[Dongmen/東門] Xu Luo Fa Korean Restaurant - 徐羅伐

[Dongmen/東門] Xu Luo Fa Korean Restaurant - 徐羅伐

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Address: 台北市大安區永康街14巷5號 No. 5, Lane 14, Yongkang St, Daan District, Taipei City, Taiwan

Phone Number: 02-2358-1211

Opening Hours: 11:30-14:00 and 17:00-22:00

Directions: Take the red MRT line to Dongmen Station (東門) and walk out of the exit that leads to YongKang Street, walk straight on YongKang Street for 3-4 minutes until you see Aveda (the haircare products store) and then turn right at the small intersection where Aveda is, walk for 1 minute and you will be there!

  

Good Korean restaurants in Taiwan are surprisingly hard to find! My friends and I were craving Korean so we went to Xu Luo Fa to get our fix.

Xu Luo Fa is conveniently situated in Dongmen and it is very accessible. Once you have finished dinner, there are plenty of dessert places to choose from to satisfy your sweet tooth too!

It was our first time trying Xu Luo Fa, some of the dishes were very tasty but others left us disappointed and didn't fulfil our craving. Let's see how we rated each dish!

[Complimentary Starters - 韓式小菜] - Free

 

The starters at Korean restaurants are always free and you begin with five small starters at Xu Luo Fa. They are not refillable (which is pretty disappointing because some Korean restaurants in Taipei have refillable starters).

The kimchi was my favourite because while it is spicy, it is not too overpowering that you can't feel your tongue afterwards. It had the right amount of spice, so even those who can't eat spicy very well could eat this kimchi too!

Out of the 5 starters, 3 are considered spicy as you can tell from the picture above however, the spiciness level is not that high therefore, people who eat minimum spice could eat these starters too. I really liked that about the starters.

[Dukbokki - Spicy Rice Cake - 韓式辣炒年糕] - $250

I loved, loved, LOVED this dish!! It was my favourite dish out of everything we ordered. Why? Because I have tried plenty of dukbokki since I have been back in Taipei but they are either cooked with Taiwanese spices or the rice cake does not fully infused with the sauce so you are technically just tasting bland rice cake. I had been disappointed in the quality of dukbokki in Taipei until I FOUND THIS PLACE :D!

Xu Luo Fa's dukbokki is soft but chewy and it completely encompasses the taste of the sauce in each rice cake. It is spicy and sweet at the same time which is what a good dukbokki should have and I think it is very authentic as it tastes just as good as the ones I had in Korea! 

The sauce has a nice, thick consistency which allows the rice cake and fishcakes to fully soak in the sauce. This dish is spicy so I wouldn't recommend those who don't eat spicy to order this dish.

I would go back in the future JUST for this dish; that is how good I think this dish is.


[Seafood and Egg Pancake - 徐羅伐煎餅 (海鮮+蛋)] - $250

They had several options of seafood pancake available: normal seafood pancake; seafood with kimchi pancake; or seafood and egg pancake. We chose seafood and egg and this dish lived up to our expectations!

The pancake contained a lot of seafood and was compact but fluffy. The egg gave it an extra crunch outside. I really liked the crunch added with the fluffiness inside the pancake. I want to try the seafood kimchi pancake next time to see if it will be equally as good without the egg on the outside.


[Mixed kBBQ Beef Platter - 綜合牛肉拼盤] - $1,300

We drooled when we saw this platter, it had a mixture of the best beef for BBQ and it was accompanied by rice cake and mushroom. They cooked the beef for us but it was slightly overcooked at some points.

The type of beef shown above in this picture was not marinated enough so for us, it lacked the taste that a normal kBBQ should have in their beef. Whenever I ate this beef, I had to slather it in the red spicy sauce that they gave you to pair it with the lettuce for it to have taste. The sauce makes up for the blandness from the taste of the beef.



On the other hand, the galbi (ribs) were very well marinated and were easy to chew as well. The fat wasn't hard and the sauce in which it was marinated in gave it a sweet and salty flavour. Overall, I found the galbi enjoyable however, there was slightly too much fat on the beef.


[Seolleongtang and Rice - Ox Bone Soup and Rice - 牛骨湯] - $200

The Ox Bone Soup comes with complimentary rice. The rice that they use is healthier than white rice but, don't worry, it has the exact same taste! As a rice-lover, I really liked the rice and it goes really well with the BBQ beef and Spicy Rice Cake.

My friend taught me that with Ox Bone Soup, you have to flavour it with pepper or salt or else there is absolutely no taste to the soup (it's true, I tried it without putting salt or pepper in at first).



We added A LOT of salt to this soup and because the soup wasn't hot enough, the salt didn't fully melt so once we finished scooping up the top layer of soup, the bottom layer of the soup was really salty.

For me, this dish didn't do it for me, the soup was just slightly tasteless even with salt added into it and it wasn't hot enough while we were drinking it. I like my soup to be really hot when it reaches the table so I was really disappointed when it was warm soup that I drank.


[Overall Thoughts]


I thought the atmosphere in the restaurant was not too bad because it was decorated in a korean style with wooden flooring, chairs and tables and ginseng bottles on display on the walls.

The smoke from the BBQ didn't cling onto our clothes and deliverance of the food was pretty fast as our food came within 15 minutes.

There is the one-hour-and-a-half seating limit at this restaurant, like a lot of restaurants in Taipei, but you can finish your meal plenty within that time.

Xu Luo Fa have also opened a shop opposite where you can buy their spicy rice cake in frozen packets, I am definitely going to get me some next time I go!

All in all, I thought most of their dishes were pretty good and would definitely go again for their spicy rice cake.

Please comment below or follow my blog to let me know what food you guys would like to see me blogging and what type of cuisine you are looking for in Taipei so I can help give recommendations to you guys!

Hope you all liked this post :)!