We’ve been twice and both were fine experiences, but not spectacular.
First Visit:
We went on a Monday evening around 8 pm. Many tables were full, but we were seated right away. The restaurant is spacious, and feels very open, clean and modern. Light colors, tan wood tables, and it seems fresh.
We both ordered the hot stone bibimbap – one with tofu and one with neither tofu nor beef. The bibimbap comes with a mushroom onion mix, broccoli, spinach, bean sprouts, cabbage, and green beans. No egg, but you can add it one for a pound extra. Neither one of us wanted the mushroom or the cabbage, so we just asked for more of the others. it comes with Korean hot sauce (they call it Kohot at the restaurant, but it’s their form of Gochujang).
The bowls came out sizzling hot, as they should, with the rice crisped/burnt on the bottom. It’s such a unique texture and really this is the reason to get the dish. The “sauce” in the bowl is just oil (definitely a bit too oily), but it’s pretty tasty even without adding other sauces to it. It’s a fresh, healthy taste. Their hot sauce has a nice flavor, but is definitely not spicy enough at all.
We got an extra bowl of steamed white rice on the side (£1 extra), just as a filler because the portion wasn’t big enough to fill us. We also asked for extra veggies (broccoli and green beans) so we could add some more into our bowls. They didn’t seem to give us any extra even though we didn’t get the mushrooms or the cabbage, though they did quickly accommodated this request without a charge at all.
Service was good, our waitress was attentive and answered questions patiently. Our waters were filled.
I’d come back here and give other dishes a try.
Second Visit:
We wanted to try some of the other dishes that we hadn’t the first time to see if our experience would be better. They were all pretty fine, but way too oily, and really nothing special. I’m not sure that we’d seek this place out again.
Japchae – Stir-fried glass noodles with vegetables. This was good, but swimming in oil, which made it unappetizing.
Korean Chopped Salad – Cos lettuce, napa cabbage, lentils, crispy fried spring roll paper, and Korean dressing. This salad was surprisingly good and the salad dressing was delicious.
Pajeon – Fried green onion pancake that is was so oily it was inedible. Literally soaked in it. Neither one of us could eat more than a few bites.
Bibimbap – This time we got the bibimbap, not in the hot stone, so everything was served warm instead of sizzling. I’d say the hot stone is the better way to go, both because of temperature and texture.
The bottom line is everything is decent, nothing (except oddly the salad) makes me want to go back, and everything is way way way too oily.
