Hey Hive!
Even though there are still people getting covid, it's basically being treated like a cold these days so thankfully almost everything is back to normal now! There are no more restrictions on dining these days and you don't even have to wear a mask anymore if you don't want to! It's a huge relief and this allows us to try out different food places again!
I'd been craving for some gimbap ever since our trip to Seoul back in November 2022, and I guess my phone heard me since I started getting ads for this gimbap restaurant called Rolling Rice! It looked pretty good and the prices were quite reasonable so back in April I asked some of my viewers from my Twitch community if they wanted to meet up and try this place.
If you've seen my art posts you might've known that I've been streaming on Twitch for a while now. And since I had some souvenirs to pass to my viewers we thought it'd be cool if we all went out for a meal together again! The restaurant was located in town too, so it'd be convenient to meet up in a central location.
We met up for lunch on a Saturday afternoon so it was fairly crowded but thankfully there wasn't a line when I arrived. The restaurant itself looked pretty nice and modern, with lots of wood furnishings complemented by black leather seats and metal chairs.
There was a counter at the entrance of the restaurant with the menu on it but there was also a podium for the people waiting. The counter kinda reminded me of a cafe, but I guess it's more for people walking pass to see the types of food they offered at a glance.
At the podium, the menu had some instructions for how they operate. It seems like it's mostly self-service since you order at the counter and take your food at the collect counter when it's ready. You can also collect free side dishes if you purchase above a certain amount. I guess because it's self-service here there's no service charge which makes it more affordable.
For the menu, they had quite a range of different types of Korean food other than the gimbap buta number of side dishes of fried stuff and kimchi pancakes you could order separately but of course the main item is definitely their selection of Baby Rolls. They have so many different flavours with different types of meat and seafood, of course the traditional gimbap and also a vegetable roll for vegetarians.
Other items on the menu include popular Korean dishes like Bibimbap, Bulgogi, Kimchi Stew and Dak-Galbi:
They also had Topokki (Korean rice cake) as well as the famous Korean fried chicken:
They had a number of noodle dishes as well, with different types meat and toppings.
And lastly some fried rice dishes:
Since it was the first meal for all of us, we decided to get a main each and a few of the Baby Rolls to share. I ordered by scanning a QR code on the table and once it was sent they gave us a beeper so we would know when our food was ready to be collected from the counter, where you could also get a number seasonings and the free side dishes.
Source: Happycow
After about 15 minutes, our food was ready to be collected! We ordered 4 different types of Baby Rolls - Fried Prawn Roll, Homemade Pork Cutlet Roll, Bacon and Kimchi Roll, and Crispy Chicken Roll. Each comes in 8 pieces so it was easy to split between us.
I also ordered their special - Sizzling Stone Pot Bibimbap, which is one of their best sellers. If you're unfamiliar with bibimbap it's basically rice mixed with a lot of different vegetables but you also have an option for meat, either beef, chicken, pork or tofu. I chose chicken in this case, and the pot was hot and sizzling when it was ready - it smelled so good!
One of my friends chose noodles for his main - Kimchi Egg Ramen. It looked and smelled pretty good too, but I think the kimchi might've been too strong since he did say it became too sour after a while and I agreed after tasting it.
My other friend ordered the vegetarian bibimbap which I guess was the same as mine just in a different bowl. It's rice mixed with red carrot, white carrot, bean sprout, shiitake mushroom, cucumber, seaweed and romaine lettuce. He also had the option to add chicken or beef but if he wanted pork or tofu there would be an extra charge.
Initially I felt like I should've just ordered the normal bibimbap as well since ours was pretty similar but I think mine was a bigger portion and he had a fried egg while mine was more raw.
Either way, I did enjoy the bibimbap a lot! It tasted just like the one I had in Seoul; but I guess bibimbap isn't that hard to replicate since it's mostly rice and vegetables. The veggies tasted fresh and healthy, and the sizzling stone pot helped to fry the egg a little too so it kinda became fried rice after I mixed it all up. It was so tasty and I didn't even need to add any extra seasonings.
Of the gimbap that we ordered, there were some that stood out more than others for sure. The Homemade Pork Cutlet was pretty average imo, and might've been a little dry.
The fried chicken one was quite good and was nice and crispy. The fried prawn was pretty good too although it did have a lot of tartar sauce and it was a little overpowering at times.
I think my favourite was the Bacon Kimchi Roll though. It was a little more moist compared to the others because of the kimchi but it had a nice spice kick to it and the saltiness from the bacon complemented it quite well! It gave me some spice to add to my bibimbap.
Overall, it was definitely a very filling meal! I was already almost too full from my bibimbap so thankfully the gimbap pieces weren't too big.
We had a good time catching up and talking about stuff while eating and after about an hour or so we left the restaurant. Although some of the gimbap was quite average, I think overall their Korean food is pretty good! I haven't really eaten much Korean food in Singapore so I can't really comment on the standard here compared to other restaurants but it was a good meal nonetheless.
If you have a hankering for Korean food or need a good vegetarian option while shopping in town, I'd recommend checking out Rolling Rice!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
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Posted via foodiesunite.net