House of Tofu Soup

Finally had a chance to try this place after hearing some friends rave about it.
Parking is available in front, as well as in the lot below the building. Look for the driveway that curves downwards.
The place looks like many other Korean places, with the bare wooden tables. Not a bad thing though. Place looks relatively modern.
This place fills up during dinner. By 1830 there is a lineup out the door. Be sure to come early.
There are dinner combos that can be had for only $ 11 or so. I had the kimchi soup. Nice average bowl of soup with meat and vegetables. This one had a sour tang to it, which is expected. Decent flavour. Comes with a separate stone bowl of rice (the crispy golden burnt kind) as well. The bowl stays hot enough for one to lightly torch all the rice.
Decent taste, but definitely a very great value. Portion could be a bit bigger but I did leave satisfied.
Recommended.

my review is actually for the richmond location before it closed down and what a shame it is because i really enjoyed my meal! they’re known obviously for the tofu soups which are customizable in terms of protein and spiciness. we got the medium one with seafood and it was a perfect spiciness with lots of seafood flavour! you can get the soup in a combo with some meat as well so we got the beef bulgogi and all together, it could fill 1.5 people!
since we were still a bit hungry we got the korean rice cakes that are spicy-​sweet and sit atop fried mando making it too much to finish! they also kindly provide quite a bit of banchan some of which I’ve never had before like a potato mash and squash porridge and give you an egg to crack into the soup yourself. finally, a bowl of rice is delivered and scooped out before a hot liquid is poured in to drink it like a soup. nice and filling for a good price!

We went there because of good review but it was very disappointed. There are other good Korean restaurant around there.

I’ve always said to my hubby that I really can’t eat Korean food in Vancouver. I always feel like my mom cooks korean food much better than what I can buy in a restaurant. (not being cocky or anything, but it’s true.)
However, there is one place I will go to when I get a korean food craving and it is here at House of Tofu Soup. The hubby always makes me drive when we go here because the parking lot is tiny. He calls it «the worst parking lot in Greater Vancouver». There never seem to be enough spaces for this ultra popular restaurant. We went yesterday (Sunday Night) at 6 and I think we got the last empty table. After us it seemed like the line up grew and grew until the doorways got severely congested with people waiting to eat here.
It really is the rice that is so delicious which makes the tofu soup even better. If you come here, you must appreciate rice that has been cooked properly in the stone pots. It’s melt-​in-​your-​mouth delicious. I could probably just eat the rice without anything else. But when combined with the tofu soup — heavenly! I always get the mixed tofu soup because I can never decide which specific one to get. The mixed one combines the kimchi, seafood, beef, and all the different tofu soups they have so you have a lil bit of everything. You need to get a spoonful of rice and dip it in the soup so that you get a perfect mouthful of deliciousness. mmmm. I’m drooling again just typing this. :P
They pour hot water into the stone bowl after they serve you the rice from it. The stone bowl cooks the leftover rice to make it crispy and it’s the perfect after dinner thing to have.

Nice portions and I love that the food comes out steaming bubbly hot. Nice side dishes.

This place has hands down the best soft tofu soup in town. The place is packed during dinner hours but reasonable during lunch hours. Their pajun, and k bbq meats are ok (3 stars) but man do they know how to make a mean soft tofu soup. Their kimchi jigae was pretty tasty as well. They supposedly are franchise and use the same recipe as the ones in Richmond but they are not the same — I went to both many times. The Burnaby location’s tofu soup has much fuller flavor anf has a deep smoky flavor (likely due to slightly burnt tofu at the bottom of the bowl). The tofu was soft and plentiful and lots of seafood. I ordered the seafood mix and it had 7 whole shrimps along with clams and etc. When you are digging for a hot korean soup, this joint is the place to hit. I am tempted to give five star but their non-​soup based dishes are really so so — leave a room for improvement. :)

A feel good place to get great food and good service. If you’re a fan of simple Korean food, then House of Tofu Soup is the place for you.

We ordered the tofu soup and the seafood. The seafood pancake was doughy without a lot seafood, mostly green onions. The soup came boiling hot which is nice on cold dreary days. The tofu that they used is very soft and silky. The soup is on the lighter side, didn’t taste as salty.

