20 May Seoul Metro, Melbourne CBD

Seoul Metro is a small restaurant located right next to the carpark on Lonsdale St, near the corner with Elizabeth St. The entrance passageway is quite inconspicuous and would likely be missed if not for the colourful signage board on the sidewalk.

I couldn’t find any information online about their opening hours, so I assumed it would close its lunch service at 2pm. My last uni activity before lunch went overtime by over 30 minutes and I was concerned I wouldn’t make it. Fortunately Seoul Metro stays open until after dinner, changing the over menus at 4pm.

I know I said last time I should be trying the beef bibimbap so I can compare the different restaurants, but who could pass up seafood when it’s the same price? Other options were chicken, pork, veg and kimchi, all of which are $9.50.

The décor of the restaurant was cosy, clean and colourful and it had an open kitchen. The seafood in my bibimbap consisted of (a) prawn, mussels, baby octopus and calamari. Other ingredients were spinach, taugeh, carrot, sliced tau ki (I think) and a sprinkle of sesame seeds and seaweed strips. A squeezy bottle of gochujang was provided. I’m still not very good at judging the freshness of all types seafood, but I do know the prawn was very fresh.

The sauce used to cook the seafood was very tasty, and to my delight, the rice was crispy at the bottom! Not as crispy as Soul Seoul, but definitely better than White Tomato. Overall the flavour was also much better than the White Tomato offering and best of all, it was cheaper too.

NB: I apologise for the poor quality of photos. Not sure what happened

Seoul Metro
380 Lonsdale St
Melbourne, VIC, 3000
(03) 9078 3778