Don Day, Edmonton, AB - Tasty authentic Korean hot pot!

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Rating Serice 7.5/10, Food 8/10
It was another one of those crisp chilly days where the weather couldn’t decide if it wants to be spring or dump some more snow and misery onto us. We decided to beat it by heading out to Don Day for some hot pot, hot stone dol sot bi bim bap and some Korean style BBQ ribs. Tucked away in a tinny tiny strip mall right beside a dentist, the décor is spartan with some random rainbow hued posters, but there was some yummy scents coming from the kitchen!



We had headed here before, and what a difference it made to service when we had a friend along that spoke Korean! Anyways, pics from that review were chewed up by a picture corrupting monster, so we took along the nice SRL into this forage! We ordered a few items on top of 3 hot pots as the hot pots cook at the table, and we can have food to nosh on while things cooked. Kimchi and a tangy seaweed salad was served to start. And if you like kimchi, don’t be afraid to ask for more!

The Seafood Pancake was tasty, medium thickness and a smattering of fresh seafood throughout.

Fellow foodies agreed that the thin seafood loaded seafood pancake from Wing Chix was superior to this one, but it was nice, warm and egg-y and loaded with green onions.

The regular BBQ beef ribs were decent the last time we had them, so this time around, we ordered the chili version. That was a mistake. It was thickly coated in the sweet-spicy hot sauce that’s usually squirted on bi bim bap. Sadly, the sauce completely masked any BBQ flavor.

The dol sot bi bim bap as good, with the standard rice, cabbage, beef, bean sprouts and raw egg yolk in a hot stone pot… and served with a bottle of the sweet chili sauce that coated the chili ribs.

the HOTPOTS

These were the highlight of our meal. First up was the Pork Bone Hot Pot. This is available as a smaller serving for two, but its all cooked up in the kitchen rather than at the table.. big serving = better! Generous chunks of tender meaty pork bones add lots of savory flavor to this hot pot brimming with vegetables and aromatic Korean sesame. This is a more robust and complex version than the one at Wing Chicx.  This one is fun to simmer down the vegetables as the pork bones are fully cooked after being the base for the slightly spicy broth. Yummmm!

The Spicy Noodle Hot Pot took a bit longer to cook as most uncooked ingredients was stacked up neatly to bubble away at the table. A hard boiled egg, potato noodles, starchy rice sticks, some vegetables, lots of green onions, an instant noodle and some fried fish skin all sink down into a red spicy spicy broth.

How our Spicy noodle hot pot look after everything was cooked – we had to eat quickly as after this point, the broth just kept reducing, and with all the starchy ingredients, it made for mushy noodles and very thick broth when we waited too long chatting and trying other things around the table.

The Seafood Hot Pot was much more forgiving than the spicy noodle hot pot – both in terms of spiciness and let it boil-away-ability. This hot pot was mainly loaded up with an assortment of fresh vegetables and then topped with a handful of seafood in a light savory broth. Some of us at the table would have preferred more seafood to vegetables ratio, but it was still a filling and satisfying dish.

the VERDICT

Overall, a great little place to for authentic style Korean hot pot, perfect for keeping chilly Old Man Winter away!  There’s a bit of work that needs to be done in some of their other dishes, but we’ll be definitely returning for the simple but tasty hotpots!

Don Day

Address 3212 Parsons Road, Edmonton, AB, T6N1B3

Phone 780-469-9963

Hours Open Tues-Sun for lunch and dinner, Closed Mondays

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