This was our place for lunch the last day of a mini-​trip and stay in the neighbourhood recently. A restaurant we’ve often wanted to try, and finally, had the opportunity to do so. We checked out of our hotel, met up with daughter (our ‘limo’ driver to get home!!), and just walked across the street. It opens at 11am, and we were there just a few minutes after.
If we had any concerns about our choice of restaurant, they were quickly dismissed and forgotten once we walked through the door. Wow, this place is sure larger than it looks from outside — and with a welcome greeting, so many warm smiles aimed our way, and a setting that just said «this is our kind of place», although set for a new dining experience, we already ‘felt’ at home!
We studied the menu, and while doing so, a nice ‘plus’ was viewing the large, poster-​size pictures of the various menu items that decorate the walls, they were a big help to newcomers like us. With some final assistance from our server, here’s what we ordered and shared (as a threesome):
— seafood tofu soup w/​rice (we chose ‘regular’ spicy for the soup) — the soup came to the table in it’s hot pot, very hot & bubbling, and the rice much the same, in a stone bowl, within a wooden container — we added and stirred the raw egg into the soup — the stock had a strong «fish taste» (which we liked), lots of tofu, and a few whole shrimp — very tasty, and for us, just enough ‘spicy heat’ — and the rice was delicious.

— man deu kee (fried dumplings + rice cake) — very tasty! But a small ‘blip’ in the ordering, we thought we had just ordered the rice cake (as an appetizer), and hadn’t realized there were dumplings with it. It was certainly no big deal though. the two went well together!
— goon man doo (fried dumplings) — the dumplings on their own, and they came to us piping hot and tasty!
— japchae (stir fried noodles, with veggies, and we chose pork for the meat) — served up in a tasty stock, and we left nothing on the plate.
… all of the above came with several side-​dishes (kimchi, seaweed, mashed potato, pickles, a sweet sauce, and raw egg). It made for an impressive display on our table, and was such a delight and fun to sample!
We so enjoyed our first dining experience at the House of Tofu Soup … good, well-​prepared food, and service to match. Looking forward to a repeat!!!

Came here with 2 friends. One ordered the beef bulgolgi and a side of stone bowl rice, the other ordered the tofu soup and I ordered pork japchae.
The restaurant is nicely decorated. They provide standard appetizers.
All in all the food tasted great. I asked the server in advance if the japchae was a bit spicy and she said yes, however I couldn’t taste any spice. My japchae was a good sized portion and I had enough to share with my friend who had the bulgolgi. Her portion was a bit on the small size even with the added rice. My friend ordered her bulgolgi more spicy and it was decently spicy. My friend who had the tofu soup chose «white» meaning absolutely no spice. Her broth had good flavour.
A bit of a language barrier here but we were able to communicate well enough with the server. I ordered takeout for my husband (another tofu soup with no spice). They packed this very well to go in a box so that the soup wouldn’t spill and even included all the appetizers!!! The server didn’t tell us it was ready until we questioned her (25 min later) and said it was ready when we were ready to go.
I will be back to eat more japchae but I will ask them to make it spicier next time
Parking is tight in this strip mall. We arrived early and had no issues, however when leaving, there were three cars trying to come in and we were stuck in a gridlock as no one would move for us to leave the lot so that they could park. Suggest to arrive earlier (6 pm) to get a spot,

Newly renovated and still showing the Korean traditional style with wooden theme. 3 unlimited fresh side dishes including kimchi, seaweed, reddish, and a raw egg in shell to be cracked into the boiling tofu pot. The rice is always in excellent quality and cooked in a super hot stone bowl.
Pictured menu makes it simple and easy to order from the Korean waitresses.
Stone bowl choices of beef, pork, seafood, pork kimchi, kimchi, dumpling, mushroom and mix.
How hot of a taste do you like? White, mild, regular, hot and extra hot.
Atmosphere: Korean traditional with Korean music
Cleanliness: ⁹⁄₁₀
Prices: $ 9.99 for any tofu pot with 3 – 4 side dishes
Service: Good and friendly
Con: Lack of parking, but you can always find parking at the next plaza.

