San Korean Restaurant

I was in the area, and asked my dad if he wanted to go out to lunch. He suggested I bring over a Subway ham sandwich with everything.
Um. No. I suggested we go out for Korean food since I was paying, it was snowy, and I wanted Korean food — the food of our people.
If you grew up in the area you know that this storefront used to be home to another East Asian restaurant giant. Extra stars for you if you know the answer to this trivia question.
But onto the review. San Korean is an okay spot if you are in the area and want OK Korean food. The place was fairly empty so no wait is always a plus. The service was good and fast. Spoons and chopsticks are found at the table in a small box so don’t forget to ask for extra napkins, which aren’t at the table. I think they must know about napkin hoarding.
The lunch special menu didn’t seems all that special in terms of price. I ordered the soondoobu (tofu soup), and dad had the bulgogi, which is served with a small side of soybean soup. All entrees come with Korean side dishes because that is how my people eat — communally.
The tofu soup was a seafood version with two clams, one shrimp and no cracked egg, which is my favorite part. It was ok, nothing worth a special trip. My dad’s bulgogi was ok, a little on the sweet side for me. Again, nothing spectacular.
Just good enough Korean food to hit the spot on a chilly December day. When dad and I have more time we’ll venture further out to Arlington Hts.

This review is only for fried chicken and seasoned fried chicken.
I have been a big fan of this place. I do not doubt that a chef here has some skills. Their soup cuisines, such as sulung tang and kongnamul buko guk, are the best in the area as well as the variety of tasteful Korean side dishes.
However, their fried checkens were very disappointing. Probably they have no idea how Korean fried chicken should be. It looks like the chickens are not very fresh, seasoning is very bad, quality of the chicken is very bad, it smells like they use the oil for frying hundred more times. I got the chicken for take-​out. I was surprised at home. You do not want to do that.
Overall, do not order take-​out chicken here. If you want, have it there so that at least you can complain about that.

The beef bibimbap in the sizzling stone bowl was about as good as it gets. The beef was cooked perfectly, the veggies were crunchy and tangy, and the rice was sizzled to crunchy perfection on the bottom. I’ll be back!!!

The food is mediocre but the service is horrendous. Half are order was forgotten and we received no water refills or banchan refills. Look elsewhere for a better experience.

it was a bad experience from the start… we were the only table that did not get banchan (side dishes) and had to request for them (but regretted it because they were terrible)…the dining room only had three groups of customers (but from the screech of noises coming out of the other rooms, the karaōke are in full swing)…we had very little service… we had to ask for utensils and water… there were dried up rice stuck on one of the plates… our food was served after 45 minutes of waiting while listening to karaōke including an asian version of house of the rising sun… all the food we ordered were not good… and karaōke britney spears sounded better than the original…

We don’t know much about Korean food & was on a whim on way home from a doctor do we didn’t look up things-​took some recommendations & I thought they were pretty good. Maybe nothing to rave about but she obviously knew we had no idea what we were ordering so she kept it simple & fried chicken was one! Lol. So she knew to play it safe ! Be different if we’d brought the right people. When we left is when I found out he actually wanted Japanese food!

San Korean is a recommendation from my brother. At first, I was skeptical, because the rating isn’t that great in Unilocal.But I tried it anyway. I wasn’t very hungry, so I ordered a lighter beef soup with glass noodles. Honestly, it is probably the least tasty thing on the menu. The soup is tasteless. The portion is very small, even for Asian. But why do I give it 4 stars? The side dishes are amazing. Much much better than those in a few other Korean restaurants nearby. The best thing about Korean food for me is the side dishes. So I am totally happy with my visit even though the main dish I ordered was tasteless. I will definitely come back and order another main dish.

I cannot express how much I love this place! If you are looking for a great Korean restaurant then come to this place. It is worth the drive. This place will do large groups and give you amazing service. They have a little Karaōke room which plays Korean and Japanese Karaōke. The people here are so nice and the restaurant always looks amazing. I love coming to this place and will definitely come back regularly.

