Cho Sun Myun Oak

Closed for business.
Fixtures auctioned off on Friday, May 18, 2012

Is this place still open?
A friend of mine ate bibimbop here and found a piece of glass in it. She was bleeding as she was chewing the food. When the owners were told of this nightmarish incident, instead of apologizing, their reactions were just so absurd and ridiculous!
Just be careful of what you put in your mouth when you’re at this place.
I realize there are many complaints among Korean customers.

Came here late on a weeknight (9pm) to an empty-​ish restaurant and had some cold noodles and galbi here — galbi was soooo good. Banchan was plentiful and delicious! Service was attentive, better than other Korean restaurants that I have been to!

Might be my new favorite Korean joint in the South Bay.
I’m more of a traditionalist then a bbq guy when it comes to Korean food so I absolutely love what this place has to offer.
Sullungtang for breakfast! Doesn’t get much better than that, especially at breakfast-​friendly prices of around $ 6 bucks.
Came back for dinner the same day and had sullungtang again! Their sullungtang is now my favorite of any Korean restaurant in the area — significantly thicker and more savory than even the sullungtang specialty houses. We also had the dukbokki (solid) and my date had the dolsot bibimbap (excellent!)
This is a real, authentic Korean restaurant where the waitresses don’t necessarily speak great English, so if you’re going to come you might want a Korean friend to accompany you. Please don’t mistake a language barrier as rudeness — the people who run this restaurant are very nice and accommodating if you give them a chance (or have a translator handy)

Food here is probably 3 stars. Service necessitates I knock it down to 1.
I had a craving for bibimnaengmyun for awhile, and when my gf suggested we try someplace new, this came up. This restaurant came up as specializing in naengmyun, so we had to check it out.
Got there. Sat down. Waited. A lot. Waited for the menu. Waited for water, banchan, entrees. Everything took forever to come around.
Menu — 5 minutes after seating.
Order — 10 minutes after receiving menu.
Water — 5 minutes after order.
Banchan — 15 minutes after order.
Entrees — 25 minutes after order.
Waiting is fine, but when they spread everything out, we end up twiddling our thumbs. The restaurant wasn’t even crowded, so it didn’t make sense why it lagged so much.
Finally got the real food. I ordered the bibimnaengmyun with kalbi, and my gf got yookkaechan. My noodles were plentiful, but the meat and vegetables weren’t so much. I would have liked more gochujang and the sauce itself was on the blander side. Kalbi was a little overcooked, but tasty.
I could have lived with that and given it 3 stars. But towards the latter part of our meal, we had received the check. It had been sitting there for 10 minutes, when one of the waitresses came over, saw that we had not left money there yet and started tapping loudly on the check. I’m sorry, but I’M STILL EATING! I WILL PAY YOU WHEN I AM DONE! I was really offended at this point. Did she think we weren’t going to pay? WTH!?! After all the waiting we had to endure, she was trying to hurry us up and out. Maybe if we’d gotten our food earlier, we’d finish earlier.
In the end, I’ve had better bibimnaengmyun IN THAT SAME PLAZA (Tutti) than I had here. Add in the rude service and I have really no reason to come back.

Worst service ever.
No water, no taking an order food… make customers sits on the table forever…
They don’t even remember if they ordered food or not… WTF…this place is horrible…
They do not deserve any single tip :(I would never go back this place!!!

One of my go-​to Korean spots. I love introducing people to Cho Sun Myun Oak. Really like the homestyle cooking here!
I’ve tried numerous dishes here during lunch and dinner and have never been disappointed by any. I’ve had the seafood pancake, some fish on the stone plate (the waitress didn’t know the English name of the fish, and I can’t remember the Korean one right now), bulgolgi, kalbi, soondubu, dukbokki, gomtang (which I initially thought was bland, but I didn’t realize that you need to add salt), and jap chae. The bulgolgi dish was loaded, lots of meat and all lean. Big plus that kept me coming back.
Most recently I tried the kal guk su, which I found to be very flavorful. Noodles were chewy and there were a few mussels and other seafood in the soup, which is way more than at another place.
If you’re hungry for dessert, head over to Real Ice Cream for Indian ice cream!

