It’s a bit of a pity regarding Yoogane, the Korean cook-yourself restaurant at Il Terrazo Mall in Tomas Morato.

For one, compared to its more crowded Banapple counterpart at the second floor, Yoogane was not full.

This is a pity considering that the restaurant was both spacious and cheerful. The tables were large and each four-person table had a large cooking area. I especially loved how they decorated their brick walls with colorful cartoon-ish stickers. They made me feel more youthful and adventurous.

Ambiance wise, the place screamed casual dining, and their prices of around Php 200-400 reflect that. This is a place where you would take your boyfriend/girlfriend of a few months or your family, not your first date.

AS FOR THE FOOD… WHAT DO WE THINK OF IT?

First up, the appetizers.

How can you say anything bad about free appetizers?!

Teasing aside, I liked it a lot. For a party of three, we were given six (6) appetizers to share — bean sprouts, the sweet dilis, boiled small potatoes, white pickles, traditional kimchi, and cabbage with salad dressing — with free refills! Now, that’s a great deal.

We loved everything.

Boyfriend LOVED the dilis and bean sprouts, which were fresh and sweet as if they were newly bought from the market. Mom finished the simple cabbage salad, while I devoured the kimchi and the boiled small potatoes. The small boiled potatoes were my favorite: they were just of the right crunchiness and was dipped in sweet sauce. We couldn’t help but ask for refills (Sorry, Yoogane!).

Meanwhile, we ordered only two dishes to share — the Yoogane’s Chicken Galbi Fried Rice (Php 245 + Php 80 mozzarella cheese) and the Beef Bulgogi (Php 260). We also ordered a pitcher of Iced Tea (Php 100) which was served cold in a silver container.

I think the Galbi Fried Rice was based on Dak Galbi, a South Korean dish cooked by stir-frying marinated diced chicken in Korean chili pepper paste, sliced cabbage, sweet potato, scallions, onions and tteok (rice cake) together on a hot plate. (Source: Wikipedia). Just add rice and waaaalaaaah! You have our dish.

Don’t be too fooled by the reddish color though. This dish is actually not that hot, in fact, I wish they could have added more Korean hot sauce to add more flavor and zest to it.

Nonetheless, it was pretty delicious. Maybe it was the novelty of eating fried rice with cheese on it, or the fact that the marinated chicken was soft and tender, but our fried rice was something different, and I would recommend anyone who visits Yoogane to order it!

Again, let me warn you to not expect an orgasmic blow-your-mind type of fried rice (the rice will taste just exactly how you’ll imagine it… with cheese added), but the fact that the server comes to cook it in front of you as you wait is still an experience by itself, and should be one of the reasons why you should come and eat at Yoogane.

What’s more, though it needed a bit more taste (maybe some more salt and cracked pepper), the fried rice was still a great complement to our Beef Bulgogi (Php 260.00), which was just-the-right-amount-of-flavorful. It was soft, sweet Pinang-ulam na namin yung Bulgogi. 🙂

We finished our meal within 10 minutes. They even gave us each a small Yakult bottle to finish the meal.

Overall, I would strongly suggest for everyone to give Yoogane a try. It won’t be your favorite restaurant, but it’s a place that’s good to visit at least once or twice given how novel some of its dishes were, how convenient the place is (walk-ins welcome!), and how reasonably priced its dishes were.

Service was relatively okay, though we have to wave our hands a bit for service.

Regardless, at only less than Php 700 for all three of us, who can complain? And I’m sure we will be back at least one more time for more cheesy goodness!

Yoogane
G/F IL Terrazzo Mall, 305 Tomas Morato Ave. cor Sct. Madriñan St., Laging Handa, Quezon City, Tomas Morato
Tel: 966 2348
Like their Facebook Page – http://www.facebook.com/YooganePhilippines
Follow them on Twitter – https://twitter.com/yooganephil
Cost of Meal: Php 250/pax