One of my earlier trips to NY and yes, of course, I had to try some Korean. We were in town for the weekend and we were starving, this place was close by and had good reviews. Only problem, it was a little before their actual opening time but they were nice enough to let us in and we got some soju to kill time until they got the kitchen ready.
Good atmosphere, the place was quite empty since it was just opening time, but could tell when it gets busy it would be quite lively and seems like a good place to catch up with friends. We were a group of four and we ordered the Jeyuk-Bokkum ($18), Kimchi Bokkeumbap ($12), Chicken Bulgogi ($18), Soondubu Tofu Soup ($13), Sushi roll ($11-$17) and a couple of sojus ($15 each).
Jeyuk-Bokkum ($18) – Spicy pork – my standard to confirm whether or not this is a good Korean place lol. Asked for the usual extra spicy, and well it was ok, not bad but not great so what I mean is, it didn’t quite meet my expectations. You can see from the pic it’s not as red and saucy as it should be. I will say though that the pork had reasonable flavour and was probably one of the better dishes overall.
Kimchi Bokkeumbap ($12) – Kimchi fried rice. Flavourful and really great. Would definitely recommend ordering this.
Chicken Bulgogi ($18) – Spicy Chicken – another standard, it was ok as well – similar to the pork. And definitely not spicy even though we asked to make it extra spicy.
Soondubu Tofu Soup ($13) – The tofu soup was alright but not the best.
Sushi roll ($11-$17) – I don’t remember which one it was – had tempura shrimp in it – standard sushi dish, I didn’t try it so can’t say much on this one.
Quantity – Good size quantity, normal size of what you would expect from a Korean restaurant.
Ambience – Bar scene – more of a drinks and food place and can see this being quite noisy later at night.
Service – Decent service, did appreciate them letting us in early.
Spice – 2/5, For Korean this is really low on spice.
Taste – Average Korean, some dishes better than others and none of the dishes really won me over.
Overall nothing really stood out, it was a bit on the average side. This was also the first time trying Korean for our friends and it’s so hard to get people out of their comfort zone – probably not the best place to take them. That too the food wasn’t spicy at all, not really looking to kill myself with spice but definitely didn’t even have medium heat. I wouldn’t return unless it was just for drinks and snacks – but not to have dinner and proper spicy pork.