HWARO Korean BBQ + Raw Bar: Korean barbecue in Coquitlam

HWARO Korean BBQ + Raw Bar is a Korean restaurant located inside Henderson Mall in Coquitlam. I came here for dinner as a group of 10 and this review is based off an in-dining experience back in December.

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Interior

The restaurant is very big. They have an interesting spiral wall inside and the general feel is that it is quite modern. Tables are seated far apart and every table has ventilation on top.

Since we are a large group, we are given a private room. The table comes with 2 circle grills on each end of the table.

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Food

We order their BBQ combo, which is available all day. To order the combo, you will need a minimum of 2 people and they cost around $22-39 per person depending on the combo you choose.

We choose to order the Hwaro combo B and the premium beef combo B.

Hwaro combo B ($22 per person)

The Hwaro combo B is for 4 people minimum and costs $22 per person. It comes with a variety of appetizers and BBQ items.

Premium beef combo B ($35 per person)

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The premium beef combo B is for 2 people minimum and costs $35 per person. It comes with the following items.

The big difference between these 2 combos is that we get the cocktail shrimp and assorted pancakes for the starters, plus a whole different set of beef meats in the BBQ items.

The starters taste pretty average. The green salad at least is big portions, but some other starters were disappointing. For example, I feel like the cocktail shrimp has a sad attempt to make it look fancy when it’s only 4 2 pieces of shrimp:

The assorted pancake was really strange and looked very dough-y. It was more of a yellow colour and not a nice crispy/brown on the outside. The soybean paste soup was also too salty for my liking.

The meats tasted yummy even though all of the beef were non-marinated. The strange thing is that they didn’t give us any sauce to dip the meat in, which usually Korean bbq restaurants do offer.

For dessert, we got a scoop of ice cream each but the premium combo came with a miso creme brulee – interesting but not something I would order again.

Additional appetizers

On top of these combos, we ordered additional appetizers for the table.

Assorted tartare ($21)

The assorted tartare comes with 2 kinds of tartare – beef and tuna. The beef tartare looks tasty and similar to a classic plating – love the egg yolk on top. The tuna tartare looked strange to me because of how pink the colour is – almost grapefruit colour.

Tuna sashimi ($17)

This appetizer was disappointing and gave me the same vibes as the shrimp cocktail. Again, I feel like they plated it very strangely (what are those dots for all the way over there?) and tried to make it look fancy. The taste wasn’t there.

Wild mushroom japchae ($15)

I love japchae and this one was not bad because they tried to modernize it with different ingredients. They use potato glass noodles, beef, onion, pepper and 3 different types of mushrooms – shitake, shimeji and portabella. The menu says they add cured egg yolk as well.

Still have a weird feeling about the plating – what is with the ring of sauce? A little unneccessary if you ask me.

Seafood pancake ($18)

The assorted pancake in the combos was strange, so I was glad to see the seafood pancake resembled more of what I am used to seeing. However I did feel strange again because I think they added corn to it, which is pretty unconventional. I also didn’t really like how largely they chopped the green onions.

Carbonara tteokbokki ($13)

This is a modern twist on the traditional spicy rice cakes with red sauce. Instead, they use carbonara sauce with bacon, broccoli and parmesan cheese. I also love the sous vide poached egg they added on top.

Really yummy appetizer and pretty plating and not too overwhelming.

Korean cold noodle ($11)

We like to end our Korean BBQs with a cold bowl of naengmyeon (cold noodle). Hwaro’s cold noodle is served in an iced beef broth with pear, cucumber and a boiled egg.

Everything tasted pretty normal except the noodles were more clumped together then we were used to.

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Final thoughts

I have mixed feelings about Hwaro. I feel like they have a lot of potential – great space, convenient location, enticing menu, reasonable prices – but the results don’t meet expectations. The food, simply put, isn’t as tasty as other Korean BBQ places. The attempts for modernized Korean food and fancy plating therefore fall short and feel unnecessary.

Service was slow even though it was not a full house. We were told they are understaffed and most of the servers were new so we didn’t make a big deal about it. I did feel bad for our 1 server and how heavy some of the plates seemed to be. He is a nice guy, but to be frank the service was slow so it is what it is.

I’d recommend you to still give Hwaro a try as they are always offering different promotions and coupons. Again, I think their menu is priced reasonably and I hope since my last experience, they’ve hired more staff and focused more on the food than the plating.

Sincerely, Loewe