Let the adventure in Korean Food begin! After a recent awesome experience while we were back in NY, we decided that we needed to dive head first into Korean food. After all, we love our Vietnamese, Thai is a go-​to, and we are lovers of Dim Sum and Japanese. So really, it’s silly that it’s taken us this long to get into Korean Cuisine.
The problem is that, generally, it’s a little inapproachable. The sides are rarely explained (HOTS was no different) and how to eat it without standing out like the only blonde girl in the room (I was) is a mystery to the uninitiated. Do i grab a little of this and that, or is that rude? What’s the rules around the stone bowl rice crispies? (Pour your tea in after the rice is removed and it’s like dessert!). What is Soju and the rules around it? Is it like sake? (Yes… kinda).
HOTS (house of tofu soup, duh) was no different than our other experiences… we didn’t know what we were doing, and we didn’t know what to expect. But we did really, really like the pork bulgogi… and the stone rice was excellent. The fried dumplings were «ok» but only when we compared them to gyoza. since we had no other reference set… The servers were helpful, and attentive… so that was really great too.
Next time, and there WILL be a next time. I’m going to do what I should have done all along. Got the tofu soup. Cracked the egg in, and discovered why this place is so popular. I’ll update after that update.

Sooooo. pretty solid korean tofu soup, but doesn’t seem to stand out amongst many other pretty solid korean tofu soup. I would give it a 4 star, if only the extra’s were just as pretty solid.
Tofu soup ~ $ 10 comes with 3 side dishes: powdered mash with bits of corn, kimchee (which was a bit lacking cause it was too sour), and some seaweed. It was all very below average for those three simple dishes.
Comes with a bowl of rice, that is fresh off their stone bowl which was nice :)
Tons of tofu, and decent amounts of meat which is why the pretty solid 3. My husband ordered the combination, and got a hot plate with a few strands of beef bulgogi. It was pretty sad. Definitely not worth the extra. couple of bucks.
Another sad thing was that this place is heavily understaffed. These ladies need to hire some young men muscle to speed up the pace to bus tables/​take orders/​refill drinks… and yes, just about everything. Maybe with the younger men blood, the ladies will also feel a second wind «if you know what i mean». :P sorry, super lame. too much korean drama.
Yes, i would come back, but I think i’ll explore a few other places too in the mean time. Oh, and parking is a pain in the butt too :(Not quick turn over, due to the slow service within.

It felt like a fast food Korean place among half a dozen more korean restaurants in K-​town. Half my family got lost finding this place because it was so nestled among the business complex.
When we got in there, we seated ourselves and grabbed our own, waters, utensils and menus. Yes, there was service, but they were understaffed.
We ordered the soup dish combo along with Korean’s comfort foods: the seafood pancake, bibmibop, tofu soup, japchae and bulgoghi. All in all, it was slightly above average meal.
The bibmibop came in scorching hot yet our table was spacious enough to safely deliver the meal but the waitress insisted on pressing right up against us with the hot plate right over our shoulders. Nice. Next time I will wear my oven mitts and grab the dishes myself.

My friends and I had an overall good experience at House of Tofu Soup even though service was average.
I had the Pork Tofu Soup and had a chance to try the Dumpling Tofu Soup as well. They were similar, but I preferred the dumpling one. The dumplings themselves were big and weren’t soggy in the soup. The soup came to our table bubbling in the clay pot with a side of rice. This was so comforting on a cold day.
To share, we ordered the Seafood Pancake and it was delicious. The pancake was fluffy and full of octopus and green onions.
The side dishes that came with your meal were also good. I especially enjoyed the seaweed, which was a tangy palate cleanser between the spicy dishes.
If I can harp on one thing, I dislike the location. It’s located in a small parking lot with only 6 – 8 spots. (Beside the big plaza and across from H Mart) I had to park in their underground and had to share the area with 3 people shooting up. Hmmm… OK, make sure to take all valuables out. The underground parking also smelled like urine. Good thing it wasn’t a hot day!