DO NOT EAT HERE! Super bad place. Bad service and portion of the food is joke! Waited our food 30mins even though there was no one around! And finally food came, but one of the food wasnt even placed! The dishes was joke. Small side dishes was only 4 of them we didnt even near enough to get full and bill was high enough to be surprised! DO NOT EAT HERE

Awesome place for delicious korean food!
Meals come with about six small side dishes and also rice.
I enjoyed eating cheese bool-​dak which is a spicy grilled chicken. (Try it with soju-​korean liquor)
I also recommend sul lung tang.
The amount of food: they give you a lot
Service: very friendly

I guess people don’t really know about this place. It currently only has 27 reviews.
I can’t believe it took me so long to try this place, especially since I’m always looking for good legit Korean food. If you like the knee soup, their broth is savory and thick and amazing. Totally hits the spot. They use the same soup base/​broth for all their soups, so it’s just perfect.
I came here recently and had the Sullungtang, which is usually a beef broth with noodles. You add rice to it, which is a weird concept I’m sure… soup with noodles AND rice? I don’t know what it is, but the contrasting and different textures just work together. Enjoy with their ggak-​doo-​gee (fermented radish) and it’s the perfect Korean comfort food meal. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture… but I mean. Beef soup is beef soup haha.

Admittedly I don’t know much about Korean food, this was the only second time I’ve had it, so take my review with a grain of salt I guess lol, but I got the blood sausage soup, I thought that was an Irish food, but apparently Korean too, the sausage is a more smooth texture than usual, but still good, there was also these noodle things, beef, and a type of lettuce in the soup, what I really liked was how with the order we got all these small dishes, some bread, veggies, rice, and all these other things, it was definitely a good deal. I don’t live near the area so idk if I’ll ever be back, but I wouldn’t be against going back, there were other items that looked good

Maybe I just ordered the wrong dishes, but I wasn’t impressed with the food here. Atmosphere is pretty nice, there’s a lot of red throughout the restaurant. Got seated on an elevated booth. By the way, you can ring the button on the side to call for your waiter. Thought this was convenient other than having to eye down your waiter sometimes.
So, my party and I ordered a beef soup, blood sausage appetizer, and bibimbap. The beef soup was sort of tasteless, so you have to add the amount of salt yourself. I found that a bit weird to do, but I’m pretty sure that’s the norm. I was not a fan of the blood sausage plate. I’m usually one to try new things, but it’s a huge plate of the sausage and parts of pork (?). The consistency of it of sort of funky because it was stuffed with noodles and it wasn’t particularly aromatic or flavorful. However, thank goodness we ordered the bibimbap because you can’t go wrong with that. I did like the small side dishes here though, they aren’t as acidic than other places too. I’d say the price point here is a tad expensive. Would’ve liked to see easy staples like bibimbap to be cheaper.

Really bad service here. The waiter was not only slow, but uncaring as well. We waited over fifteen minutes for food and the waiter did not even bother to help the non Korean people at our table order. We waited another 10 minutes for the check after we finished eating. And the restaurant was not crowded at all.
Also, there was a bug in my side dish, and when I called them over, they shrugged and asked if I needed a new bowl to use. They didn’t apologize at all, and I was disgusted.
The food is very mediocre, definitely not with the prices on their menu. I would definitely NOT recommend this place.

