Why am I impressed? The biggest reason is that none of the food is salty, yet tastes fantastic - it's pure and true taste without needing to pile on any salt or MSG. Just about any main order, including a humble bowl of ramen, includes the very typical Korean barrage of side dishes (we counted 14), each healthy, containing very little oil, and tasting great.We ordered the beef and pork bulgogi sets, one with the soya bean stew and the other with spicy noodles. (We were sorry it didn't occur to us to take photos of the food before we tucked in; we saw other people doing so, though.) Now I'm really not a soup person at all, but the fragrant, slightly nutty stew is something to write home about, with clams and prawn thrown in for richer taste. The carnivore in me was more than satisfied with the very tender and rich-tasting meat in each set.
The portions are generous, and the price is very wallet-friendly for the quality we got. Our sets cost us $15 (with noodles) and $10 (with stew - yes, the one with seafood in it) respectively.
What I didn't expect, though, was that none of the food was particularly spicy. My previous experience of Korean food was littered with pretty potent spice, but I found that the "spicy" food at Kim's was extremely mild - this coming from someone who can't eat fish head curry without going through three glasses of lemon juice.
Ray had heard that one shouldn't be fooled by the term "Appetisers" in the menu. The advice was to never order those unless you had a party of four or more, and boy are they right. We didn't order any, but we did see other tables' orders - one serving of savoury pancakes filled a full-sized dinner plate.
They surprised us with an unexpected humble little dessert at the end of the meal - I didn't see any mention of it in the menu, so maybe - like the side dishes - it just comes with every meal. It comprised a slice of watermelon and a small teacup of sweet cinnamon drink. Ray didn't seem to fancy his, but I'm a sucker for cinnamon, so I totally appreciated that.
If you like good, authentic Korean food that won't cost you an arm and a leg, go try this place!
You can find Kim's Family Food at 17 Lorong Kilat, #01-06, Kilat Court, S598139, tel: 6465 0535. It's in the same complex as the Korean supermarket Lotte Mart.
