04/01/08

Authentic Korean

by pnknbny

this place has been around for over 20 years and the reason is the food. very authentic, especially the kimchees, with no "americanized" dishes. i went here as a child, moved away for 10 yrs, and returned, but food hasn't changed thank god. favorites are chadolbaegi, yookgaejang, moolnaengmyun, sollungtang. some dishes that are popular with my american friends include japchae, manduguk, ojinguh bokum, and of course galbi. place has no ambience whatsoever, wait svc is always rushed (even if you're korean, which i am) during peak hours 6:00-9:00. tip for the newbies: if you want to cook at the table, order the non-marinated meats, or order at least 3 portions of the marinated meats. otherwise they will cook it for you. they only do the tableside post-meat rice saute if you order a non-marinated meat. also if you like your roasted fish, but prefer not to have it staring at you while you eat, ask them to cut the head off for you before serving.

• Pros: REAL Korean food like mom makes, fresh side dishes, great kimchees, tableside kimchee fried rice
• Cons: service can be rushed, wait staff not fluent in English although getting better about this in the last few years

09/02/07

Maybe next time....

by davidkyle7

I thought the service was poor... first our waitress didn't explain the menu to us... we were first-timers... 2nd we wanted to order something we could cook on the table... when we realized we ordered food that the people in back cooked they wouldn't let us change our order... ( we realized our mistake 1 minute into ordering initially, plenty of time to change our order)... Third , our waitress never came back to our table to refill our water... Forth, the parking poor... you have to search on the street.

One waitress was nice enough to fill our water and bag our leftovers... but she wasn't our initial waitress...

I hate to say this but you're better off being Korean to be served better ( I could be wrong, but prove me wrong )

• Pros: Food was good.
• Cons: Some waitresses don't know how to serve. Parking.

07/06/07

Unless You are Korean -- Fogettaboutit

by mrjustice

If you're Korean, maybe the place is ok. If not, then 'fogettaboutit'. Panchans (for non-Koreans), not spicy and not much variety. Had to ask several times, until we got at least SOME of the real Korean stuff. As for the Cook at the Table Dinners, again we were not allowed to cook our own (while the Korean diners were). Also, not provided with the plate of spliced green onions like all other Korean Diners (we like onions too!). Also, not really impressed with 'stone-top' cooking versus real over-the-coals BBQ. Also, really surprised NO ONE was provided with at least grean lettuce leaves for roll-ups of the BBQ meat, like other Korean BBQ's (let alone the even better large radish roll-ups) along with garlic cloves. Enough experimenting with 'other' Korean restaurants, I'll stick with the best -- King Nam (where you get EVERYTHING -- even korean pancake and soup included, for virtually same price; and all the wonderful Korean panchans -- and not treated like a 2nd-class citizen).

• Cons: For Non-Koreans - Panchans are blase; U Don't Cook yourself; No Lettuce Roll-ups; service is poor