Oh boy. Brace yourself. This might get a little uncomfortable.
I don’t want to say I’m a gross person, but I have a pretty high tolerance for things that most people deem disgusting. Stuff just doesn’t bother me and I’m pretty good with shrugging off dis-​pleasurable situations. The key, I’ve found, is to not take yourself too seriously and just not care. I’m not special, I don’t deserve special treatment, and when something great happens to me I’m excited but skeptical and when something bad happens I deal with it and I don’t need the whole world to sympathize with me. I feel like this, for me, is the key to living a good life. Set your expectations reasonably, do the best you can, and don’t sweat the small stuff. Boom. 100% effective.
I felt like I needed to lay that out as evidence that I’m not a high-​maintenance yuppie, but you can think whatever want. I pride myself on my robot-​esque lack of emotions. Vicki from Small Wonder is my idol… plus they had they awesome train set. No, wait… that was Silver Spoons, which I actually can’t relate to at all, but you get what I’m saying.
So when I go out to eat and hear someone make a big deal about something like a hair in their food or gnat in their drink, I internally roll my eyes. Just pick it out and eat it. You know how food is made, right? With bare hands and plates and silverware that a billion strangers have eaten off before. It’s unavoidable that you’re going to pick up cellular debris from other foreign humans when you go out.
That’s just how it is.
Which is why I couldn’t have cared less when I pulled the first rogue hair out of my dolsat bibimbop (which was just okay, by the way… they def were hella skimpy on the tofu and egg)… just picked it out with my hand, put it on my place mat, and kept on going. Hell, I didn’t even bat an eyelash when I pulled the second short, dark hair out of my bibimbop. I just kind of looked at it, thought it was odd, ya know, what are the chances? Then pulled it out and put it next to the other one on my placemat. I figured the bibimbop bowl was pretty huge so the chances of it having more foreign matter was about twice as high. No big deal + I’m hungry. I’m eating this thing and ain’t nothing gonna stop me… wait, what’s that? A THIRD HAIR? Just chillin’ with my carrots. Oh c’mon. Now this is getting a little ridiculous, even for me. Are they making food back there or giving haircuts? It was at this point that I came to the realization that my limit for hairs in my food is 3. After that, when I’ve got enough hairs lined up on my placemat to start a stray hair conga line, it moves to a point where it gets harder for even me to laugh about.
Did I still eat it all? Yes. Of course. I had no problem with that. So even though it was sprinkled with follicles, it was still decent-​ish (again, they were pretty cheap on both the tofu and the egg).
Comically enough, the real disappointment here was the «grilled squid»… which was not grilled at all, not even hot, in fact, just so firm that I wouldn’t even call it rubbery. This squid may very well have been a very thinly sliced tire, because that’s about how good it was. Thankfully, they served it spicy red sauce to mask the Firestone flavor a bit, but it was still unforgivably bad.
It sucks because I was really excited to find out about this place and their hours that run until midnight during the week and 1am on the weekends… and they have karaōke but the rooms are right next to the dining rooms so bad singers may be your soundtrack for the night, though it was too funny to even be mildly annoyed with.
Our server was what I typically expect when I go to a Korean restaurant (see also: casual rudeness mentioned lovingly in my earlier reviews), but I was out of tea and she was literally 12 feet away at the bar staring at me. I did kind of a motion with my mouth to ask her for more tea, but she just stared and kept blinking (I was 1 of 3 tables in here, mind you). Then I kind of lifted my cup and tried to get her to make a move… nothing. So then I felt super awkward because my next option was to press the ‘call server’ button at my table, which is normally totally fine to hit, but not when your server is less than a stone’s throw away and already making direct eye contact with you, but she left me no choice. So I pressed the button and felt like a huge jerk as the doorbell sound went off for everyone to hear through the entire restaurant, but then she just waited a few seconds, looked at me one last time, then walked away into the kitchen. That was the last I saw of her until she came out to check on another table across the way about 5 minutes later. Awkward xInfinity.
There are too many better-​than-​decent Korean places within a mile from here for me to ever come back to San.

We actually went here by accident last night for my husband’s birthday (we meant to go to the Korean BBQ place on the other side of the strip mall) but we were pleasantly surprised. The food was excellent and the service was good-​especially considering there were what sounded like 1,000 children in their karaōke room.
Not what we were expecting but good just the same.

From what we could tell, it seemed like most of San Korean’s customers were Koreans here for the authentic stuff, so the server was a little confused by my requests for a vegetarianized meal. It ended up not being a problem, and the service was very good. She explained the call button to us, and yet, perhaps because she noticed we weren’t really used to it, she still came by a few times to see if we needed anything else and to refill our water.
The dolsot bibimbap was fantastic! I substituted tofu for the meat, and it came out with soft tofu instead of the fried stuff I prefer, but that’s okay. There was a larger portion of veggies than usual and it was amazing with the hot sauce.
The banchan (side dishes) were all very good. However, all of them besides one had varying levels of sweetness and it totally triggered my partner’s carb cravings. Due to that, we probably won’t be able to come back too often. Sadness!
My main disappointment was that for some reason they bring the soup and ban chan out with your entrees rather than in the beginning. I was starving so it wasn’t fun waiting the full 15 minutes for any food to come out.
I’m really intrigued by the sake/​yogurt/​juice cocktail in the back of the menu, but at $ 15 for the «small» I couldn’t quite go for it. Anybody know what that’s all about?

