As part of our recent couple quest and as our Valentine's Day dinner, my husband and I went to Bon Ga Korean Restaurant in Surrey. I've always love the spicing of Korean food, so I wanted to see if I could make it work as a restaurant choice for our keto lifestyle. Even though this review is specifically for Bon Ga, I think you can probably apply the keto mindset within this post to other traditional Korean restaurants as the food is pretty consistent with the country's food in general.
Keto Choices at Bon Ga Korean Restaurant
The best choice on the menu, and one of things we ordered on our recent visit was the spicy pork backbone stew. It sounds really weird if you’re not from a culture that uses those kinds of parts of the animal, but it produced one of the most delicious bone broths either of us had ever tasted. Plus, the meat still on the huge chunks of spinal column was moist and delicious, and well worth taking the time to pick it out using our chopsticks. Other than the spinal column pieces and the broth, most of the stew was veggies. There were a couple of potato pieces but they weren't prominent and you can easily eat around them if you want to avoid the carbs. The dish, and all of the main hot pot style dishes, are served with little plates of pickles like kimchi, green beans, daikon, even some sausage pieces. They also brought a bowl of rice that we didn't eat, but they were so nice that I suspect that I ask them to swap it out for more pickles, they probably would.
As for other good options, any of the stew or soup hot pots on the menu that say they come with rice seem to come with rice on the side, which makes it easy not to eat or perhaps to swap it out for some pickles instead if you ask nicely. Some promising options include: grilled mackerel and soybean paste soup, black goat soup, sticky fish roe soup, beef tripe and vegetables in soup, blood sausage soup, beef short rib soup, hot stone bulgogi soup bibimbap with soup, beef tartare bibimbap with soup. For any of the bibimbap, check if they come with noodles before ordering and if it does, ask for no noodles.
Many of the pork and beef options would also make good keto choices, like stir fried pork belly and vegetables, pig's trotter and medicinal herbs, steamed pork slices and medicinal herbs, LA-style grilled beef ribs, etc. Please note that many Korean dishes are spicy so make sure you ask about the spice level is you're not down with hot stuff.
Not-So-Keto Options
You might get tempted to go for the legendary Korean fried chicken. We certainly were. We ordered the Padak fried chicken, on the recommendation of the waitress who couldn't say enough good things about it. It was topped with a mountain of green onions and served on a nice sauce. It was crispy and delicious... but not the most keto-friendly choice. As with most Korean fried chicken recipes, the batter is made of some sort of flour, either corn, potato or wheat, then double fried, likely in not the best for you oil as is the standard with restaurants. And it's not a small amount of batter either. What's worse was that it was sooooo good. If you're not keto, definitely give a try if you're not too worried about the costs to your health. But if you are trying to stick to keto, I would stay away from any fried battered wings at Korean restaurants.
Obviously you want to avoid anything where noodles, dumplings or rice are the main star of the dish or are incorporated into the dish, though some dishes (like bibimbap) you might be able to ask to have made without noodles.
Bon Ga Korean Restaurant for Your Keto Lifestyle
With their strong focus on fatty meats in hot pots or on grills, and their tendency to serve rice on the side with their dishes, Bon Ga is a solid choice for those looking keto-friendly options. Their service was great, even on a busy Valentine's Day evening. Our whole meal, sharing a single small spicy backbone soup (served with various pickles, etc) and a small serving of wings left us full and satisfied for only $30 so it's also good value for money.
Have you tried Korean restaurants on the keto diet? If so, what other dishes might you suggest trying? Please share in the comments so we can all benefit from your experiences.
