Jeju Restaurant: Modern Korean food in Tofino
During my trip to Tofino this summer with friends, we checked out a new eatery named Jeju Restaurant because my friend really wanted to eat here. They are located in the bustling area of downtown Tofino and here is our experience.
We were a group of 12 adults (yes I have some friends 😌) and 4 dogs! Reservations were a must and we were seated on the cozy and heated outdoor patio. We did have to separate into 2 tables, but we were right next to each other. The patio basically fit exactly our group.
Recommended: Read about one of my favourite spots to eat in Tofino – the birthplace of Tacofino, the original food truck!
Jeju Restaurant
120 Fourth St #101, Tofino, BC V0R 2Z0
Food and drinks review
This is everything we ordered to share between my husband and I (2 people). Prices are in CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar for simplicity.
Some sort of sunshine cocktail ($18)
I don’t remember the name of this cocktail 😅 (and it is not on their online menu) but I remember it being $18. It looks unassuming and actually I was worried it would taste gross like a negroni or old fashion (it looks like that kind of cocktail 🤷🏻♀️), but it was actually very pleasant to drink!
I like my cocktails fruity but they have to be on the stronger side because I don’t want something too sweet like juice. I felt this was a perfect combination of that because it had a really smooth kick of strong alcohol, and then a citrus after-taste.
Spot prawn ($24)
So I was quite impressed with this appetizer when it came out because I really liked the way it was presented 😍. I felt it was very sophisticated and looked like fine-dining.
The dish is a cold appetizer (like a ceviche)and has chunks of spot prawn meat, dill oil, orange vinaigrette and garlic aioli. It tasted light and refreshing and I really liked how all the flavours worked together. Although you can argue you don’t get alot of spot prawn in this dish, I think it was worth the $24 price tag because of its delicate flavours and presentation.
KFC Lettuce wraps ($23)
Our second dish was this K.F.C. (Korean fried chicken) lettuce wrap. The fried chicken is coated in this sweet and spicy gochujang sauce with pistachio (🤔?) sprinkled on top. As sides we have some cubes of pickled radish, a garlic aioli dipping sauce, and lettuce for us to make our own wraps.
I thought $23 for chicken lettuce wraps is on the pricey side, but upon arrival I felt the price was ok. The fried chicken was a decent portion and it was actually fried really well with a great crunch. The sweet & spicy gochujang sauce was also quite good but definitely more spicy than sweet (pistachios offered little value in my opinion).
I also appreciated how nicely prepared the lettuce wraps were – each piece was a good size to make a wrap and none of them were wilting or ripped anywhere.
Bibimbap ($25)
For our 3rd and final dish, we wanted something that can “fill us up” because we didn’t think the first 2 dishes would suffice. So we chose to order a carb, the bibimbap dish. Bibimbap is a Korean-mixed rice bowl.
Jeju’s bibimbap comes with seasonal veggies, egg, gochujang and bulgogi (marinated beef). It was in a pretty big bowl, but I have to say I was disappointed it didn’t come in an authentic Korean stone bowl 😕. For the price of $25, I think it should be and that way the rice can also get crispy from the heat left in the stone bowl.
Regardless, we mixed up the bibimbap and they also suggested us to use their special soy sauce also instead of just mixing it with regular gochujang. The taste is pretty average, even with the addition of their special sauce, and again it leaned towards the spicy side.
Japchae ($26)
Our friend ordered a japchae and we tried some of it so I’m including it in this post.
Upon appearance, it looks pretty good and very colourful. The sweet potato noodles are stir-fried and have a nice chewy texture. The seasonal veggies are good (taste as expected) but they did add pork loin in here which usually japchae does not have it.
I actually felt the addition of pork loin here made it seem more like a fusion dish vs. an authentic Korean japchae.
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐⭐
We had a fun dinner at Jeju Restaurant but I do have some mixed feelings about the food and pricing here.
On one hand, everything we ordered was delicious and prepared well – I don’t have any complaints about the taste of the food. On the other hand, I do think we are spoiled in Vancouver to have really good Korean food so I found a lot of dishes on Jeju’s menu to be questionably overpriced.
For example, 2 of their main star dishes include the galbi (Korean beef short ribs) and bossam (pork belly), but these 2 dishes cost $145 and $92 respectively 😱. Even though the menu says these dishes are for 2-3 people, I still think that is severely overpriced. For $145 you should be able to get a tomahawk steak instead of just galbi. Average price of bossam in Vancouver is also around $40 so I just couldn’t justify ordering either of these dishes even though it is their star menu item. Some of our friends did order the galbi and said it was really good though.
I feel like Jeju is a mix of Asian fusion and modern/contemporary Korean food. Looking at the way they plate the scallop and spot prawn appies, and even my friend’s bulgogi rice bowl was served with seaweed chips and truffle sauce – we can see that they try to add a twist to the dishes that you may not see in a traditional Korean restaurant.
I also noticed most of their dishes to tend to be more spicy than normal. Two of our friends actually couldn’t finish their tofu soup because they found it too spicy (I thought it was ok, but still spicier than other tofu soups I’ve had at other Korean restaurants).
If you are craving Korean food and are willing to pay a higher price tag than Vancouver spots, you should check out Jeju Restaurant in Tofino. They are likely the only Korean restaurant in Tofino.
Sincerely, Loewe