SPECIALTY
— Seolleongtang (⁷⁄₁₀)
— Kkakdoogi (⁷⁄₁₀)
I ALSO TRIED
— Nakji bokkeum (⁶⁄₁₀)
— Soon Tofu (³⁄₁₀)
— Kimchi jjigae (⁴⁄₁₀)
I don’t normally spell those dishes in English that way, but I figured at least my non-​Korean friends can Wikipedia those dishes, since those spellings came from Wiki articles.
San is a nice little neighborhood Korean restaurant. They also have Karaōke here, but I’ve never done it here, nor have I actually seen anyone do it, so can’t comment on that. There are more things I can put under that «I Also Tried» section, but I couldn’t find Wiki articles with those names, so I just skipped ‘em, but in general, most things here would be around the ⁵⁄₁₀ range anyway. (LA places are generally in the 8 to 10 ranges!)
SEOLLEONGTANG
Pronounced Suh-​Lung-​Tang — and that’s Suh like «Sucks» like «Ndamakong Suh SUCKS!» (da bears!) And «Tang» is like a short o (i.e. «clock»). Ok, I’m not going to do this translation thing for the rest of these, because this is hard, and it’s wasting my character limit! The only reason I do it for this, is because this is their specialty.
This is basically a process where you boil bones for 24+ hours to create a broth, but there’s a lot of attending that you need to do. And the way that you attend to it is really both an art and a science. However, the broth is only 50% of what makes it good. The kkakdoogi, which is basically pieces of radish living in a kimchi type of sauce, is the other 50%. You can have the world’s most perfect bowl of Seolleongtang, but if you have bad Kkakdoogi, you ruin the whole thing!
Enough explanation. So, as far as Chicago is concerned, this is one of my favorite Seolleongtang joints. Han Bat in the city has a lot more followers, but I thought their kkakdoogi wasn’t very impressive. The verdict is still out, because I“ve been here more than a dozen times, and I’ve been to Han Bat once. San’s kkakdoogi is usually got a decent sour to sweet ratio, and the moo (radish) is fairly firm. I definitely am not leaving disappointed when I leave San. I won’t call it LA standards, but like I said, for Chicago, it’s great!
NAKJI BOKKEUM
Basically squid and octopus with veggies in a spicy sauce.
San has changed owners at least a couple times since it opened. Back when it first opened, this was the best Nakji Bokkeum I’ve ever had (not just in Chicago!). But after changing owners, it’s still pretty good, but not quite like what it was before. Before, the squid was perfectly chewy, but not rubbery, but the sauce… OMG the sauce! It had such the perfect balance of sweet and salty, but the most important thing is, the spice was SOOOOO spicy it was physically exhausting trying to eat it! (That may make most people not like it, but for me, that’s next to godliness!). Now, it’s lost a little bit of its sweetness, but the spice is what I miss the most. It’s still got a kick, but nothing like what it used to have.
KIMCHI CHIGAE
Not very good at all. Granted, I’ve only had it once, so it could have been a fluke, but the kimchi was just not ready yet. You’re supposed to use very very fermented kimchi when you make kimchi chigae, but it just wasn’t. The soup, though, was pretty tasty.
SOON TOFU
I think out of all Korean food, this is the one that Chicago is absolutely the worst at. I am completely confused as to why, though. I mean, it’s the same people from Korea making the Soon Tofu here that are in LA, but LA is just so much better! The ³⁄₁₀ rating for Soon Tofu is an AVERAGE of Chicago! LA’s are in the 9’s constantly. The Soon Tofu soup is watery to begin with, and has no real intense flavor, like it’s supposed to have. It’s very mild, and very has no character.
GETTIN CHIGAE WITH IT?
With Chicago having the worst Korean food on the planet, San is actually not so bad. Averaging a ⁵⁄₁₀ in Chicago for Korean Food is actually a pretty good score (on a curve, that’s like a 7.5÷10). There are some dishes you just shouldn’t get here, but in general, when you go to San, you should really just be getting their Seolleongtang. If I go with at least 2 or 3 other people, we’ll split a Nakji Bokkeum too. There are a couple of other Korean restaurants around the area, and honestly, if I had to pick a «neighborhood» Korean restaurant from all the Korean restaurants in Chicago, this’d be it!