This place has my favorite panchan in the South Bay. You get an yellow egg soufflé, white julienned potato salad, black seaweed, red napa kimchi, green leaves, etc… and they’re all so tasty too (especially love the first two.)
Their menu items are good too, the gomtang is solid (though a tad on the chewy side), and a few bucks cheaper than at Kunjip or SGt, although it seems to be as much a specialty here since there’s a few menu items that center around it & they have the obligatory sea salt containers on each table. So you still get gomtang here, but with better side dishes. Yay!
They also have the lettuce wraps where you can pick two items. They serve a variety of lettuces, blanched cabbage & sheets of kelp. You can pick 2 from chicken, beef, pork, mackerel, or squid. Much beter than Choi’s. We got the mackerel & spicy chicken. The mackerel was browned to perfection, the spicy chicken was tasty but a bit on the sweet side. But the array of colors really was dazzling, especially in conjunction with the side dishes.
Service is friendly (although reading some of the previous reviews it seems that wasn’t always the case… LOL) and they were happy to refill those delicious side dishes! Yesss!!!
The only complaint is I wish they didn’t charge $ 1.99 for their multi-​grain rice, especially since it has white rice in the mix too :-\. It does turn out a brilliant golden red, though.
Good food, but what sets this place apart is that Cho Sun Myun Oak has mastered the art of colors.

occasionally walked into this place because the one we looking for was closed for refurnishing. This Korean restaurant is fancy! Love their service rather than their food. People are nice and they are also interesting to talk with.
We order a combo of two selective dishes for $ 27.99. The meal comes with rice, assorted Kim chi plates and seaweed soup. Dishes are wonderful :) Also we have a taste for their cool rice drink.
Would go back some other time:)

3.5 stars. I came here in a group of 5 for dinner since everyone was craving Korean food. I ordered the kimchi jigae, which was nice and spicy. My favorite thing about Korean tofu places are the side dishes that have free refills, and this place was no different. Overall, the food was decent and our server was nice, but the service could be a bit more attentive.
–L.

Finding that our Korean Fried Chicken trip was cut short due to the fact that our primary place was closed, we ended up here. Got some of the man doo dumplings, spicy pork, fried king fish and dol sot bi bam bap. Everything was pretty standard though the fish was pretty tasty. I originally wanted to try the Don Ggas but they said they didn’t have it. The sides were plentiful and the service was solid. A bit of a language barrier here and there but we mostly got what we asked for. 3.5 stars

It’s hard to see this place from the street since it’s tucked away in the corner of the plaza, but if you see the large sign for Hue lounge (nextdoor), you’re in the right place.
The place has a more traditional feel to me than other restaurants nearby, though I can’t be sure why. The bulgogi is good, and they even served us a plate of dduk bok gi on the house when I went for lunch on a Saturday (I wouldn’t count on this normally though). They’re generous with the side dishes and have a pretty wide selection of main dishes.
I like that they serve seolleongtang (sul rung tang?). I haven’t seen this soup being served elsewhere.

My colleague told me they had the best cold noodles around so I came with the family for dinner. It was in a tucked away plaza, that I would have never come by if it wasn’t for the recommendation as you can’t see it from the main street, El Camino Real.
We were quickly greeted and was seated right away. My cousin’s kid was sleeping on the stroller so they seated us in the back in a quiet area, which was nice of them.
I ordered the grilled BBQ chicken. The rest of the family ordered bibimbop (some in stone pot, some in a regular bowl), dumpling soup, and cold noodles. They bought a bunch of banchan that I’ve never seen before. Tasting each of them, I can tell it was authentic compared to other places that I’ve tried. Even the kimchi tasted different. My BBQ chicken was very good. They hooked us up with extra cold noodles so the rest of us got to try some. It was my first time and I was surprised how good it was. It reminded me of Japanese shirataki (yam noodles), but tasted like noodles. Food was really good. All of us enjoyed our food. Hope to go back again soon. My cousin’s Korean husband even commented that it’s the best Korean food he’s had since he recently moved to Bay Area.

I really like this place! The servers don’t really speak that much English, so I had to work harder to find out which items had meat and fish sauce. Once I figured that out, I love ordering their bibimbap (without the meat). Add the hotsauce to their hot rice bowl and all the shredded veggies + tofu in there, and it’s just yummy! Not to forget the numerous side dishes that they bring out as part of the meal! I especially like the shredded potatoes with mayonnaise, spicy broccoli and a couple of others.
I love their sweet rice pudding for dessert that’s also part of the meal. All in all, the best Korean place I’ve tried so far!

When I am hungry and feelin for some Korean food, I assemble my friends and go chow down at Cho Sun Myun Oak. It is a little restaurant that is BIG on the inside. It is on the corner of a small little strip and is in the shadow of a more crowded Korean restaurant in the outskirts of the strip. This baby needs to SHINE more.
The food is delicious. The BEST Korean food I have ever had. The older workers aren’t the friendliest of people but the daughter is very friendly and is young so you can chat and relate to her.
MY personal favorite is #43, its sizzling chicken with stuff haha. VERY GOOD.
Pros — Delicious Food, 1 friendly worker haha and the sides are AWESOME. My favorite side that they give you is the squid with garlic. It is to DIE for.
Cons — Only thing I have to say, is the old lady haha. She isn’t the friendliest of host but her restaurant is nice haha.
Help this little place shine. The food is great. What more do you want? Quiet place to eat, good music, great food. Perfect.

