There's a high concentration of Korean restaurants on 34th Ave, in the strip mall aptly known as K-Mall. You might assume there's some fierce competition between the establishments, but fortunately, they each specialize in something different. You'll find Korean BBQ at Ginseng, fried chicken at Country Coco, katsu at Miga, street food at Gangnam, and Korean-Chinese at Pocha Seoul. Based on the title, you could probably guess where we ended up at.
In Korean, pocha is short for pojang-macha. Street food stalls/tents which are lively, casual and inexpensive. They're popular for a quick snack or a warm meal, usually enjoyed over drinks.
It was surprisingly really busy around 2:00pm on a Sunday afternoon (a good sign), but we must have caught the tail end of the lunch rush. In the main dining room, tables are sectioned off with wooden dividers adorned with hangul. We only had to wait a few minutes to be seated, before being ushered into one of their private dining rooms, each room consisting of 2-3 small tables.
One of my favourite dishes at Pocha is their kkanpungi ($17.99), or spicy garlic fried chicken. It comes in small or large ($27.99), but the small is already such a generous portion with large cuts of chicken. The chicken is boneless, fried in batter, and then stir-fried with veggies and sauce. The chicken is super crispy and almost shatters when you bite into it. I'm almost certain they only use dark meat too (ie. the good stuff). The sauce is sweet, spicy, and garlicky, and coats the chicken almost like a glaze. It can veer on the side of being too sweet for some, but in between bites of other food, the sugar is tempered somewhat. Still really delicious and super addictive.
The reason why we were at Pocha in the first place was because LT was craving their bibim naengmyeon ($14.99), spicy cold buckwheat noodles. The noodles are served in a slushy broth with a spicy, vinegary sauce. Before you dig in, you must mix everything together. They also provide you with a bottle of mustard and vinegar to adjust the dish to your taste. Although LT has had this dish in the past, she found the sauce a bit too spicy that day. Texturally, the noodles are super chewy and if you can get past the spice, it's a perfect refreshing dish for a hot summer day.
We also got their gan jjajang ($14.99), black bean noodles with "dry" sauce. Gan jjajang is slightly different than regular jjajangmyeon in that the sauce is made to order. It's also a bit more chunky, as it's not thickened with water or cornstarch. Usually it's a couple dollars more but it's worth it in my opinion.
You simply pour the sauce over top of the noodles and mix them together.
The sauce is aromatic, with al dente vegetables, and a smokey wok
flavour. There's also some nuggets of pork throughout but I find them an afterthought since they're usually a bit tough and dry. Despite that, I really enjoyed this! The noodles are the star of the show, and they're chewy and not clumpy at all. The sauce coats the noodles really well, and they're perfectly slurpable.
I would love to try out the other dishes at Pocha, but it's so difficult not to default to old favourites. Kkanpungi for the win!
Pocha Seoul
9261 34 Ave NW #13
Edmonton, AB
(780) 818-4202
- CT
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