Good Friends Restaurant: Korean Cafe

Every time I pass by North Road, I always see this Restaurant Called ‘Good Friends’ with a large green clover for their branding. It looked like it was for a younger hip crowd.

M, BusanGirl and I finished all our exams and was itching to get some food since 7-10pm exams are not very fun. Driving along North Road, there were not that many restaurant open late except for Korean Bars… M is not fond of Korean bars, so we headed to see if the Good Friends Restaurant was open.

Good Friends restaurant was deserted when we went. No staff were seen except when we looked into the kitchen. We rang a few bells at their front desk but no one seemed to hear, so M started calling out “juh gkee yoh” to get the waitresses attention. After calling for them about 3 times, she came out to seat us at the table.

We actually thought they were closed, but turns about they are open till midnight.  Soon after, more people showed up in the restaurants, so we were not the only ones.

Their menu is quite extensive, so it might take you a while to figure out what you want to order.

5 complementary side dishes arrived – bean sprouts, kimchi, zucchini, tofu, and radishes. Since they were closing soon, they also gave us complementary soup for everyone. It was spicy  fermented bean soup. (similar to Miso Soup, but with bean sprouts and other vegetables)

These are all bottomless, so it is refillable if you ask. They were all pretty average and nothing too spectacular.

We ordered the Nude Kimbap ($3.50). Its a normal Kimbap but just inside out so the rice is on the outside. There is also a bit of cabbage salad on the side.

We were actually surprised at how the roll was presented because we thought it would just presented poorly since the service was not that great. We enjoyed the roll, it held firmly and it was like any other kimbap roll.

Then we ordered Marinated Beef Kimbap ($3.99), this was exactly like the nude kimbap roll. There was nothing too special and it also tasted like a usual kimbap roll. Again it came with a side cabbage salad.

We also ordered the Hot Spicy Boneless Chicken with cheese ($13.99). This was fairly spicy! It was too much for me to handle, but for the Koreans, it was a piece of cake for them. This dish had rice cake, chicken, jalapenos, zucchini, and cheese.

This dish was good for the price, it was quite big. M was disappointed on the size of the chicken pieces. Since the main feature of this dish was chicken … there should have been more. The chicken was sparse, but there was a hearty amount of cheese.

Lastly, we ordered Fried Chicken (Half order $9.99). There was about 9 pieces and it was very interesting how it was SO HUGE for half an order. They come with dips – salt & pepper and a hot Korean standard for chicken BBQ sauce. You can choose to have your chicken in original or hot flavour. We just stuck with the original since I didn’t want my taste buds to suffer.

The outside was very nice and crispy, but the inside was not very juicy, which was a bit odd. For the price it was pretty good. M complained that there was no way to figure out which piece of the chicken one was eating. Even the drum stick was odd.

Overall, it was decent Korean food but not the best. If you are just wandering around late at night and looking for decent Korean food, this place is as good as any to go to.

Words of Wisdom:

• Open till midnight
• Large menu choices
• Free parking
• Average tasting Korean Food
• Poor service

We Rate Good Friends Restaurant:

Address:

535 Clarke Road
Coquitlam, BC