'Korea meets Ikea' is how one guest described Jin Luo Bao Korean Restaurant. With a spacious, brightly lit interior and robin egg-blue leatherette banquettes contrasting with the dark wood partitions, it didn't resemble any other Korean restaurant we'd ever been to.
I asked my Korean guest to pick some of the more unusual dishes from the menu which offered all the favourites. We decided on smoked beef wrapped with vegetables ($220), a casserole of spicy kimchee, dumplings, rice cake and vegetables ($250), 'Cha chang noodle rice' ($95), which my friend says is popular at Chinese restaurants in Korea, and stonepot rice (bi bim pap, $100).
The smoked beef with vegetables was unique. The cold, seared, thinly sliced beef was laid out on the perimeter of a large white platter. In the centre was a large mound of raw julienned vegetables - cabbage, red pepper, onion and an unusual fresh herb, which the manager told us was 'sesame lettuce'. The waitress methodically took each slice of cold beef and wrapped it around the vegetables - a reversal of what we usually expect in Korean restaurants, where the lettuce is wrapped around the hot, grilled meat. The salad bundles were light and refreshing.
When the waitress set the casserole on our table, we immediately tried to cancel the rest of our meal - it was a huge vat of bubbling broth, thick with ingredients. The waitress rushed off, saying we could cancel the dishes only if the cooks hadn't already prepared them. Too late - she came back almost immediately with the noodles, and soon after the stonepot rice followed. Despite the casserole's plethora of ingredients, the broth didn't have much flavour, and most of it stayed in its pot.
The 'noodle rice' wouldn't be out of place at a Shanghainese restaurant. The brown sauce, studded with dried mushrooms and fatty pork, was rich and savoury, although too thick with cornstarch. The rice was excellent, with lots of crunchy burnt bits from the bottom of the pot.
For the most part, service was attentive. A large meal for three was $800.