Takeout from The Owl of Minerva (Richmond Hill)

We ordered takeout from The Owl of Minvera this past weekend from their Richmond Hill location.  I’ve been to this popular Korean restaurant before at their other outposts: downtown, Markham (First Markham Place) and also Markham (Steeles and Silver Star).  I hadn’t dined in before at this Richmond Hill location though (815 Major Mackenzie Drive East).

While parked outside their restaurant, we surveyed their website to see what there was to order.  While there was a full list of all of the menu selections, there was no pricing shown online.  Ken went inside the restaurant and took photos of their menu so that we were able to see the entire menu with prices.

Storefront of the restaurant

Upon placing our order, the wait for the food took about 15 minutes only which was super quick.

Takeout menu page 1

Takeout menu page 2

I adored that all of their dishes were placed in paper takeout containers with aluminum foil to keep the food warm.  The only things not so sustainable were the kimchi, soups, and rice that were served in plastic containers.  Nevertheless, as long as a restaurant doesn’t use Styrofoam for their takeout containers, I’m already pleased.  (After finishing the dishes, all you have to do for these paper containers is tear them up and put them straight into your compost bin.  They will disintegrate and not end up in landfills.)

Love that this restaurant chose paper-based containers instead of Styrofoam for their main dishes!

I found it amusing that each container of food was slapped on with a sticker of their restaurant’s logo

JjinManDu (10 pcs). $8.99
-steamed Korean dumplings

The JjinManDu (steamed Korean dumplings) of 10 came with a little tomato and broccoli for presentation.  Surprisingly, these simple dumplings with pork and vermicelli were really tasty and good.  There was some soy sauce with sesame seeds that you could dip the dumplings into for flavour, but by itself the dumplings were a good “clean” taste.

What the dumpling looks inside

Seafood Tofu Soup. $10.99
-soft tofu stewed in hot-spicy broth with seafood with rice on the side

The Seafood Tofu Soup was also a surprise hit.  The kitchen prepared this soup in a plastic container and then sealed it shut with plastic over the top, which was a genius move so that the soup wouldn’t slop out accidentally during the commute home.  This soup had soft tofu stewed in hot-spicy broth with seafood.  This came with a container of white rice on the side.

The Seafood Tofu Soup was not spicy at all and the tofu were definitely soft and smooth (like soon tofu).  There weren’t a lot of seafood in the soup though.  I counted one small shrimp and two mussels in the soup.

The Stir Fried Glass Noodles was a vegetarian dish of noodles with assorted vegetables.  This reminded me of the Japchae we had recently for takeout from Gal’s Sushi.  The glass noodles here were firm but a little on the oily side.  I liked the one from Gal’s better.

Stir Fried Glass Noodles. $10.99
-stir fried glass noodles with assorted vegetables

The Stir Fried Chicken with Rice came with stir fried spicy chicken with assorted vegetables and a fried egg on steamed rice.  This was a pretty good dish for one or for sharing.  The kimchi-enriched chicken was so moist and tender!  It wasn’t that spicy either.

Stir Fried Chicken with Rice. $12.99
-stir fried spicy chicken with assorted vegetables, fried egg on steamed rice

Tofu Kimchi. $16.99
-stir fried kimchi, pork with tofu

Lastly, the Tofu Kimchi dish was stir fried kimchi with pork and tofu.  The slices of pork were also infused with kimchi just like the chicken was in the other dish.  The pork actually tasted like the ones you would eat at a Korean barbecue.  It’s like the staff took the pork that was sizzling on the hot plate and put it into this dish.  The tender and juicy pork slices were so flavourful and matched well with the spiciness of the kimchi.  The tofu in this dish were of the firmer and harder type, not as smooth or soft as the ones in the soup.

This was a generous and satisfying meal.  There were three containers of banchan (kimchi and pickled radish) that the restaurant gave us along with two containers of miso soup.  The kimchi was quite spicy for my taste.  I wish there were more varieties of banchan instead of just kimchi and radish.  I love the seaweed or sweet potato types of banchan.

Banchan: kimchi and pickled radish