BentOn Cafe

Terrible! The worst Korean food that I have ever had. The seafood pajeon barely had seafood and had a consistency (not to mention flavor) like day-​old re-​heated bread; the kimchi soup was SWEET!!!; the ramen was so incredibly salty that they would have been much better off doing nothing but adding the ingredients to a bowl of Top Ramen; the eel avocado roll was incredibly dry; and the japchae was greasy and «peanutty», as if it was supposed to be a Thai dish instead. In fact, everything was overly greasy to the point that everyone who had any of it had stomach problems afterwards. We could not finish any of the dishes. Altogether, not a single thing redeeming other than the very kind delivery guy. For anyone who has ever had Korean food and knows what they are to taste like, this is by far the worst I have had and dare I say, the worst that I have had so far in the Financial District!

This place is absolutely the worst, ordered a take out through seamless, came as their wait time suggested, only to realize that my food hasn’t even been prepared yet, waited another 10 mins to talk to the staff, he told me food will be ready in just a minute, and 5 minutes later, the lady slowly started preparing my food. I asked is my food just getting started, staff said: yes we only have one cook today so it’s gonna take a while. Seriously, take your business else where the service is wack af and their food tastes horrible too.

Even though I didn’t get exactly what I ordered, the food was delicious. I ordered the platter with French fries. I got home fries instead. I’m not one to complain to later get my food spat on, so I’m eating this while Unilocaling. Potatoes are fresh and tasty, I ordered over easy eggs, not over cooked and neither was the bacon. This place would have received 5 stars if I had received my order correct.

It was almost $ 11 after tax. What do I expect for $ 11 in a bento box? More than what I got. The meat portion is tiny as heck. For $ 11, I expect at least double the amount of meat that I received. The stuffed cabbage had about a teaspoon and a half of meat inside and I received two pieces, are you kidding me?!? The salmon was the thinnest and smallest I ever received. One piece of salmon was smaller than my three fingers held together. It was thinner than my fingers, for two slices of that.
And the sides, they label what he side is called but neglected to list the ingredients inside, so if you have allergies like I do to dairy and shellfish, you won’t be able to tell unless you ask about each side and the person behind the counter wasn’t too patient about that, she just wanted you to move on fast.
Food was edible but not memorable at all.
Never again. I rather go to Dig Inn for this type of food. Same price, larger portions and ingredients are labeled.

Really delicious and healthy japanese food. Good portion and variety on the bento box too.

I used to enjoy going to BentOn Café for lunch but then I discovered Jubilee Marketplace! gomen-​né~ The salmon in Jubilee’s more fresh. However, I do love the salmon onigiri; which comes out to about $ 2 in change.
Normally I would go at exactly 12pm for the lunch box specials, best to go there early at 12pm or earlier since it gets pack quite fast and the lunchbox gets sold easily. I was told that the premade lunchbox is available starting from 10:30am. Lunch box + tax comes close to $ 10. A Bento Box’s pretty avg but very fulfilling it comes with a free miso soup.
There’s free hot and cold water near the cashier, on the same table where there’s tissue, spoon, and chopstick. A huge downside to this place is during the checkout, it takes awhile to get to the cashier. Normally it’s only one cashier behind the counter. You have two discombobulated lines, one with the premade food and the other where one order freshly made food.
For every bento box you get a stamp for their bento point card. You get a choice of using $ 2.50, $ 5.00 or $ 7.50.

Really was in the mood for Ramen noodles and my mom was really in the mood for Udon noodles. We both left still really in the mood for Ramen noodles and Udon noodles.
I can probably say this was hands down the most unsatisfying meal I’ve had all year!
Before actually ordering my noodles, i debated with trying a bento box lunch, i think because as I was on line i could see the vast selection of options for the bento box lunch. Upon closer inspection of the many salad, side and protein options nothing looked very appealing. I maybe should’ve taken this as a cue to forego them altogether.
The ramen was actually flavorless (which i did not think was ever possible), you get a meat add-​in and three vegetables but the selection is maybe ⁵⁄₆ options tops and really basic; broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, bean sprouts… i forget the rest. The add-​in were skimpy and did nothing to add any type of flavor. It was a very lackluster lunch and I am still on the hunt for good ramen in FiDi.

Wanted to try this place last Sunday, and i think i made a HUGE mistake. I could be a bit picky with food, but what i had was really just eatable. Not bad, but just eatable. Maybe I ordered the wrong item on the menu, but I only had a few bites, because it is so different from what I had imagined.
Delivery came pretty fast, service was fine, but the food… wont recommend to those who are expecting or used to anything authentic.

BentOn Café
NY: Manhattan: FiDi
8pm Wednesday 23^rd March 2016
Three Stars
This place does not deserve a 2.5 star rating. Its a fast casual asian café. I came here late in the day so the meat and salad selection looked a bit tired. I decided on a Short Rib Bibimbap $ 14.41. It had warm white rice with 5 «vegetables» and decently cooked and seasoned beef. The flavors were there for a quick cheapish meal.

I usually come here for lunch for the udon and it used to be good when the food was made in front of you. When they changed to have the kitchen in the back, everything went downhill. One time, they forgot my order, but I let that one slide. I went there recently, had my udon and did not feel right at all after lunch. I had food poisoning from their lunch. It was either the udon, beef or vegetables, you take your pick. I am not coming back here anymore, stay away!

