Sura Korean BBQ

This Korean restaurant is the famous one in Richmond area.In the past I tried a la carte dinner menu but this time I eat lunch set 25 CAD.Lunch set is very good, variety of food and tasty with reasonable price.

Poor service with mandatory 15% "tip" (notified at end of dinner). Gave us 90 minute dining window but had to wait a long time for food and even longer for "service". Had a birthday cake and they just brought it out in a box. No forks, no plates. Took us a while to flag someone down. Then they took 10 min to bring us plates whereupon they told us our time was up! Despite our time being up it took another 10 min to bring the credit card machine.

Most of reviews were not recommend this place, I still felt like to try it out. Well... I believed the reviews are correct.

We went there on Wed night and the restaurant not even half full at 6.30pm. We got seated and tea served right the way. The décor is simple, clean and good atmosphere. The menu is fancy and selections of varieties are great.

Side dishes were awesome. I really like the medium size of grilled whole fish which so tasty. We ordered few items and food quality and taste pretty good.

Royal Galbi - Beef rib quality was excellent! But a bit overpriced, 1 roll of beef rib at $28, Worth it?
Seafood pancake - Full ingredients of seafood and pancake so crispy.
Soft Tofu Seafood soap - Smooth and soft tofu with fresh quality seafood. Yummy.
Beef rib soup - Strong beef taste in the broth, quite mediocre.

The waitress came over to take control of grilling beef rib for us and didn't ask if we wanted it or not.. Hmm.. just a bit too much for us!

Be aware if you paid by credit card, the credit card machine only have 15% tips as minimum. May be you need to press for $amount as other option.

I wish I could give this place a 3.5! My main complaint: Sura recently raised the price of their lunch sets by $5, and the lunch really worth having is the more expensive "RA" set, which is now $25.

This has always been a go-to whenever I'm in the area and in the mood for Korean food. The big draw here is the lunch special, which is a pretty good deal. Unfortunately, they raised the prices. Being on a budget, I ended up having to order the cheaper "SU" set lunch, which is now $20. Their bulgogi cooked on the grill is easily the best part, with a super flavorful marinade. The congee and soup are pretty great as well. However, the other half of the dishes were nothing to write home about, such as the grilled saury, which had way too many bone fragments for easy eating, and the potato pancake, which was basically a bland hash brown.
If you're coming here and can afford it, do the RA set for $25. The bulgogi, kimchi pancake, japchae, fish cutlet, and braised short ribs are all fantastic!
If you're coming on the weekends or busy times, expect a moderate wait. Service is fairly good, and the "atmosphere" is bustling but spacious and clean.

This restaurant website mentioned that they could take a reservation via phone call but actually they won't. First, they mentioned that they are fully booked recently then I asked them if they have seats next month, and they said actually they don't take reservations. If you don't take reservations, could you mention it on your website and not mislead the customer?

We came for the lunch specials. At around 2pm on a Wednesday, it wasn't busy at all. Especially compared to the dinner times I've passed by. We went in through the mall side, not sure if there's a different entrance but it did take some time before we were acknowledged. Our server was really nice but seems to be running around quite a lot so it was a bit difficult at times to get her attention. So... it looks like you cannot mix the two lunch combo's (Set RA and SU). We decided on the SU.

Things we got were:

-Daily Congee (4/5): Very soft and pillowy. I like that it's subtle in taste to give us a break for all the spiciness and flavourful dishes that comes with the meal.

-Green salad (3/5): Simple iceberg lettuce salad with some oranges and raddish.

-Spicy squid salad (4/5): Not as spicy as it looks. Not sure if it'd call it a salad. It's not really cold but there are veggies with it. The squid was nice and not chewy.

-Mung Bean Jelly (3/5): Didn't have too much of this but looks like jelly fish and has the texture of jelly like the name calls it. I wouldn't have guessed that it's made from mung beans though, especially with it's near translucent color.

-Bulgogi (5/5): One of my favourite Korean dishes. We each got two pieces. Our 2nd server helped up start the grilling process so we could continue eating while it cooked. Loved the fatty parts. So much flavour! Just yum!

