Wang Ga Ma: Authentic Korean soups in Coquitlam
It’s soup season because Vancouver is getting hella cold 🥶 and there’s nothing like a hearty bowl of soup to comfort the depression that lies within my heart 🙃.
One of my favourite OG spots for Korean soups is Wang Ga Ma in the Lougheed/Coquitlam area. The Lougheed area has been known by locals to kind of be the “K-town” of Vancouver and thus it has a lot of authentic Korean restaurants scattered around here. Personally, we like to come to Wang Ga Ma for an affordable and warm dinner before we walk to H-mart across the street and drop $300 on groceries 💸.
This blog post is a review based off of multiple experiences – this is one of our usual go-to spots!
Wang Ga Ma
329 North Rd, Coquitlam, BC V3K 3V8
The vibe
The interior of Wang Ga Ma is pretty spacious and well lit with wooden booths that can fit families or large groups. Service is always quick and their menu consists of different soups and some special meat dishes – no frills and simple.
As mentioned before, we come here often but here are a couple of items we love to order and keep coming back for.
Food review
Prices are in CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar for simplicity.
Bbeodagi-gamjatang ($17)
What is gamjatang? This is a spicy pork bone soup made with pork spine, potato, veggies, green onion, hot peppers and ground wild sesame seeds.
This soup is hefty, I tell you! And that is because of these huge chunks of pork spine so yes, a part of these are bones, but the other parts is this very tender pork meat. It literally falls off the bone with your chopstick if you just take some time to poke it apart – lots of protein in this soup and the spiciness really hits the spot on a cold rainy day.
The potatoes and veggies also just load up this soup with even more heartiness – very filling.
Seafood tofu soup ($17)
Sometimes I switch between the seafood tofu soup and just the regular kimchi tofu soup ($16.50). But since it’s less than $1 more for seafood, I usually end up ordering the seafood tofu soup instead of the kimchi tofu soup.
If I am not feeling as ravenous to eat all that pork bone, then this tofu soup is my next go-to order. It has soft tofu, seafood like mussel and shrimp, veggies, mushrooms, onion, scallions, chilli powder and gochujang cooked in a hot stone pot. Again, the spiciness gives me that kick in my heart on a cold day and I love soft tofu in my soup.
All the soups come with rice cooked in a hot stone bowl also!
Dolsot bibimbap ($17)
Our next favourite thing to order is their bibimbap. If you watched Culinary Wars on Netflix, you must know the famous speech by Iron Chef Edward Lee where he talks about how he is a “bibimbap man” 🥺.
Bibimbap means “mixed rice”. Bibimbap is served on a very hot stone bowl and the main ingredients are beef, sautéed and seasoned veggies, and gochujang (chili pepper paste).
The bibimbap here at Wang Ga Ma is always so satisfying. First of all, it is quite big! Second, after mixing the gochujang and all the ingredients together, we like to leave it in the hot stone bowl for awhile and near the end of our meal, we get some crunchy crispy rice that is so delicious 😋. We find that we are not always able to make crispy rice at some restaurants because the stone bowl is just not hot enough, but we are always able to make some at the bottom at Wang Ga Ma.
This is also super tasty the next day if you have leftovers.
Bossam ($33)
One of my favourite Korean dishes is bossam, which is boiled and thinly sliced pork belly 😍. You pair it with some boiled cabbage leaves, radish kimchi, green onions and make yourself a little wrap with the ssamjang sauce – so yums!
This is a pretty big main dish to share so I would recommend only ordering it if you have at least 2 people (do not order this to eat alone).
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Wang Ga Ma is one of my favourite spots to go for a casual dinner on a rainy day. They offer authentic Korean food with a specialization in soups and prices are very reasonable (soups are mostly under $20). My Korean friends can also vouch for this place!
Sincerely, Loewe