Zoomak Korean Tavern

We have been to this place for their lunch sets twice and they don't disappoint at all. Everything tastes great, fresh, and plated well also! Their seafood pancake is also one of the best ones I've had! Give their Cheesy Tteokbokki a try if you still have room, it has a smoky taste so it's unique and delicious!

Will definitely be our go-to place every time we visit Vancouver!

I love their name - The 'Zoomak,' which means an old Korean tavern providing travelers with good food, drinks, and lodging. Their wooden decor, split level interior and casual ambiance does remind me of a 客棧 in Chinese.

We arrived early, around 1130 on a weekday. And at that hour, there were already 4 tables seated. Seems like we all came early to order the popular 12 items tasting set served only during lunch and with limited availability each day.

"Han Sang" = 12 Delicacies Tasting Tray
3 Choices:

Pork Cheek $25
Unagi $27
Short Rib $29

We ordered the unagi and beef ribs lunch set. It was great to sample a variety of items. Although each tasting item was served in bite size portions on small plates, ordering the lunch set was quite filling...I couldn't finish the tender beef ribs and had to pack it to go (Note: There is a charge for takeout boxes).

Everything tasted fine & above average. To highlight items that stood out for me, it may be the kimchi and fried chicken. My only complaint would be for the rice as it tasted like leftover rice or not heated properly -- the bowl of rice looked okay but it was cold, dry and hard.

Service is excellent here, courteous and attentive. So I didn't have the heart to tell the server about the cold hard rice... even when server came around to offer free refill on soup or rice in the lunch set. I just added some hot soup to the rice and created my own version of congee.

Overall, this is a cool place for Korean foods and I may opt to order an a la carte item next time in hopes of finding a signature dish to my liking. I think this place is popular in the evening and i hope to sample their drink menu when I visit again.

Korean food and drink place in Gastown. This place looks like it's pretty popular with the Koreans.

Parking is pretty awful around here. Best to come after 2200.

The place looks pretty hip and modern. The venue is split level (stairs go both up and down), so anyone with accessibility issues is limited to the bar area at the front.

Staff are friendly and professional.

I didn't try the food this time around, but the food being served at the surrounding tables sure looked good.

The place has a pretty decent Korean drink selection. They have Cass and Kloud beers, as well as makgeolli (sparkling rice wine) served in a cute aluminum teapot and served in traditional aluminum drinking bowls. The beer was a bit pricy (larger bottle) but the makgeolli was pretty reasonable.

Wouldn't mind coming back to try the food at some point. Recommended.

Went here for their lunch special and ordered the 12 Delicacies tasting tray with Pork Cheek. The pork cheek was tender and very flavorful. The items on the tray are such a great to try a bit of everything and surprisingly their fried chicken and kimchee pancake were some of the best I've ever had even though they're super common items I've had all the time at other Korean establishments. Their cocktails are also very tasty and the service was friendly.

Food 5/5
Drink 2.5/5
Service 4/5
Ambience 5/5

I recently dined at one of the best Korean restaurants I've tried in the city, and despite a few minor issues, it was a fantastic experience. I ordered the bossam while my friend opted for a stew; both dishes were excellent. The bossam was crispy and flavorful, though I did have to request extra sauce, which the staff gladly provided.

One thing I found a bit odd was the drink I ordered, which had tequila and Bacardi--a combination that didn't quite work for me. I wouldn't order it again.

A notable aspect of new-age Korean restaurants is the absence of free banchans, which is something I'm not used to. Additionally, while the staff were extremely friendly and hospitable, they seemed somewhat understaffed--a managerial issue rather than a fault of the employees.

The ambience of the restaurant is another highlight. The low lighting, beautiful wooden seats, and excellent music selection, especially if you enjoy techno and house music, created a vibrant atmosphere. The music volume did increase as the night went on, adding to the lively vibe.

Overall, despite a few areas for improvement, this restaurant deserves a 5/5 for its exceptional food, friendly service, and fantastic atmosphere.

Another highly anticipated Korean restaurant crossed off the list! I've had many people tell me this place is good and so I finally checked it out with a friend on a Friday night. It seemed quite busy so reservations are recommended! I love the vibe of this restaurant - A clean dimly lit interior that feels homey but also sophisticated at the same time.

We ordered based on my friend's recommendations and the food arrived promptly and everything looked very delicious!

Beef tartare - I liked the Korean take with the gochujang but it was quite strong so I only enjoyed it for what it was but definitely prefer other style beef tartares that I've had.

Bossam - A really well done crispy pork belly so delicious with the lettuce wraps!! We have a Chinese style equivalent of crispy pork belly and I was kind of making comparisons between the two and found that I may (?) enjoy Chinese style crispy pork more but with the Korean style lettuce wrap and ssamjang etc.... Nonetheless I still really loved this dish!!

Seafood pancake - This is a good pancake for those who want to see actual seafood and texture, the crisp on this bad boy is insane....so savoury and delicious. The sauce is a savoury one which I didn't like as much as some other places that do a sweet and sour one but nonetheless, I think this is one of the best seafood pancakes I've had.

Lastly....drum roll the banchan - the kimchi bokkeum (stir fried kimchi) SO GOOD and probably my favourite of everything I had. It went so good with every dish - sweet, sour, and savoury all at the same time.

Overall, great vibes and service but I did find the flavour profile of everything a bit on the saltier side...However, I also blame myself because I didn't order any noodles or rice to balance it out... Will have to come back to redo this (and try the drinks too!)

This is a Korean fusion place in Gastown. Compared to regular Korean restaurants, this place makes their dishes with more seafood. Food and drinks are good even if parking is a challenge around this area

Service is great! We had a very honest server who didn't recommend some dishes and also told us our order was more than enough.

Ambiance is very cute - a few steps up and a few steps down to dining areas. Food and drinks are good even if parking is a challenge around this area

Service is always great here! Jiwon was our bartender for a quick drink the other night and he made our drinks promptly and perfectly.
I always like getting the paper plane here.

Good service, good food and a cute little place in Gastown makes Zoomak Korean Tavern a surprisingly wonderful visit. This was my first time here and look forward to coming back.

We had: Boneless Fried Chicken with Sweet Sauce, Jap-Chae, Oyster Tempura, and Korean Pancake. My favourite was the Korean Pancake which was loaded with seafood and the crusted cooked perfectly crispy and Korean Fried Chicken. The noodles were over cooked for me but it had tons of flavours. The Oyster Tempura was my least favourite as it was dried. All was washed down with the delicious local Surrey Fresh Makgeolli.

Modern twist to Korean food. I really liked their beef tartare and yuzu Shochu. Everything else I ordered was okay, but nothing spectacular. But I don't like how everything was not only overpriced, but there weren't enough crostini's for the tartare and not enough greens/ sauce for the Bossam. An extra serving of greens was $4. I ordered it... but definitely not worth $4 in my opinion.

And finally, it's super loud inside the restaurant premise with such low ceilings and loud music. All it took was 1 super loud customer to make the entire experience incredibly unbearable. For over an hour we felt like our ears were going to pop due to a super drunk (happy, but high pitched) customer that was sitting across the floor from us. And nothing was done to try and lower the volume.

Food's not bad, but also not amazing (I do like their tartare though).

I'm unlikely to come back, but if I do, might try their KFC or seafood stew. And order the tartare and yuzu Sochu again.

Servers were nice, but they were "slightly" slow. Understaffed perhaps?