Pyongyang Soondae

After read all the reviews, I just had to give it a try.
The waitress doesn’t speak much English, but that’s cool.
The dumpling man, the dumpling is just really good! I’m so glad I gave it a try. No other restaurants serves chives dumplings as far as I recall. So good.
Other stuff is decent like the blood sausage and all.
Lastly, I like to feel like «home». :) Solid four star.

I came here after reading Donald P. and Corbo E.‘s reviews. I’ve never experienced North Korean food, and I’m honestly still a newbie when it comes to Korean food in general. After watching a documentary on Netflix about North Korea, and reading Donald and Corbo’s reviews, I knew that I had to go here.
Luckily, the menu was in English, and they had some photos to help you get a sense of what to expect. The service was extremely friendly. Their english wasn’t the best, but I wasn’t expecting that from a place like this. It’s authentic, we’re the outsiders, and ideally, I should be able to speak their language. Despite our «gringo“ness, they were so nice to us, giving us recommendations on what kinds of foods to pair and what drinks to get or not to get.
Based on the reviews below, I went with the Soondae, which definitely tastes like organ meat. The pheasant dumplings were good, but the highlight of the meal was the seafood pancake.
This is a unique type of cuisine. I’ve honestly never tasted anything like this before, so there’s nothing I can compare it to. But, if you’re the adventurous type, then you should definitely go here.
Note: The name of the place «Pyongyang Soondae» isn’t written anywhere outside. Make sure to get a good look at the Unilocal pictures of the outside, so you know you don’t miss it.

I went here today with my brother. We couldn’t find what time it was open on the internet and were worried that it wouldn’t be open when we got there at 4pm, but luckily we didn’t have a problem. From what I remember it is open from shortly before noon until later on at night. We got the chicken soup, the soondae, the pheasant dumplings and the bean pancakes.
The large soondae was very large. Those who want to try both the soondae and the dumplings should probably order the combination instead.
Our favorites were the soondae and the pancakes. The service was great, and the other food on the small plates were also very good.

So I’ve been here twice in the past month and the owner and staff recognized me on the second visit.
Every time I go there I see on other people’s tables things that I want to eat, but my Korean is pretty bad so I never know what the hell to order. But a major update, they have a menu in English now! Wooot! Also they have staff that are pretty fluent in English — so don’t let that stop you.
Now the food … if you are expecting Honey Pig or some other Korean BBQ place, you are going to be sorely disappointed. This is food that you eat on an everyday basis in Korea or North Korea.
Soondae is what they are known for. It’s like a blood sausage, but with blood and rice being stuffed into a pig intestine, it also has chopped up organ meats. I have terrible memories of being forced to eat this when I was younger — but this one is pretty darn tasty. Be warned, it is very iron-​y. The closest western food cousin is haggis. If you get the large platter, you also get boiled and sliced liver and some other organ meat. I went with 4 white people of various backgrounds — and it was very hit or miss with them. Half loved it and the other half hated it.
The one North Korean dish that every South Korean grows up eating is the cold noodles. Especially in the summer, you will love love love this dish. It’s a very refreshing and very cold broth with cucumbers, Korean pickled radish, and very chewy noodles. It has a bit of a vinegar tang to it. But everyone that’s had it, loved it. Personally I like the cucumber cold noodles, because it’s more in line with what I grew up with. The North Korea style is a bit spicier and not as tangy.
Seafood Pancakes are tasty. North Korean Pancakes taste like an falafel. The pheasant dumplings are a bit saltier then I like, but honestly not as special as the Washington City article makes it.
They have what I am assuming is a North Korean version of bi-​gee — which is listed as Hot Tofu … it’s ground up soybeans with veggies in it. This version was vegetarian and a bit bland (it’s suppose to be bland because you are suppose to mix in soy sauce to your liking — but I like pork and kimchee in my version, just like Grandma use to make). But it was freshly made and was a ton of food, because there was no rice base!
But seriously, if you want some more traditional home cooking, this is the place. Korean BBQ is like steak in the States, only for special occasions. This place has the food that you eat the other times at home. And with these prices and fantastic staff, you can’t help but go back.