I came here and ordered two Accompaniments which don’t come with pan chan, which was kind of disappointing. We had to ask for it separately but when it came out, the pan chan was fantastic. The duk bokki we ordered was perfectly cooked (the rice cakes were soft and cooked just ride, the fish cakes weren’t hard or too flimsy, and it was super spicy which is the way it’s supposed to be).
We also got some fried chicken (sorry, don’t remember what it’s called but it’s in the Accompaniments section) and I would rate that dish 5 stars out of 5. It was perfectly fried (crunchy skin and soft on the inside) and the sauce gave it a perfect amount of flavor that when you bite in, it takes a couple seconds to figure out what’s so good about it. But man, I could eat that EVERYDAY!
The service was so-​so but that’s typical of an Asian restaurant. The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars was the price was kind of high for the dishes. For just two dishes, we paid $ 32 (pre-​tip) so it seemed rather pricey. I’d definitely go again for the chicken dish though.

NOTE: For dinner, all foods in the «Accompaniment» section DO NOT come with the side dishes (aka «ban chan»). The entrees listed in the «Accompaniment» section are typically «accompaniments» to beer and other bar items. Therefore, please take note of this … as I learned this tonight. While unfortunate, it totally makes sense to me.
Now, let me hit some other items before I get to the food.
As I mentioned in one of the photos, you need to use the call button to ask for service, whether it’s more water, more napkins, whatever. No, as Americans, we expect to be waited and served at our beck and call, but the Korean culture is different. You’ll just have to embrace this and use the call button as your request for service. If they do not get back to you within a reasonable time after you’ve pushed the call button, I think it’s grounds for lowering points for service. But other than that, our service was great tonight. The server (one!) was serving ALL the tables. I guess it’s possible when you use «CALL» buttons and don’t need waitresses checking up on tables every 5 minutes. Hmm, is this an efficiency thing? I think it could be!
So, the DECOR. This place is like a restaurant/​bar. As soon as you enter the restaurant, the first thing you see is a bar. So, if you’re a drinker, yippeee. If not, you turn to your right, and you see a pretty nicely decorated restaurant. They have a few booths, and the remainder of the tables are open space. All in all, nice. Not BRAND NEW, but they’ve done a pretty nice job. Much nicer than a hole-​in-​wall, but not fancy as … Chicago Prime Steakhouse.
So, the food, you ask? Well, as a Korean, I was very pleased with the food. We ordered 2 dishes tonight between 2 people. Let me note, both of these two dishes could have been shared perfectly with 3 people! The entrees that come out are humongous. So, I think 2 dishes are good enough for 3 — depending on what you get, and how big your tummy is!
**SPICY RICE CAKES (aka «dduk bbok ki») — These came with spicy rice cakes, which were perfectly cooked. The actual rice cakes were not too firm and chewy, nor were they too soft and overcooked. They were cooked right. The red pepper paste was quite spicy. So, if you can’t handle spice, you would want to reconsider! This dish also came with fish cakes, which were again perfectly cooked, a couple strips of napa cabbage, green onion, and one hard-​boiled egg (which was also perfectly cooked).
**Spicy/​Marinated Fried Chicken (aka «Yang Yeom Tong Dak») — They must have taken a piece of chicken, cut to pieces, battered them lightly, and covered with a soy-​ginger-​based sauce. This was nice… the batter was not too thick and heavy. The sauce, however, was thick — but good.
That’s it! Enjoy and happy eating!!!