Been to BentOn several times for lunch and it has gotten much more popular and crowded over the past year since it opened. The bibim bap and noodle dishes are by no means huge, but I would say this is a solid fast lunch pick in the financial district. The food is tasty and moderatlly priced when you consider other sit down options in the neighborhood. Even when it is busy I can usally find a seat and there is a restroom.

Extreme slow service, ordered a teriyaki chicken bowl, katsu don bowl, and a kimchi tofu bibimbap, teriyaki (what looked like heated up TV dinner) served in 10 minutes, the rest after 25 — 30 minutes… While waiting, we stood by the counter to watch the food being prepared, what we saw was disorganization and chaos. What was even more bizarre was that the servers appeared simply clueless on how to make the food… First putting ingredients into the bowl, later pondering, then taking ingredients out of the bowls… And at one point literally put his finger into the bowl (WTF)… Needless to say, we did not check the reviews for this place before walking in, and definitely won’t be going back ever again. Worst «Japanese» food ever.

Pros:
Relatively cheap
Spacious
Cons:
2 Toilets (one is broken, so they basically have one toilet)
Toilet paper and Paper towel are placed on the floor and on the sink respectively; quite disgusting
Feels like a cafeteria

I ordered a Katsudon at 11:35 and was not ready until 11:53. I should not have to wait 20min for it. Everybody who works around that area goes there on lunch break and is on a time crunch. They need to do better on serving the food a lot faster. Won’t be ordering from there again. By the way Katsudon looks so small. 20min for this? No way Jose.

I used to come here every morning for their rice triangles. It makes the perfect breakfast or quick bite because its so easy to eat and cheap to boot. I also like the steamed cheesecake bread.
The only downside is that it takes forever to get through the sales line. Their checkout process seems flawed. I hate inefficiency and the set up is a bit of a mess and disorganized. People are standing multiple lines ordering food from the kitchen while others are paying for their boxed meal coming from another direction. I think if they just put a little more thought into this, it could be streamlined to be a lot faster. Plus they have a lot of pre-​made items (which are the items I buy). The appeal of the items is that its a quick purchase in and out but i always somehow manage to get stuck waiting to pay for a prepackaged item for a really long time.

I think this place concept is good, you choose your items to fill the 6 diff boxes. However, it was too salty, couldn’t finish and needed up throwing them away. If they are less salty, which is not healthy, or less sauce; then would have been a lot better. I’ll try the place again some time later to see if there are any changes.

To eat at BentOn is to see into our depressing, tasteless futures. Where the food of the world has been discovered, strip-​mined and returned to its citizens in cafeteria trays.
Meals are assembled into customized bento boxes, where six choices must be made out of nearly 15 proteins and vegetables. Proteins, which include tofu hamburger patties and chicken teriyaki, are two of the selections, while the others are a series of carbohydrates and vegetable combinations. Some of these are elaborate, including an arugula salad that is assembled for each tray with a pile of beans and topped with a vinaigrette.
There are two problems here. The first is that none of this food tastes like it should come from the same kitchen, let alone be shared on a rectangular tray. And even worse, almost none of it is any good.
Cold rice, slimy chicken, limp salad — it’s all here and it disappoints. Everything is in «sensible» portions, but it adds it to a fair amount of food that you don’t want to eat.
I came for dinner. Maybe this food is fresher and hotter at lunch, but I still paid full price for it and I’m sure temperature was the main problem. Perhaps fewer, tastier dishes should on offer. The red cabbage was crisp, crunchy and quite nice. More of that and less limp shu mai and beige pasta, please.

Just ran into this place and decided to try it out. Verdict… Horrible!!! Here’s why.
I was interested in ordering pan seared dumplings and a California roll and when I ask about those 2 items, the cashier could. Not answer my order. Ali ask was «how many dumplings come in a small and how ma y comes in a large?». I ask 2 girls and both could NOT answer. They had to ask the kitchen. Then when I ask the same question a out the sushi, they again did not know. Finally I place my order (which came out to almost $ 20 for only 1 order of dumplings and 1 order of sushi) and they had me wait 25 minutes. Mind you no other customers were there (except for me and another person). When I get to my office to eat this expensive ass lunch, the sushi was sooooo small and they didn’t supply a dish to pour the soy sauce in. They also did. It supply the dumpling sauce. They place was too far for me to walk be and complain about that but lesson learned. NVER EAT AT THIS PLACE AGAIN.

I don’t know why the ratings here are so low… BentOn Café has become my favorite spot for lunch when I’m craving Japanese/​Korean food.
They’re probably most well-​known for their bento boxes that come with 2 proteins and 4 vegetable/​starch sides. It’s great for my hungrier days, but this is usually too much food!
Instead, I gravitate towards their Soon Doo Boo. For just $ 4, you get a pint size container that is filled with plenty of soft tofu and seafood-​y bits (mussels, squid, crab cakes). You can order a side of rice for a few dollars extra, but I usually find myself satisfied without it.
They also have items like udon, chirashi bowls, onigiri, and bibimbop on the menu. If you’re craving Japanese/​Korean food you’ll definitely be able to find something you like!
AND! They give 10% off for students!
(Yes, I am still milking my college ID for all it’s worth.)

Sometimes, brevity can be a good thing, so here’s my short review of this establishment:
I tried to give this place a couple of chances, but it’s just not very good. Bland expensive food. This is not what good Japanese food ought to taste like. Do yourself a favor and get food elsewhere.