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New Vancouver Korean Fast Food Shop: Cupbop

My visit to the newly opened Cupbop in Downtown Vancouver can be best described in two words: incredibly disappointing.

cupbop

Cupbop opened at the end of September at the corner of Nelson and Hornby.  They are a fast-food concept serving Korean BBQ in a cup with rice and noodle.  This particular location has seen quite a bit of turnover over the last year or so.  Former occupants (which I have visited by the way) include Kaffeine, a coffee house, and Waffle Time, sister restaurant to Waffle Bant on Robson.  I pass by this area regularly and noticed Cupbop having opened up shop.  So, I brought my family to try them out on a weekend for lunch last week.

cupbop

CupBop Menu

To fit the to-go concept, all the food at Cupbop is precooked and put under heating lamps in a display case.  Barbecued meat options include beef bulgogi, chicken bulgogi, spicy pork and squid.  A vegetarian option is the japchae which includes stir-fried sweet potato noodles and vegetables.  A single-item bowl is around $10 and two items are $13.95.  Add-ons are an extra $1 including gluten free rice, kimchi, brown rice and egg.  They also offer bubble tea for around $4.40 and tapiocal pearls are an extra $0.65.

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What We Tried

To start, there were issues with communication on what items were available and with mispricing.  My husband asked the server if there was squid to which she replied yes.  We then placed our order for a BBQ Squid Cupbop, a BBQ Spicy Pork Cupbop, and a taro bubble tea.  I then paid for the order.

My husband then noticed on the LCD screen with the list of items that we ordered that the price of the squid appeared as $10.99 rather than the $9.95 on the menu board.  We pointed it out to the server who then said that the menu board was not “updated” yet.  Furthermore, she then realized that there was no squid available.  It all started to feel like a scam.  She refunded me the dollar in cash and we went with the BBQ Beef Cupbop instead.

The spiciness from the bowls is based on the hot sauce.  The server asked us what level of spiciness we wanted and we went with a medium.

Now for the taste test…let’s just say that the food was entirely mediocre.  The meat was barely warm, tough and dry.  Still edible and cooked through just not enjoyable at all.  It was barely spicy for “medium” so we really needed to go for “hot.”

cupbop

cupbop

cupbop

I did feel that the proportion of meat to rice and noodle was reasonable.

cupbop

Now for the bubble tea: it was definitely on the expensive being $5.00 including pearls.  If you look at the picture below, can you see how few pearls there are?  The pearl level is totally unacceptable for a reasonable bubble tea.  I don’t know anywhere else in this city that gives so few pearls.  The ideal amount of tapioca pearls should be 25-30% of the total volume.  Here I would say about 10%.

cupbop-vancouver-korean-bubble-tea

Overall Impression

Barely warm meat, mispricing, miscommunication about item availability and cheaping out on tapioca pearls.  The visit to Cupbop was a disaster for me.  Save your money and go elsewhere.  Rating: 1/5

CupBop Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Jennifer

Wednesday 7th of December 2016

Thanks for this review. The bubble tea puzzles me - are they Little Tea House, Waffle Bant, or Cupbop? or are they all the same thing?

Like the previous commenter said - thanks for trying it for us :).

foodgressing

Wednesday 7th of December 2016

I wish I could say the pleasure was all mine. Thanks for visiting!

Naomi T.

Saturday 15th of October 2016

=S that's the worse logo ever... thanks for trying it for the rest of us haha