If I could, I would rate House of Tofu Soup as 3 ½ stars.
We stopped by on an early Friday evening, and was able to find a parking spot in front of the restaurant. One of the things that is an issue at this restaurant is the limited parking. They have about 10 spots in front of the restaurant, and another 6 or so in the parking garage. If you can’t find a spot in either area, you’ll have to back your car out of these areas onto North Road. However, once you get inside the place, it has a surprisingly large dining area. We ordered:
Fried dumplings: these were really good and not greasy
Chicken Japchae: this was pretty good, decent-​sized dish (some chicken, couple of kinds of veggies).
Seafood tofu soup and beef bulgogi combo: the beef was decent (served on a bed of onions), and the soup came with small pieces of clams and tiny shell-​on shrimp (I have had better versions of the soup). This combo also came with one small stone bowl rice (enough for one).
Overall, the food and the prices are good. I would recommend each person in your group ordering a tofu soup since they aren’t very big. If you can’t find parking in the lots, I would just park across the street near H Mart and walk over.

When I first worked around this area, there was a co-​worker who really wanted to go to this place, I asked her, have you been, and she says, whenever I’m craving this type of food, I would come here, ‘really’? I have been here before, and knowing where you are on North Road, there are a TON of Korean restaurants, and somehow this one carries a name for itself of popularity, I still shake my head and wonder why?
The location of this place, if you ever have been here is off from where all the main Korean restaurants are. In a little plaza, where, if you park in front, good luck trying to maneuver your car out, as the parking spots are tight, and the underground parking is dark, where you feel you may be mugged out of an alley scene from a movie. That aside, once you get into this place, it is big, spacious (like waving your arms like a bird where it wouldn’t hit the next person) and bright (as we were here at night). On a usual day, you will see half the place full with patrons eating up tofu pots, and other things they have o the menu.
The menu is very interesting, as it is a tri-​fold menu, first page in Korean, second page, exactly same menu, in English, and third page, in Chinese (ah, appleasing the masses now huh!). There is only a handful of dishes, in some ways they may have less things on their menu than foodcourt stands that I have seen, which means they should really be able to screw this up now… well here is my wallet tempting fate again!
Every Korean joint I’ve been to has always been very generous with the cold dish appetizers that come out before you meal, and after we ordered, not too long after, the cart on wheels came rolling by out way with four small plates of cold assortments. Some mashed potato, where it was powdered mash, as my partner identified with her trip to the washroom, pickled daikon (definitely not one of my favorites, but if I could take a picture of my sweetie and what we call a scrunchie face after she ate this, it was priceless!), seaweed, and the saviour of the cold dishes, the kimchi!
The orders tonight were a dish of fried Korean dumplings with rice cake, and their ‘signature’ tofu pot. The dumplings came out pretty quick, not very attractive either, with the rice cake and red (sweet) spicy sauced just poured on like someone working in a prison cafeteria spooning this from a vat, and just dropping it on the plate. The dumplings were deep fried, they had a crisp to the skin, but they were also limp, as there seemed to be no life in the food, the rice cake was your standard cylindrical pieces drenched in sauce!
My partners order, the tofu hot pot, was a bit better. The cart on wheels came by again, with her tofu soup bubbling to a boil when it got to our table. Also on this cart, they had a stone pot carrying the rice, this was done quite nicely, where they had a seperate bowl, and scooped all the nice soft rice asside, and left the crispy edges in the stone bowl at the table (of course I was lucky to get the crispy part from my partner!). They definitely did not cheap out on the ingredients used in this bubbling hot mixture. Many little shrimps (full with head) were taken from the broth, the tofu used was of the soft variety, and there was some good strips of meat in there. Also when it arrived at our table, there was a raw egg there, so we could add it in ourselves, a nice touch. In all, even though this was good, it wasn’t enough to save the entire meal.
Near the end while we were just picking away at the scraps, like vultures in a desert picking at the dead corpse laying in the sun, the waitress came along and started cleaning up our dishes, even to the point she took a bowl that I was working on right out from under me. The last time I looked around you were not closed yet, and there were people still here! Even though they don’t speak much English here, even in their homeland, I doubt that this would be called normal service.
There are so many other options here on North Road alone, and I mean a stone’s throw away, to come back, now that would be a waste of my wallet, time, and stomach!

