Restaurants
Soban Korean Bistro
About Soban Korean Bistro
Korean cooking is built for a shared table, which is worth knowing before you sit down at one. Soban Korean Bistro is at 530 Bernard Avenue, in the middle of downtown Kelowna where the commercial streets run back from the waterfront parks.
The pattern is much the same wherever you eat it: a main dish or two ordered for the table, rice, and a spread of small side dishes that arrive alongside without being asked for. Grills, stews, noodle bowls and rice plates are the usual pillars, and the level of chilli varies enormously between kitchens, so it is a fair question to put to the server rather than a sign of weakness. If a table wants to cook at the table itself, confirm that is possible before turning up with a group, since not every room is set up for it. Fermented cabbage, soy, sesame and garlic run through most of the cooking, which is useful to know if someone at the table has to avoid one of them.
Bernard Avenue and the blocks around it make up the walkable part of Kelowna, and the only part where parking once and then eating, browsing and reaching the lake on foot really works. That is a genuine advantage in a city that otherwise spreads for kilometres along the shore and climbs into the benches behind. Evenings in summer are the busy stretch, when visitors fill the core and a smaller room can be full early. Arriving before the rush, eating late or coming midweek all work. In the quieter months the same streets are relaxed and a table is a far easier thing to find.
Visiting Soban Korean Bistro
Getting there
In the Downtown neighbourhood of Kelowna.
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