Ma chef Korean Restaurant
5818 111 St. NW (Lendrum Place Shopping Centre)
780-757-8889
Mon. to Thurs. 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. (Fri + Sat to 9:30 p.m., Sun to 8:30 p.m.)
Dinner for two, excluding beverages, tip and taxes: Basic, $30, loaded, $60
Food: 5 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Service: 4 of 5 Suns
No, that is not a typo.
The Weekly Dish’s food rating for Ma chef Korean Restaurant is a perfect five Suns out of five.
From this clean, cheerful Korean restaurant, in the Lendrum Place strip mall just up 111 Street from Southgate, you’d expect comfort food for sharing with family and friends.
Ma chef is that … and waaaaaay more.
All six diners in our party were flabbergasted at the superb quality of the dishes coming out of chef/owner Jung Ho (Jacky) Lee’s open kitchen.
Imagine, a strip-mall family-style restaurant, run by an unknown chef, producing a perfect meal!
The avocado and shrimp salad was a lesson in culinary construction. Big, cool, fresh shrimps interlocked with avocado slices to create a mini-tower, topped with crispy noodles.. Around the tower were cooled, cooked eggplant slices, covered in a delectable sauce. This, we said with raised eyebrows, is way more than expected.
The tofu appetizer was equally pleasing to the eye and mouth, two small tofu blocks in perfect balance, slightly crusted on the outside, soft and smooth in the interior. A superb, gently candied chili/sesame sauce seeped down its sides.
And then the piece de resistance, chef Jung Ho Lee’s “Rocky Mountain Bulgogi.”
The visual was again beautiful. The tender BBQ beef tidbits were piled high with a green-onion-strand topping. Various lightly cooked veggies served as foothills, splashing down into tofu and glass noodles submerged in broth.
Being a quiet evening, chef Jacky – as Jung Ho Lee prefers to be called – came table-side to ritually swirl his bulgogi “mountain” into the broth. Truly every bite was divine, and, as a family platter feeding six, good value at $37.
Ma chef’s bibimbap was in light contrast to the beef, a yin/yang if you like. On top of the mound of rice was a large dot of satisfying savoury red-pepper paste, just big enough to conceal the traditional poached egg nested in the rice.
To fill any possible remaining stomach space, out came Ma chef’s pork cutlet. Two tender pork medallions had been flattened, lightly breaded, delicately sautéed then decorated with a flourish of succulent gravy. Chef Jacky magically emerged at the table once again, to cut the breaded cutlet. The chef had no idea his restaurant was being reviewed. It was simply humble hospitality, a thank you for visiting his just months-old restaurant.
Dessert was sikhye, a sweet rice punch served in individual glasses, and patbingsu, a sweet red bean sherbet akin to the popular Filipino halo-halo.
Never have I enjoyed a Korean meal where every detail is so carefully attended to, where no shortcuts are taken, where every dish has an extra touch … all within a very normal price range. Take no shortcuts: By way of example, Chef Jacky sweats his Bulgogi-destined chopped onions for three hours over low heat, before adding them to the broth.
Chef Jacky worked in top kitchens the world over before realizing a dream of emigrating to Canada with his family. Formerly the executive chef at Kobe Japanese Bistro in Collingwood, this is his first independent venture.
We will return to Ma chef, not to review but to try Chef Jacky’s deep-fried whole tilapia (by special request, ask for it in advance), his cherrywood-smoked Korean steak tartare, and other dishes begging for exploration on Ma chef’s small but elegant menu.
FOOD NOTES
Every year, I make the same suggestion: Celebrate Valentine’s with a night out on ANY OTHER DAY but February 14!
On Valentine’s Day itself, even the best of restaurants settle for over-priced, pre-set, banquet-style, dull “romantic” dinners. If wine is included, it’ll be plonk, i.e. cheap, low quality.
Where to go? For a supremely special treat, how about other restaurants reviewed in this column that have earned a perfect 5 out of 5 Suns for food and have not stumbled since: RGE RD, Corso 32, Butternut Tree, Black Pearl (for shellfish) and Zinc.
Or take a boo at the Weekly Dish’s “where to eat in Edmonton” column published on July 30, 2019, with restaurant suggestions for all moods and tastes – edmontonsun.com/opinion/columnists/hicks-weekly-dish-where-to-eat-in-edmonton