SONAMOO – Authentic Korean Restaurant run by South Korean Lady (Kolkata)
K-pop and K-drama are taking over the world and we all know that. South Korea has developed a huge fan base all over the world and India is also included in this fan base. In recent years, a lot of Indians have developed a liking towards K-drama and K-pop. You might be surprised to see how huge the Indian BTS army is. And I am not any different. I started watching K-dramas back in my college days and started liking them alot. The language barrier is definitely a drawback but the subtitles solve it. And eventually you will start understanding few Korean words, I think every K-drama/ K-pop fan can understand few basic korean words like – “annyeong” (Hello) , “kamsahamnida” (Thank you) , “saranghae” (I love you) , “Chingu” (Friends) etc.
From K-drama I also developed a liking for Korean food and always wanted to try Korean food. And been searching for a Korean Cuisine restaurant for ages now. And very recently stumbled upon this Korean restaurant named SONAMOO, located in the New Town area of Kolkata. I booked the restaurant almost immediately, because I got to know that the restaurant is run by a South Korean lady herself.
My first opinion of the restaurant was that it was very small, cosy and homely. The restaurant has very minimal sitting arrangement. You can see a lot of traditional Korean things used for the decor. And the food is cooked by the owner herself. The first thing we tried there was Korean fried chicken which was amazing.
The fried chicken was covered in a sweet & spicy sauce topped with roasted sesame seeds. Oh! The flavours were so amazing, first it will give a sweet taste and you will think “I could have ordered a spicier version” and right then the spice will hit you which builds up slowly and it finishes with a very addictive after taste of roasted sesame. I would suggest sticking to medium spicy if you are a spice lover and be prepared for a sweet kick of it, which is nice in the starting but by the end the sweetness might feel a bit too much. Overall, I would suggest you try the dish at least once.
Next dish we got was Jumbo prawn tempura which was mind blowing. I would recommend ordering that for sure. The prawns were huge, so crunchy and yet the batter felt so light, especially with the soy based sauce served with it. The sauce complemented the prawn tempura perfectly. I felt like I could go on eating those. Even those prawns were not only deep fried in tempura batter but were also marinated in some kind of spice before being fried. If you ever go to Sonamoo, do not miss ordering Jumbo prawn tempura.
Next we got salmon sushi rolls. Which was again very nice. While ordering I thought we will be getting usual sushi rolls but turns out these were fried. I personally felt frying the rolls was unnecessary, but you might think it otherwise as well, this is a matter of choice i believe. The taste was not compromised at all, In Fact many might like the fried sushi roll because it added a good crunch factor to the dish. So, do try it yourself and decide for yourself. Apart from these starters we also ordered three different main courses those were Bulgogi, Bokkeum-Bap and Dak galbi.
All these three dishes come with a good portion size of rice. Which were spicy and super savoury. You can go for a spicy, medium spicy or low spicy version of these dishes. I would suggest going for medium spice level for the spice lovers. Go for the spicy version only if you are doing any kind of spice challenge within yourself, because it will hurt you for sure.
After having this authentic Korean food experience, I intend to visit the restaurant once again because there’s still a lot of dishes I wish to try. They serve Korean, Chinese and Japanese cuisine. I would suggest being a bit patient because the serving time can be slow because the lady manages the cooking all by herself. So, do keep free time in hand before going there. Also, pre order the dishes if you think you wouldn’t have much time to spare or even to get a better experience. A lot of these dishes need pre-marination and they make the dishes from scratch only after you order it. Which can be time consuming but very reliable in terms of quality. So, pre-ordering your dishes will give you way more better experience. Also, if you are a K-drama, K-Pop or korean cuisine fan, do ask them about their hidden drink menu. You might be in for a surprise (wink).
Luckily I also managed to meet the owner herself, who is such a sweet lady and loves to feed people. She is such an energetic lady and gives a very welcoming vibe. Apparently this lady is struggling to keep up and survive on a foreign land, and yet she will meet you with such high spirit. Also, the cutest thing I noticed about her is that she gets very sad watching wastage of food.
To end this blog, I would definitely recommend trying this place out, pre- order some of your food if not all to avoid waiting and be a little patient in case of delay because you will surely not regret the food you will get. I am definitely going there again very soon. I will provide you the address and the contact number of the place below:
ADDRESS : 3rd floor, Galaxy market, Bengal GreenField Heights,
Galaxy Mall in, New Town, West Bengal 700156
CONTACT : +918336998681
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