It wasn’t busy when my mom and I came here today for an early dinner. There was no one in the restaurant. Anyway, this restaurant is know for the NAE-​MYUN (Cold buckwheat noodle soup) If you order their specialty, they are willing to give you more refills on that specific noodle soup. Isn’t that great, especially during the summer time.
Well, that didn’t happen to me today because the waiter told us that it would take a long time to boil up the water and so on and so on.
Well, my mom and I ended up ordering the Bim-​Bim-​Bap (mixed veggies and rice) and I ordered the Hot spicy beef soup (Hae-​Jang-​Guk) to cure my cold. =(
While we were waiting for our food, the waiter gave us some doh-​bok-​gi (spicy sweet rice cakes in a red sauce) as appetizers which was on the house. Hell yeah! It was okay, but not as good as my mom’s. =p The waiter brought out the ban-​chans and then our main entrée was ready. The ban-​chans was great because it wasn’t too sweet or too salty. Usually the other korean restaurants tend to make it too sweet or too salty. The hot spicy soup that I had was pretty good and spicy just the way I like it. As for my mom’s bim-​bim-​bap, it was okay. They also give you a Mil-​guk (seaweed soup) on the side.
Overall, my experince was great and no complaints about this place so far…

The first sign of a good Korean restaurant is if the staff doesn’t speak English! The ladies here definitely didn’t seem to understand as one stared blankly at me when I simply said «tea.»
But never fear! Korean co-​worker to the rescue! He hooked us up and ordered all our food for us.
I also love that the menu is full of pictures. I appreciate that at any restaurant! Extra star for that.
I tried something new and was so happy I did. It was thanks to the picture! Now one of my favorite Korean dishes is the bulgogi bibimbop. $ 9.99 for lunch.

I’ve been hearing so great things about this place, especially for their cold buckwheat noodles (muhl nhang myun), so my group of friends and i decided to go give it a try.
So we get there and it’s not like we were dressed to impressed (we had just gotten back from an outing), but we got seated right away. First impression was: bad location, clean restaurant.
Once we get seated, we order our food and we just talk while we wait. The bahn chan (the side orders) come out and we’re like okay, this is not a lot but whatever, each restaurant is different. THEN we noticed how we got shorted cause every other table had like 7 – 8 plates, while we had our four. WE gave them the benefit of the doubt and said, maybe its cause we ordered the noodles and you don’t really eat a lot of the side dishes with that.
So we’re waiting, and during our wait, maybe two families come in. and guess what??? they get their food BEFORE we do. wtf is that???
not once were we asked if we needed more water, no refills, no SPOONS. my sister had to go up and get all the stuff herself. there is no service at this place. i hate places where they don’t treat you with the same respect as someone that’s older. sure we looked young (we’re all in our mid 20s) cause we were dressed down, but that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve the same respect as the family that came in. korean restaurants are known to do this crap.
we get our noodles and it’s ok, not the best.
but regardless, this place gets only two stars cause service is a big part of your dining experience. their tip from me was telling them that they need better service if they really want to expand their restaurant.

Delicious jung-​gols!!! mmm yummie: P Also, the ojingo bokkum is one of my favorites there. They have very good banchan as well and the place is clean with good service. The place is a bit hard to find, but you just have to look for the big sign (and it’s near a no-​name gas station/​car wash). Not too much parking available because they’re so many people there at the Indian ice cream parlor and the supermarket.
They are supposedly known for their nengmyun because you can get more noodles if you want. but honestly it’s not that great.. I think myung dong has way better neng myun. and the service is great (if you speak korean)…they can’t really speak english so it’s hard to get what you need and want… so make sure you bring someone that can speak in korean :)

~~ update on 07/​20/​2008:
I have been here 3 times in the past 2 years, so I am only going to review the dishes I tried.
I haven’t been here in a long time, so today I had the beef dolsot bimbimbap (? stone pot rice dish). Again it was great that there’s no wait and plenty of open spaces. I can’t remember what happened before, but this time the waiting staff is attentive (maybe because we ordered in Korean?)
ok, solid 4 stars in my book, and now I know where it is, I will be back! =)
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My favorite here is the «sizzling Beef + Mushroom» for $ 14.95 per person (2 min.). It’s thinly sliced beef cooked on a hot plate on your table with 3 different types of mushrooms. I just love this dish. It’s so tasty and very different from other typical Korean dishes.
They also have their usual beef short-​ribs and beef/​pork dishes. Price is reasonable. Large internal space, not too crowded (at least for the weekend dinner time I was there).
Yes, the staff is not fluent in English and they can be a bit «less than polite» some times. But the food makes up for it, thus the 4 stars.