The Owl of Minerva

Compared to other Korean restaurants in the GTA, I have to say this place really falls short. I much prefer Kachi or even Nak Won :/
They really skimp out on the meat for the beef bibimbap…
Compared to the other locations of the owl, the food is about the same, and the service at this location is actually worse than the one downtown.
If you do go there, ask for the reward/​stamp card (gets you a free soup after 10 dishes or something like that)

Cold Canadian winter and hot Korean food is a match made in heaven.
It was freezing. We wanted food that made our bodies burn, so we went for hot (temperature) and spicy (taste) Korean food. Mom ordered a stone bowl bibimbap. I ordered a squid with rice, served on cast iron plate. There were 3 choices of spiciness: green chilli (mild), orange chilli (spicy), and red chilli (very spicy). I chose orange chilli. It was VERY spicy to me. Lesson learned: this location of Owl keeps the authentic level of Korean spiciness. There is no wimpy watered down spiciness here.
Now that I have gotten the warning out of the way, I can brag about the food. I love the spicy squid. It tasted devious. The squid was not over cooked. It was still soft. The sauce was rich. I loved mixing the sauce with the rice. My mom loved the bibimbap, though I thought the rice was a bit too soggy. I also wish they used better grain. Both entrées were well portioned.
This is a hole in a wall. Services was customary down to earth yet sufficient. There is no pretentious classiness or ambiance, and I like it just fine.

this is by far the worst owl of minerva i have been to. at first i liked their bibimbap but after trying other places i have come to realization this restaurant does no good in the bibimbap department. i tried the mandoo (steamed dumplings) and they were pretty alright, after a while (which didn’t take very long) they got cold and the outer layer become like rubbery hard) i also tried their kimchi jigae (SOUR AS HELL) and the seafood jigae (NOT VERY GOOD EITHER)
their side dishes were pretty standard, nothing special (i found a hair in my food x ()

The most bland and tasteless dish I’ve ever had. Ordered the beef hot stone bowl and it actually made me lose my appetite. The portion for the beef was literally a spoonful and the entire contents of it was so bland! It actually tasted like nothing. I couldn’t even finish it. $ 10 wasted.
My friend had the pork bone soup and she thought it was decent but said that other owl locations were much better. Guess were never going here again.

This place cranks out a lot of pork bone soup.
I had the chamchi-​kimchi-​chigae (tuna) and there were HUGE and generous pieces of tuna in there, lots of baechu kimchi and tofu and lashing of gochu (hot pepper flakes) per my request. Also lots of garlic. Garlic+gochu — what’s not to love. Mmmmmm.
I would go with the traditional Korean ttukbegae dishes here — sudufus, chigaes and jongols. The other fried dishes looked quite oily. Nice owners, baechu kimchi was fresh and delicious — cucumber kimchi a bit sweet for my taste. But for me, its all about the ttukbegae — and it was good. Spouse’s hwae-​mool sundubu was fresh — and had two very large mussels — but not enough variety of seafood (no squid …). Would have given them four stars — but the lack of squid and other seafood in the hwae-​mool sundubu brings them down to a 3 …
My chigae, however, was truly delish.