At the insistence of Libbie, we ventured out to Coquitlam for some food.  I was yearning for some seolleongtang and I already had a restaurant in mind, someplace that I haven’t made a return visit to in a long long time. Wang Ga Ma is located in the same plaza as the big Han Ah Ruem Asian Mart (H-Mart) and I recall going there a couple times with my mom and sister years back.

From the exterior, it seems that they’re already hinting to the soup with the bowl logo to the left. Can anyone tell me what the characters in the bowl say?

Inside, it smelt great. That was seriously my first thought and impression when I walked in. I get the feeling that Wang Ga Ma is a very home-style restaurant, focusing on Korean comfort food, the simple things. The menu is one page only, and that’s great cause it keeps things simple. Noodles, Korean Pancake, Soups & Main Courses, Steamed Beef Stone Hot Pot & Korean Special Dishes. All of the soups are $8.95!

After flip flopping back and forth between soup with beef tail or oxen feet, I ended up with beef tail.  Libbie couldn’t make up her mind and had our server recommend her favorite, which was Beef Short Rib Soup. Long silver soup spoons in nanosilver sterilized wrapping paper! NANOSILVER!!! ..not even sure what that’s supposed to mean.

Shortly after our order was taken, she came back with some kimchi. Served in a very traditional form, each strand of cabbage is left uncut and the daikon are big chunks as well. You’re provided scissors and a knife to make them more mouth-friendly. Though I suppose you could eat a whole leaf of cabbage if you were so inclined to.

I was hoping that we would get some more banchan, but no dice. Perhaps because we weren’t Korean? I don’t know for sure because I couldn’t judge if the other tables received more side dishes because they ordered a different item other than soup. This was a lot of kimchi for just two people anyways.

Though I’m sure I knew what the ingredients of this was (mustard and sweet soy sauce?), we weren’t sure what to use it for so we asked what it was for. Just for dipping, she said. Man do I feel stupid.

Across from me is Libbies Beef Short Rib Soup and her bowl of rice. In a hot stone bowl! Super stoked on this, as something about this just makes the rice taste so much better. I absolutely love it when the rice gets all crispy from the super hot bowl. I would have asked to try a bit of her soup..but I’m sick so I don’t want to spread it.

At this point, I also want to mention that the pitcher of water on each table, I thought it was for us to drink. However, as we saw at the other tables, people were pouring water into the rice bowls, probably so that it doesn’t end up sticking.. but I like the sticky crispy grains of rice at the end. Is this what the pitcher of water is there for? Or is it to add more water in the soup?

I suck. I can’t believe this next picture is blurry but it’s the only one of my soup that I took. Anyways, the green onion is already in the soup unlike at Seoul Doogbaegi and there are even two red dates floating around. Again, I didn’t put in any salt as I wanted to just enjoy it as it is. I felt that it was blander compared to Seoul Doogbaegi, but it might have been just my taste buds not working at full capacity due to me being sick.

Looks good doesn’t it? I had I think 5 big chunks of beef tail in my soup. These were delicious…if only they were easier to chew on and get the meat off of.  I admitted defeat after barely gnawing away some of the meat and tendon.

Look at that time stamp. March 31st 2010! I’m more than two weeks behind…so frigging lazy. $9 each for the soup, rice and kimchi. If I were in the area and hungry, I’d definitely come here again. However, I think I’ll stick to Seoul Doogbaegi as it’s closer and offers a little bit more for a little bit less.