Hey Everyone,
After ordering our food, we were not immediately brought water like every other table had. 20 minutes had passed and we had still not been brought a jug of water, so we decided to ask for it. This was the first place I had tried a pint of 1516 Bavarian Lager $5.95 and I fell in love with it immediately, but Jess did not order a drink so she was just going to drink water, which was communicated to the server upon ordering our food.
Finally, onto the food! What was described on the receipt as simply “Open Food” $1.00, was a tray of side dishes, some of which did not seem like actual side dishes at all!
The picked radishes and pickles seemed normal, and Jess loved those. The bowl of soup seemed to be ginger soup, as it was spicy and had a ginger flavour to it, but was surprisingly good! There was the typical kimchi, and also a side of edamame on the other side of the tray. Yes, those are shrimp crackers on the tray, and it was part of the whole tray! Just behind the plate of chicken is a whole fish! It was a small fish, but the entire thing minus the head. If the shrimp crackers was surprising, this was even more of a surprise, as an entire fish was given as a side dish, part of a tray that costs $1.00! This fish was grilled and was pretty good too! Mind blown!
We had asked the server for what amount of chicken was included in each dish, and she advised that one order of chicken would be enough for the both of us to share, and even offered to do half and half for the flavours in the order! So we had an order of half Original Deep Fried Chicken and half Deep Fried Chicken tossed with special sweet spicy sauce $20.95.
There must have been about 16 pieces of chicken in total on this dish and it was very nicely plated. The original is the lighter coloured one, and it was very delicious! I really enjoyed the original chicken as it had tons of flavour, was moist, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and just an overall excellent fried chicken. The special sweet spicy sauced chicken was slightly spicy, but not to the point that I couldn’t handle it. I don’t eat much spice, so if I can handle it, this wouldn’t be considered spicy for most of you out there! The peanuts on it are a nice touch and tastes great with what is an already awesome chicken dish. This was a more moist flavour and was also slightly crispy on the outside and very tender on the inside. All of the chicken were very well cooked through as well. We both loved this dish very much and thought it was a very good deal for the amount and quality of the chicken.
The service had improved after we got all of our food as they seemed more attentive as time passed. Jess and I both agreed that the food really saved their overall rating and their service did improve to cover some of the early faults.
Overall this restaurant turned out to be very good! This felt like a very authentic Korean joint as all the other customers were Korean, and mostly young teens and college students. This gave us the impression that this was a preferred place for Koreans themselves to hang out at, as some were celebrating birthdays there, and another table in particular were having tons of fun playing various games at their table. It was a very fun atmosphere in the restaurant and once you are immersed in that atmosphere, the sticky floors and mismatching music and mv’s no longer bothered me! It was clear that this was a great place to hangout with friends, have some great food at reasonable prices, and have a few drinks as well! They had a variety of Korean alcoholic drinks, which we did not try but will definitely come back to try next time with a few friends. The lighting was very dark in there, but we were seated under the large glowing blue sign on the wall, so that aided in our visibility of everything around us. We’re hoping the initial service experience we had was just a one off, as the rest of the dining experience was very well served, so we’re going to give them the benefit of a doubt and give them another try next time!
Food:
5/5
Service:
3.5/5
Price:
$$
Overall:
4.25/5
Thanks for reading everyone, and let us know if you’ve dined here and whether your experience with their service was different. Munch on!
– Phil