Ap Gu Jung – Abeom Soondae

This place is truly a gem! Their specialties imo are their soondae (blood sausage) items: whether it’s soondaejook (soondae in soup) or just plain soondae! I have tried soondae jook in la and for sure this place does it 10x better. Even if you don’t even like blood sausage, the soup itself is so tasty so you have to try it!!!

Awesome
Pros:
Good Korean Food (Fried squid pancake delicious)
Good selection of soup dishes (Great for cold nights)
Small and cozy (6 tables)
Soju and Beer
Friendly service
Decent parking
Reasonable prices
Cons:
None

Whether or not this is an authentic Korean food experience is something I cannot be the judge of, but what I do know is that the food and taste here of the products we had were on point.
Between the banchan, bibimbap and the short rib soup the food we had was fresh and came to our table piping hot. The purple rice was a nice touch and if you let your bibimbap sit a little the rice on the bottom of the hot plate becomes crispy and adds nice flavor and texture to the dish.
Overall, with so many high quality Korean restaurants in town this one is worth checking out just for the options that you won’t find at other places. Will be back next time.
P.S: we were the only customers who weren’t speaking Korean when we ate here, don’t know what that means but it can’t not be good thing!

Was actually waiting for BBQ Stop in the same plaza but couldn’t wait any longer, so decided to give this place a try, not a bad choice at all.
Weren’t a lot of people when we came, but it was a small place so didn’t feel all that empty either. Small korean homeowned restaurant with your typical korean dishes, including soon dubu, naengmyeon and bulgogi etc.
Ordered a squid noodle, goat soup and naengmyeon, and honestly that was quite a bit of food for 2 people. Would definitely recommend the squid noodle and goat soup. The squid noodle had a sweet spicy taste to it, probably from the gochujang, and the noodles they used are thin rice noodles, very good combination. They use herbs to cook the goat soup, not just your typical «add the ingredients and boil water topping it off with bean sauce» doenjang jjigae. The naengmyeon wasn’t quite to my liking, for one they actually have blocks of ice in it making it harder to eat (maybe that’s how it’s actually done in Korea though not quite sure about that but that’s not how it was served at other korean places), and plus it has a weird sour taste, now I understand naengmyeon is supposed to be sour, but this one was just a little weird, personal preferences I guess.
Their customer service was excellent! Will come back to try the other dishes.

3.5. Definitely an authentic Korean spot. Had baby octopus bibimbap. Not a lot of octopus. Also tried some of the bulgogi bibimbap. Would have liked a stronger marinade for the meat. Banchan was ok… I am always a fan of the potato. Would go back and try something else.

Came here while visiting around LA (our hotel was in West Covina) for some nearby authentic Korean food. My family came here twice in the 4 days we were staying in the area, it was so good. The first time I felt pretty bad because we had just driven in from SF and we got to the restaurant at 9:20 when it closed at 10. The service was still attentive and courteous, so props to them for that! Much appreciated!
Food things:
— They must make their banchan fresh every morning, because they were different the 2 times we went! Their kimchi was fantastic, as was their kkakdugi, and I am also a huge fan of mung bean sprouts, which they did a great job of. The banchan that changed were also all great!
— Their galbi tang (stew) had great flavor in the soup but the meat was a little tough for me.
— Dduk mandu gook was amazing, huge, obviously homemade dumplings and perfect dduk (rice cake) consistency.
— My mom really enjoyed her cold kong gooksu (bean/​nut noodles) dish.
— My dad really enjoyed his soondae gook too! Amazing, clean flavors in the soup and really solid soondae.
— If you’re feeling like meat, their bo-​ssam is amazingly fresh and huge. Definitely share with the table! The kimchi cuts the meatiness nicely, super generous portion.
If you’re not looking to deal with LA traffic, this is a great alternative. Super authentic, good home cooking. Yum!

Really good food! All the side dishes are tasty. We ordered a short rib soup and octopus bimbimbap, and they are just as delicious. Definitely will come back and try other dishes.

I’ve already said how much I love korean food. This place just adds to my passion. Super small place. Very cozy. Ordered the seafood pancake and man was it huge. It was a lot thicker and dense than I usually have it. Still amazing though. Gets you full real fast. The dipping sauce it comes with is also amazing. Such a simple sauce too but it’s absolutely fantastic. The BANCHAN at this place is great too. They give you a ton of fish cake… Soooo good. The bean sprouts were also really good. Overall a really good meal and the place is awesome. Seeing that the seafood pancake was 16 bucks, Shoulda known it was gonna be bigger and thicker than usual.