If you want commercialized non-​authentic Korean food, come here.
I was craving for some Korean food after a shared plate of gnocchi with my dear. I could have went to Wang Ga Ma, my favorite Korean joint across the street, but decided to roll the dice and came here since I’ve heard some not-​bad things about this place.
The menu items were very limited so picking out a dish or two wasn’t hard. I settled with a mix soft tofu soup pot with rice. My partner ordered a plate of dumplings with Korean rice cake and chili paste.
The side dishes were comprised of sea weed, mashed potato, Kimchi and pickled daikon. The sea weed was the fishiest I’ve ever had. Mashed potato was made from mashed potato powder mix. They tasted like the powdered mash and I noticed stacked of them in the kitchen after I returned from the most ghetto washroom I’ve ever been. I tasted a lot of sugar in the potato but not enough mayo. Kimchi tasted normal (thank god). The pickled daikon marinated with raw onion tasted like rotten garbage on a hot summer day.
My partner’s dumplings came first. They were oily. The skin was crispy but rubbery when you chew on it. The filling wasn’t bad. I am not sure about the Korean rice cake with chili paste. It tasted randomly assembled.
My order wasn’t bad. I love how they took the time to cook the rice «to order». The rice was delicious. The tofu soup was piping hot when it arrived on my table. The soft tofu used was «right». It was really soft. There were generous portions of shrimps, baby clams and meat bits. Even though when I specifically asked for spicy, my soup came out mild.
When my partner and I were finishing up our meal the waitress came and started clearing our plates while we were eating. I find it to be extremely rude especially when she didn’t say or ask «Excuse me, are you done with this?» She just cleared away any unused plates and cutlery.
After this experience I can say I will not be back. The food was not worth it to put up with the bad service.

I’ve deliberately avoided going to this restaurant for oh so many years, as I’m not a fan of suntubuchige. However, I came here today for the 1^st time, because of all the positive reviews.
So, while skipping over the tofu soup on the menu (maybe next time), the missus had her chicken pulgogi (she always gets it at every restaurant, when it’s available), and I had the kimchi jjige. We shared a side of gun mandu.
The soup was a bit milder than I like it, but scored points for not being even a little bit salty (some other restaurants around town should take a lesson from that).
The mandu filling was a bit different from any I’ve had before, but I enjoyed it.
The wife’s chicken pulgogi was about average, but was fully cooked, which doesn’t always happen, unfortunately.
Not the best Korean restaurant I’ve been to, but definitely one of the better ones. As the Terminator says: «I’ll be back!» but to try other things on the menu.
One other thing: just inside the door is a concrete structure that has been fashioned to look like wood (in Jo mok). I haven’t seen in jo mok in I don’t know how many years. It really brought me back to Korea, since in jo mok is pretty much ubiquitous there. This is of special interest to me because I worked for an in jo mok manufacturer over 20 years ago.
I highly recommend this joint. While it didn’t quite strike me as rating five stars, it’s a high four — almost a five.

One of the best Soondooboo in town. I should perhaps say around town since they have two locations — Burnaby (North Road) and Richmond. Soondooboo is a hot and spicy Korean stew made with tofu, vegetables, mushrooms, onions, scallions and chili powder. It is a popular item in Korean restaurants and is truly comforting because of it is served piping hot with a raw egg and also side bowl of rice.
However, superior tofu soup is hard to come by in the Lower Mainland. Some restaurants make them either too watery or cheap out on the ingredients. This is crucial because a lot of the flavours comes from the tiny shrimps and veggies.
House of Tofu Soup offers a few choices of seafood, pork, beef, chicken, kimchi, dumpling or mushroom. You can select the level of fire of hot, regular, mild or white (non-​spicy). What is special about this place is that their serve the bowl of rice on a stone bowl — the heat from the stone bowl creates crispy rice along the side.
The traditional way to conquer the rice is to add tea into the crispy rice to soften them up and then eat. Myself I like to scrape the crispy rice and dip into the left over spicy tofu soup — To each their own.
Common to all Korean restaurants, delicious side dishes are served: kimchi, marinated potatoes, bean sprouts, seaweed, radish, etc. etc.
The prices are extremely reasonable and you will find yourself satisfied with yummy goodness.