-Potato Pancake (4/5): We each got two pieces. The plate also came with some powder and a flower drawn with hot sauce and a bowl of vinegar (?). I didn't like that powder and the hot sauce was just ok. I enjoyed it most when it's dipped in vinegar.

-Deep fried sweet & sour pork (3/5): There's too much batter and almost no sign of meat. I almost thought it was calamari from the color.

-Grilled Atlantic Croaker (3/5): The fish tasted good but too many bones for my liking.

-Herb Pork Belly (4/5): Each got two pieces. The pork belly didn't have much flavour on its own (my first piece) but along with the sauce it tasted good (2nd piece). Guess they could be more consistent in covering it with the sauce. Also some pieces were topped with tobiko but others didn't. The pickled veggie tasted good. I wonder what it is....

-Soy Bean Paste soup (3/5): I'd like it more if it was a tad bit less spicy. But definitely good to have on a cold day. This is sure to keep you warm.

-Korean Rice punch (3.5/5): Interesting but I'm not sure what to make of it except that the pine nuts was a nice addition.

-Side dishes (3/5): We got some beans, kimchi and the spicy potatoes. The potatoes were really good. They were super stingy with the beans. If someone used a spoon, they'd sweep up the entire dish for themselves. Kimchi is ...kimchi. Personally don't like it so I can't judge if it's good or not.

Overall, it's a great deal for $15.

Came here with a group of friends (8), the restaurant was half empty but we were split up (4 and 4) and seated away from each other, at separate tables. The server came to tell us they'll be charging additional gratuity as we were a large party. After explaining to him that we were not seated together, or even close enough to talk for that matter -- they told us "you walked in together".

How is it reasonable to charge extra for a large party when you're not even seating a large party? Oh, and don't forget you're also pouring your own tea. So what service am I getting that is justifying additional tips aside from the fact they feel like ripping customers off and are generating bad will? Never mind the fact we got two separate receipts after dinner. How is this one party?

Also, half the plates at our table were dirty, had stuff sticking to it.

As for food, I will admit the food is decent, maybe a bit better than average, but this kind of business practice leaves a sour taste. Won't be returning, and would not recommend supporting this kind of business.

Delicious Korean food. I and a friend were taken here by our Korean friend, so we ate whatever she ordered. Everything was very tasty. We had the beef bbq, which was our favorite, along with kimchi, salad, fried fish and bi bim bop. It was all so filling; I wish I had more room for it all. We also had some soju to complement the meal. I would definitely come back here to have the same or try some new food.

Finally got to try Sura after a late afternoon binge of Produce 101! This place always had a line. and is super popular. It was Friday evening, and my boyfriend and I thought we should try our luck to see if we can get in without a reservation at around 5 pm. And surprise! There was no line (guess we were blessed by some Korean food God that day). However, we did see a line starting to form when we are done at 6pm ish.

The servers were super nice, and always ready to clear off dirty plates. We ordered the beef galbi, Army hot pot (small), and beef bibimbap. Food came super fast, and they came with SO MANY delicious side dishes. That kimchi was excellent! The beef galbi was absolutely fresh and delicious. It was a bit pricier than other Korean BBQ place, but absolutely worth the value for how many pieces of high quality beef we get. And that Army hot pot was gigantic for a small size. It was like a hot pot that keeps on giving. We ate that pot for maybe 30 minutes, and I still could find pieces of meats and rice cakes from the bottom. The bibimbap was very delicious. No need to even add the hot sauce. The rice was completely soaked with beef and mushroom flavors. This is now one of my favorite Korean restaurants in the area.

The first thing that I noticed when coming here was how it seemed like all of the waitresses tried to avert the gaze of anybody that was in the lineup to get into the restaurant despite there being ample seats lol.

Aside from that interesting start to the visit, I ordered a Stone Bowl Bibimbap (14.99). The rice had a nice stickiness to it with crispy bits on the bottom. There was a decent amount of vegetables, fungus, egg, and pork mixed throughout the bowl. Although the waitress did add sauce to it, and the spiciness came through, for whatever reason, I found the dish to be overall lacking in taste...

Out of the sides, the capers were probably the most interesting though. They had a sweet glaze about them and were just a bit nutty!

Overall, food's okay here, though a bit on the pricey side. Service is pretty whatever though.