I visited Pyongyang Soondae after reading an article about it in the Washington City Paper. The owner’s story of defection from North Korea is inspiring, and in fact many of the employees are similarly North Korean refugees. I couldn’t help but feel like I was thumbing my nose at Kim Jong-​Il as I enjoyed the North Korean cooking. Here’s the City Paper article:
I enjoyed the food, and would recommend getting the soondae, or blood sausage. Interestingly, instead of using breadcrumbs to bind the sausage as in Western cultures, they used rice and vermicelli. I had read about the cold buckwheat noodle soup, and forgot to order it, but I’d agree with the first reviewer that it would be good to try. Personally I also liked the seafood pancake, though this may be available at other Korean places, which featured shrimp and baby octopus and assembled a good combination of different textures.
One bit of advice is to go with a Korean-​speaker since the menu is only in Korean (and no transliteration, either). I think the waitresses also speak some Mandarin.
Overall, I thought the cooking was really genuine, and just the unique experience of having North Korean food made it worth the trip. Highly recommended.
full review here, for the curious:

OMG…5 star cuisine…
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…for a North Korean.
I’ve decided to write a completely biased review. I just don’t have the heart to seriously rate it… especially from an outsider’s perspective. God only knows the owner has already gone through hell and back living in the most reclusive, effed up country in the world.
I got all hyped up after reading Corbo’s review, that I guess I didn’t even really think about my own personal quandry that would result from visiting.
I REALLY wanted to like this place, because deep down in any Korean person’s heart is a sad tale of two people (or countries) that become separated as immortalized in the Arirang song.

When I have dined out at a Korean restaurant, which I have done countless times, not once have I thought to myself, even in passing, that I was indulging in the cuisine of «South» Korea.
I never once made a mental note that the proprietors or owners were from the South (from Seoul, Daegu, or Busan, for example) or that there was another Korea to the North and that the cuisine there had any impact or influence on what I was eating.
But, of course, there is another Korea; and, yes, it is responsible for a host of dishes that many of us would simply regard as generically «Korean.»

Every nation or region, obviously, has a culinary tradition of its own; and, given the long span of Korean history and the proximate nature of the two Koreas, it is not surprising at all that the food of the North, proud of its own identity, has influenced Korean cuisine as we popularly know it.

Therefore, given all of these considerations, when I learned about Pyongyang Soondae (thanks to a tip from fellow Unilocaler Su Jin K.), I was very intrigued by the notion of a restaurant that focuses on and specializes in North Korean food; and, without much hesitation, I knew that I had to stop by.
My meal began with a plate of mandu. The impeccably wrapped dumplings, featuring a filling of pheasant meat, offered a delicate texture, were steamed to perfection (and served as a great opening salvo for the more substantive selections that followed).

The nangmyun (or, more precisely, the Pyongyang nangmyun), which came next, is a mainstay dish of buckwheat noodles that is served in a cold, preferably, ice cold consommé broth. Originally, a northern dish, nangmyun is enjoyed throughout the Korean peninsula (and, internationally, thanks to immigrants from the South).
The version served at Pyongyang Soondae is an elegant dish of densely packed buckwheat noodles that is set in the center of a customary stainless steel bowl. The noodles are topped with long oblong slices of cucumbers and radishes and strands of egg (and a smattering of sesame seeds). Surrounding this beautiful assemblage is an ice cold broth that features actual ice cubes (floating there like miniature icebergs).
Although, as someone who is more apt to savor a bowl of wonton noodle soup or even a piping hot bowl of gamjatang, I am, admittedly, not a big fan of cold noodles (especially, ones that are immersed in ice essentially). However, I can appreciate the first-​rate artisanship of this dish and how all of the various elements and characteristics compliment each other so well (from the texture of the noodles, the crunch of the vegetables, to the signature temperature of the broth).

The dak dong jib, which is variously translated as «roasted chicken rectums, gizzards, or anuses,» is a colorful platter of the aforementioned «rectums» (many «s» and «c» shaped chunks of them) along with slices of jalapeño peppers, red bell peppers, carrots, onions, and garlic. The rectums, themselves, are alternatingly firm and chewy with a sort of forgiving quality that makes for a pleasing bite each time.

The namesake Pyongyang soondae, which includes a side of liver and slices of pig’s stomach, is a delicious and hearty exemplar of Korean style blood sausage. The aggregate innards, blood, and vermicelli work so well as a unit with its soft casing and savory flavor. Together with its sharp, spicy dipping sauce and accompanying salt, this is the best soondae that I have eaten to date.

The restaurant is owned and operated by a woman named Ma Young Ae who defected from her native North Korea and found her way to Virginia after following a rather adventurous and circuitous route (one that is straight out of a Hollywood spy thriller).
The staff, comprised of a few fellow North Koreans, are young, eager, and attentive. Although they speak very little English, they make up for their lack of fluency with decidedly warm and gracious service.

Indeed, Pyongyang Soondae is a fine little restaurant (just past the sprawl of Annandale on Little River Turnpike). While the dishes that I enjoyed there are approximated at other restaurants, the very fact that North Korean fare is singled out and given a proper stage, both in name and in substance, makes for a rare experience.

It is not every day that I can visit North Korea (not even vicariously). That I can do so at this little spot in the Virginia suburbs means a lot.

I urge everyone to make a visit.