Despite a momentous effort to find street parking in Eastwood (only to realise the Woolies carpark was completely empty), our trip to find good korean food was all in all a success. We had decided to venture outside our usual korean spots like Lidcombe & Strathfield and ended up at Lai Lai Korean Restaurant in Eastwood serving up a range of your typical korean dishes like soups, hotpots, bbq and sides.

Location: 120 Rowe St, Eastwood NSW 2122
For our 3 dishes about $40 in total. Sides are free and refillable.

James: 4 out of 5 – Wholesome korean food with quick service and at reasonable prices

We got 3 dishes between two people: Spicy Tofu Soup, Steamed Egg & Korean Fried Chicken, which is one of my favourite combos and all in all set us back about $40. The sides come free and with unlimited refills like most (if not all) korean restaurants. Shoutout to the service here which was super quick, we were starving after taking some time to find parking and they delivered our food quite promptly which was a tick in my books.

The 2 highlights came in the Spicy Tofu Soup and Steamed Egg, both arriving to our table quite quickly and steaming hot in their stone pot bowls. The tofu soup was really good with a very generous amount of tofu and a little bit of kick to it, but I would have preferred if it was even a bit spicier. We opted for the pork instead of seafood and while there wasn’t much pork in the soup, I was quite happy with the delicious soup and hearty tofu goodness. I’d highly recommend trying the tofu soup, serving size may be smaller than other restaurants out there.

Also a favourite of the night was the Steamed Egg Soup. There’s not much to say here, other than the egg was delicious, not too soupy and the right level of saltiness. Would have been good to have some ‘add your own’ sesame oil on the table for the egg, but nonetheless not a dealbreaker.

Lastly the korean fried chicken was decent, not bad but not great at the same time. Most of it was made of bone unfortunately and it probably would have been better to opt for the boneless version, except they don’t do a half version and therefore would only make sense if sharing with more people. Flavour on the chicken was there and the mustard-y mayo/aioli sauce was a nice touch, but in the end it was let down by the lack of meat.

Overall I definitely enjoyed Lai Lai Korean Restaurant and exploring more korean spots outside of my usuals. I’ll certainly be back to try their other range of soups and I recommend you giving it a try if you find yourself with a craving for Korean food.