Japchae
-- have always been a fan of this, but this was a completely missed dish. Way, WAYY too salty. However, still very flavourful and the noodles were nice and stringy.

Bibimbap
-- nothing special. flavours were there, but something tasted off, even after we mix the sauce in.

Overall, not the most pleasant experience and was disappointed. I always recommend Shilla to people because its quality use to be good for the price with friendly service. I feel like I need to take that all back now.

It was 8:30pm and my friend and I wanted a small but quick bite. We ordered the Original Fried Chicken Wings ($18.98) and they were amazingly crispy and came piping hot to the table. So satisfying eating these warm juicy wings and the batter was light. We also shared the Shilla Jajang Noodle ($16.98): black bean sauce with noodles, onions, zucchini, cabbage and pork. I enjoyed the noodle dish but my friend wished the noodles to be on the warmer temperature side. I said hot sauce and cold noodles don't make the dish too warm so not the restaurant's fault - just the nature of the dish. We enjoyed our quick bites and now planning to get a bigger group together so we can try hot pots and other dishes. Great little Korean restaurant in the middle of Vancouver when most are out in Coquitlam.

Restaurant was clean and scanned QR code for the menu. If you require immediate attention then press the button at the end of the table. The staff were friendly, welcoming and very helpful in explain the dishes before we settled on our two for the evening. It was not busy when we arrived but it's also late. I notice lots of pick-up for take-outs. Free parking on Kingsway after certain hours or on the side residential streets.

I lived in this area before maybe 2 blocks away from this restaurant. Korean gig with a different name now known as Shilla maybe the same owner.

Looks different now, more space and more chic looking. Street parking and thanks God until now its free.
Each table has a red button buzzer...pretty neat...
Minimal decors, friendly customer service.

EATS: Takoyaki octopus balls based on my research this is a traditional street foods from both Korea and Japan. The balls was decorated with a tempura scrape and shaving of dried bonito (Katsuobushi) that moves like tiny feathers, I like it when you chopstick the balls it feels like you catched a fat butterfly...tasted good though....not the very best but not the worse.I love the ones from night market.....
I also got the hotpot bibimbap, I always prepared this kind than the one serves cold, When the rice and other stuff from base of the pot get a bit toasted, it taste more Korean to me....I loved it specially when soy sauce and hot sauce mixed on my bibimbap.

Reasonable pricing, excellent food with very good service and homey ambience..
Good for group kids and family friendly...
Debit,cash,credit okay

This place changed hands a few years ago and it was the first time coming back. The restaurant was renovated and looks much cleaner and nicer than before. There are no menus. They ask you to scan a bar code and then you have to navigate how to get to the website. Not user friendly for elderly or technically challenged people. We ordered the oxtail soup. It was bland. I don't know why they don't flavour it and just give you salt to flavour yourself. We couldn't get the right flavour. We ordered the spicy fried chicken and it was a bit soggy with a ton of batter. The Tteokbokki was hella spicy. Almost not edible it was so spicy. The side dishes were lacking in flavour and variety too. It was ok but not as good as the old restaurant that it replaced.

I'm sad that Seoul Doogbaegi closed down but in its stead, Shilla Korean Restaurant has taken it's place. It's a few doors down from Sunny's Chinese Food.

They've done some major renos and it shows as the place is modern and sleek. The Korean music is upbeat and a touch high on the volume side. Click the call button on the table to get one of the waitresses attention.

The menu consists of appetizers, tteok-bokki, noodle, main dishes (tofu soup, off the grill, bibimbap), hot pot, special dishes, fried chicken and drinks.

Trip #1
We dropped in on a Friday evening (around 6:30pm) and it was busy.
- Banchan - kimchi, bean sprouts, potatoes and pickled radish. Kimchi had a decent kick to it. Bean sprouts were refreshing. Potatoes were soft. Pickled radish were crunchy and light. Nothing out of the ordinary but good enough.
- Seafood tofu soup (M4) ($14.95) - it comes with a bowl of rice. There was some squid, shrimp and baby shrimp. The broth was okay but didn't have much depth or complexity to it. It was lacking a kick to it.
- Seolleongtang (M9) ($11.95) - first time ordering this and likely the last. The broth was bland. They bring out salt and pepper, which it desperately needed. The beef slices was dry and tough. You don't get much noodles either. A sad, unsatisfying bowl.

Trip #2
We dropped in on a Tuesday evening (around 6:00pm).
- Banchan - kimchi, bean sprouts and potatoes this time around. We were able to get a second round.
- Jaeyook stir-fry (M6) ($16.95) - nothing out of the ordinary but it came with an abundance of cabbage and onion.
- Bulgogi jeongol (H5) ($33.95) - their hot pots come with two bowls of rice. The amount of bulgogi (sweet and tender) you get was surprisingly impressive. Broth was flavourful, a touch sweet but well balanced. Tasted as you'd expect bulgogi to be. The glass noodles were satisfying and vegetables included rice cakes, tofu, enoki mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, green onions and onions. Perfect for sharing.

On the fence with Shilla. 3.5 stars.

La Galbi and dakgalbi wasn't too bad. The galbi was a bit chewy but charred and flavoured nicely. The dakgalbi was nicely spiced. Just enough enough spice with lots of onions. It was $50 for both dishes and while it's not the cheapest, it's reasonable for Korean.

Will update soon as it's my first time coming in ever since Seoul Doogbaegi owner retired.
Ordered the Korean Spicy beef soup, I enjoyed it.
It's a good mix of bean sprouts, potato vermicelli, onions and a robust soup.
I'm looking to get a group together to try the rest of the dishes and I've noticed they
have an excellent section of liquor from Korea.

Take out experience was extremely terrible!!! I waited nearly an hour for 3 dishes and restaurant was only 1/3 full. Beef noodle soup had barely anything inside with few scraps of meat and rest is liquid. Rice was in mushy chunks and carrots, mushrooms, and beef weren't fresh at all. This is definitely lower than food-court quality. Quite a shame really...