We’ve found a hidden gem.

Mr.Bro Korean Bistro and Izakaya is located on the famous “Wai Sek Gai”, aka “Food Street” in Cantonese, in Richmond. It’s on the second floor of a strip mall near the end of the street and is a small, cozy restaurant that only has 10 odd tables.

We stumbled upon this eatery through our social media search and wanted to try something new. Luckily for us, it turned out to be a great choice. Since it was snowing that day, we would usually have opted for piping hot soups, but instead, we ordered cheesy egg rolls, stone plate grill beef tongue, and cheesy kimchi fried rice. We tried a few other items as well, but there are still many more that we want to try the next time we visit.

The owner was extremely friendly and accommodating, as we had to split our seats into 2 tables given the smaller space in the eatery. He also gave us an extra treat for each table — baked creamed corn and cheese for one table and the other got crispy sweet and sour fried chicken with rice cake. Both dishes were delicious.

Let’s recap some of our favorite recommended dishes.

The stone plate grilled beef tongue is made at your table and the waitress grills the beef tongue for you, with a delicious slab of butter, to ensure the beef tongue is piping hot and tasty. The texture of the beef tongue is soft and firm, easy to bite through, and melts in your mouth with the butter. Even though this dish is a little bit pricey at $25, we feel it was worth it given how delicious it was.

The meat here is really fresh, and we ordered both the steak tartare and the steak tartare sushi, and the fresh tartare did not require any seasoning to cover up the scent of the meat. Some tartare dishes would use strong herbs to balance out the meat scent, but the freshness here ensured that you could just eat it fresh and be surprised at the delicate, almost sweet flavor of the raw beef.

Did we mention the cheesy egg rolls? This item would be a must-have for cheese lovers, as is the Kimchi cheese fried rice. Just imagine stringy cheese mixed in with the steaming hot fried rice — ah, so satisfying.

Another delicious dish we must mention would be the spicy stir-fried beef layered on top of fried soft tofu. This would be the perfect savory snack to go with a refreshing beef or soju. Meat lovers would also rejoice that Mr.Bro has tasty Bossam (pork belly lettuce wraps), a hearty dish balanced out with pickled vegetables and commonly seen in Korean dramas for all the K-drama fans out there. The key is to pop the lettuce wrap in your mouth all at once!

For those who love Korean food, we recommend making a visit to Richmond to Mr.Bro. We can’t wait until we go back and try the other menu items! We suggest calling to make a reservation ahead of time, as there are limited seats and gets really busy on weekends.

Visit

Mr.Bro Korean Bistro and Izakaya

(604) 284-5596

8580 Alexandra Rd #2000, Richmond, BC