Restaurant GIWA

Ellie

3.0

A bit below expectation to be honest. The marinated seafoods are too salty & can't taste any freshness. Too much soy sauce & lack of depth in flavor.

The Sotbap has very few thin slices of beef. It seems small in portion & too cooked. Flavor is average. Would not recommend.

Desserts are better though. Both the chocolate brownie & ice cream have interesting Korean twists to them.

???

5.0

I never expected to find such a beautifully prepared Korean meal in Canada.
The stone pot rice was perfectly cooked, down to the last crispy layer at the bottom 🍚
The deep-fried stuffed peppers were crispy with a spicy kick that filled every bite with flavor 🌶?✨
& the yukhoe (Korean-style beef tartare) was incredibly fresh, tender, & nutty-truly irresistible 🥩🥢
Highly recommend this spot to anyone missing the comforting taste of home-cooked Korean food ❤?

Ying

4.0

This cute little restaurant has very Instagramy food: the dishes are placed in a very esthetic way, nice presentation. However I find the appetizers portion are too small for the price they charge. For example the scallop salad is 22$ for a very small amount...
The wait for the sotbap took forever. The Bol of rice came lukewarm & lacking flavor. The small dishes of banchan are ok. Out of the 3 kinds, we like the vegetarian the best. Rosemary gives a unique flavor to the rice. The fish & beef were kind of underwhelming/bland.
The star of tonight Show is the dessert!!!
We order perilla oil ice cream, it was perfect! It has a roasted nutty flavor. Who knew this can taste so good.
Also the brownie with dark chocolate mousse with maple ice cream was decadent!! (Although we didn't taste the gochuchang in the chocolate, but who cares?)
So conclusion: we would come back for the desserts.

Megan

5.0

This restaurant just opened a few weeks ago & was intrigued by the menu. They serve more elevated Korean dishes with a twist. The menu is small but every dish was executed amazingly. We started off with their rendition on a gimbap & the beef tartare. Both were excellent & the texture of the fried seaweed was great! For mains we got the beef sotbap, fish sotbap & the haemul jang which was an assorted raw soy marinated seafood platter. All dishes were fresh & delicious. My fave being the beef sotbap. I really appreciated the attention to detail here as every side dish was tasty & well presented. To finish off the night we ordered desserts. DO NOT skip on the desserts because they were phenomenal! We got the gochuchang brownie & the pear, perilla & lime ginger sorbet/ice creams. There was so many different textures & flavours for all the desserts. The perilla ice cream was my fave! Never had tasted that flavour before & would recommend. Overall I really enjoyed this restaurant & will definitely be back. It's difficult to find restaurants at reasonable prices with high quality dishes & innovative ideas with almost flawless execution. GIWA definitely delivered!

X

5.0

From the appetizers to the dessert, everything was made with care & were delicious. The gimbap was super crispy & delicate. The beef tartare was fun to eat with the fried nori. The sot-bap came with many side dishes & tasted healthy & comforting. The brownie had a hint of gochujang & was very special. The perilla oil ice cream tasted very unique.

The waiter was super nice & the service is quite fast.

Tina

5.0

This was our second visit to GIWA Restaurant. We had such an amazing meal last time that we made a reservation for 5 PM today.

Tonight, we enjoyed Yukhoe & Gimbap, along with the beef & fish sot-bap, all recommended by Chef Alex. The way the rice was mixed with the soy-marinated egg sauce was simply outstanding.

GIWA is quickly becoming our family's favorite restaurant!