Blue Lantern Restaurant - North Strathfield

Wanting to check out the food around the local, my hubby and I decided to test out Blue Lantern Restaurant - a Korean joint at the beginning of the Bakehouse Quarter. We weren't that late - only around 8.30pm or so - but we pretty much had the whole restaurant to ourselves.

What surprised me more was the menu. Extremely specialised - just beef soup, a choice of three hot pots or a seafood pancake. Hmmm.... OK - beef soup it is!

The appetisers were also non-a-plenty. 2 Kimchi varieties, noodles for you to dunk in your soup (I think), and a salad. Although there wasn't plentiful options, everything tasted good enough.

kimchi

salad

Now onto the beef soup. We had an option of either soup with sliced beef, soup with ox knee, soup with ox tail, or soup with all of the above. Being just slightly greedy, both my hubby and I went for soup with all of the above ($18).

The soup looked milky white, shallots floating and beef slices, ox tail and ox knee all hidden below the broth. It also smelt amazingly rich. Only problem is... the soup is tasteless. There is a nice bowl of flaky salt on your table which I can only assume you use to tailor the saltiness to your liking. After consulting one of our Korean friends, we believe that this is the norm. The milky whiteness is from bonemarrow that is used to generate the aromatic rich broth and salt is purposely left out. I can only guess that you can put the noodles in yourself so you can adjust it to how soggy or non-soggy you want it. The beef in the soup is spectacularly tender. One of the most tender beef/ox things my hubby and I have ever eaten.

boiled beef soup with Ox Knee, Ox Tail, sliced beef - $18

So the verdict? It's a pretty decently large restaurant, nicely and simply decorated. Staff are kind enough - English levels to be questioned. Food choice is definately limited, but what we got was appetising enough. However, unless I have a craving for just beef soup, there's probably other Korean restaurants around the Strathfield area for us to try.

Ratings:

Food - 7.5/10

Service - 7.5/10

Ambiance - 7/10

Value for money - 6/10

Overall - 28/40

Blue Lantern Restaurant

1 George Street

North Strathfield

NSW 2137

Tel: (02) 9746 8746