Apgujung has become my new favorite korean restaurant in town. Every dish I tried was so good, very authentic korean style. It really reminds me of my mom’s home cooking!

It should be noted that the ownership changed around september of 2014 so some of these reviews dont apply. The new ownership is awesome!

Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm­mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-​y!
Food is literally delicious!!! Quite possibly the best Korean food I’ve had in a long time (don’t tell my mother)!
If you haven’t dined here yet, you’re missing out.
Bomb soondae, soups, EVERYTHING!!!

New ownership and management. Great side dishes and best Sul lung tang in town. Of course their soondae and goat soup are to die for!!! Very friendly service and great for families. Call in for take outs.

Reading all these reviews below made me so negative for giving this place 3 stars, but maybe because I eat Korean food at home all the time that make me think there is nothing too special about this place. I’d say this is a hidden place and you will not find it if you casually just drive around the area to find a Korean place to eat. I came here on Sunday at 5pm, and only two other customers eating at the moment. My friend ordered a soondae plate and I got kal gook-​so (some rice noodle kind.). As usual at Korean restaurants, side dishes came out along with our main dishes. My friend said he loved soondae and he would eat this again. Me, on the other side, didn’t find anything too special about this bowl of rice noodles. Don’t get me wrong, it was not bad. Just too plain and not worth my $ 10 if I have to describe it. I’m pretty sure this place is known for its soondae, so maybe that was why!

I got the soondae platter and it was delicious! Better than western soondae in koreatown! Plus the gakdugi is bombbb! Can’t wait to try the other dishes~

Even though they are known for their soondae or soondaegook, I decided to just get other food on the menu. My choices were spicy cold noodle and stone pot spicy octopus rice.
They were both pretty decent but not to the point where I would unconsciously say, «oh.wow»
The ajumma who was serving was very nice. She was a sweetheart.
Just like the name, abeom means like father, aged man, ajussi perhaps, there were only abeoms there at the time of visit. i guess this is the place for the adults to hang.

This is may be blasphemous but I like to toss in the kimchee and spoon up the banchan red liquid into my soup. It makes it way tastier. After the soondae soup gets cold the broth congeals. Maybe from the collagen? Its a little off putting so slurp it fast. The owner is super nice. I always see her pulled up to a table having a chat with the customers. Also… flat chopsticks are for stabbing. I get a hand cramp everyone I use one.
EDIT: Oh God I forgot to leave a tip! Sorry Miss Lady! I’ll be back and I’ll bring a big tip!

Food is good. The waitress is really friendly.
Ordered the plate of soondae and the pork w/​kimchi dish. Both were really good, but I enjoyed the pork dish better. One dish can easily feed two people.
Don’t go on a hot day… it’s hot inside.

There’s only 1 thing I order here: the soondae gook (pig blood sausage soup). Along with sliced up soondae, it also has sliced up internals and ears. Usually it’s very good. They once boiled the soup too long and pulverized the soondae, but that was just a one time mistake out of many times I ate here. My only gripe is that towards the end the chili seasoning that settled on the bottom can tend to be too much. Oh and don’t expect much from the banchans here.
Dunno why I’m sharing this, but back few years ago, they used to give you the soondae gook all white. Then they gave you the red spicy seasoned chili (da dae gi) on the side, but now they put it in there for you and bring it out. Kinda miss being able to control how red I wanted it…

It was my first time eating Korean soon dae and I would not eat it again if that was the best soon dae =(
Ordered soon dae gook and I didn’t like it. I’d been wanting to try soon dae and I was finally brave enough to order it. Soon dae is Korean blood sausage made by boiling or steaming cow’s or pig’s intestines that are stuffed with various ingredients. I eat all kind of weird things… intestine, heart, liver, fish eyeball, frog… so the concept of soon dae was very interesting to me.
The soup was bland.
The sausage was bland.
The guts were bland.
Banchans were not so good. Banchans were: seaweed sesame, salad with thousand island, napa kimchi, potato and beansprouts. The potato was bland, the seaweed was too sweet and the napa was too salty. My banchans were better than my soup though.
The restroom of this place was clean and the waitress was super sweet. I was still hungry that I went to Café Haus to get waffle after my meal.
1 star!!!
Abeom is not yummylicious!!!

3.5 Stars!
Bibimbap had lots of tasty meat and fresh vegetables.
This small home-​style restaurant reminds me of K-​town. It was not crowded when I went, but the restaurant is relatively small. They were playing K-​Soap Operas.
This place is pretty clean. I think the only issue I had was that she did not include the fried egg, even after I mentioned it, in my bibimbap.
Otherwise, it was pretty tasty. Nice spot for not being in Ktown!