Shilla Korean BBQ Restaurant

The Shilla Experience

Just a stone’s throw from the CBD, in trendy East Perth, the city’s hustle and bustle is left behind. East Perth is an area which is rapidly growing in popularity, and the Shilla Korean BBQ Restaurant on Majestic Quay, just off Royal Street, is the perfect place to relax and unwind, and enjoy the fantastic view with some fresh, tasty, quality food shared with good company.

The Graham Farmer Freeway is the best way to get to East Perth, by-passing the city altogether. As long as it’s not peak hour, this is quite a quick route to take. When you arrive, just call the restaurant on (08) 9221 7171 to arrange free, secure parking in the underground car park beneath the building, or there is plenty of parking on Royal Street, and you can take a short stroll down the steps to the waterside.

The Shilla overlooks the tranquil waters of the Swan River, and the view from your table is picturesque. It reminded me of Amsterdam or Venice, but cleaner and more modern - lots of three-storey, fashionable townhouses, and the placid river looking more like a canal, complete with bridges, ducks and the odd pelican, and lined with graceful jacaranda trees. Apparently even dolphins can occasionally be seen in the cove, but there were none to be seen on the day we were there.

The restaurant itself is smart and up-market, as you would expect from the area, combining traditional Korean style with a modern flair - as exhibited by the metal chopsticks supplied at every table. It seats up to 100 inside, including 20 in a secluded side room, plus up to another 20 in the undercover alfresco area outside. Each table is fitted with a gas barbecue mounted in the centre of the tabletop. We Aussies love our barbies, and this is barbecue Korean-style. The friendly staff member who brings your choice of meats to the table will start up the barbecue for you and place some of the meat on it, along with some veggies, then leave you to take charge of the tongs and cook to suit your own tastes.

Before we embarked on our barbecue adventure, a couple of entrees acted as appetisers and got the digestive juices flowing. The first - "Yangbaechoo - Ssam" - consisted of four neat packages of really fresh, crisp slivers of raw carrot, red and green capsicum, apple, crabmeat and snow pea sprouts, wrapped in lightly steamed cabbage leaves and served with a dish of sweet mustard dipping sauce. This was a really cleansing and refreshing dish. We felt quite virtuous to eat so healthily.

"Kimchi –Kimbab – Twigim", a Korean version of a sushi roll, followed this. Kimchi is the traditional Korean spicy pickled cabbage. This is combined with crabmeat and fish caviar and rolled in a seaweed and rice wrap, then crumbed and deep fried, sliced diagonally, and beautifully presented on a plate decorated with cucumber ribbons and a tomato “flower”. This dish was a delight to behold - and yummy as well - mildly spicy and not too fishy.

By this time we were ready for the barbecue. We had the “Wagyu – Guee” – pieces of raw, well-marbled Wagyu fillet steak, thinly sliced pumpkin, mushrooms, rings of onion, carrot and red and green capsicum – which our waiter placed carefully on the barbecue plate for us, with the meat in the centre and vegetables around the edges. The barbecue plate is domed slightly in the centre and slotted around the edges, so the fat and juices from the meat flavour the vegetables without making them greasy or soggy. As the steak cooked we cut it up with a pair of scissors and placed the pieces on top of the vegetables.

Each person had a row of side dishes to go with their barbecued meat and veggies. These included a bowl of rice, cubes of potato in soy sauce, a green salad, the ever-present Kimchi, some pickled bean sprouts and a little dish of herbed salt for dipping the meat into. The Wagyu steak lived up to its reputation – it would have to be the nicest piece of steak that I have eaten in years – tender and delicious. The herbed salt enhanced the flavour beautifully, and each mouthful was slightly different from the last, depending on which combination of ingredients you chose from the side dishes.

The menu features both traditional and modern aspects of Korean cuisine, including soups, hotpots, rice dishes, noodles dishes and fantastic traditional and modern desserts. The Shilla is a family business. Manager and part owner James Lee told us that his mother, father, sister, uncle and aunt all work in the restaurant. Their philosophy is to always use fresh, high quality ingredients, and their first priority is creating customer satisfaction. Eating slowly and eating healthy food in good company and sharing the dishes with your dining companions is very much a part of Korean culture and makes the whole experience more fun and more interesting.

The Shilla currently opens for dinner every night from 6pm, and lunch on Friday and Saturday. The plan is to open for lunch more often over the Christmas period – give the staff a call to check when they’ll be open during this time. They are planning a big function in 2009, with a degustation menu, to celebrate their first five years in business. The Shilla, a 2008 Gold Plate Awards Finalist, first opened in February 2004 and has steadily grown in popularity as more and more people discover that it’s a great place to relax with family and friends, and enjoy the spectacular view while the meal cooks at the table.

By Georgina Goss