Koreana

I ordered the Kalbi with fried rice. It was easily one of the top 5 best tasting kalbi dishes I’ve ever had.
The waitress was very nice. The bathroom was clean and the ambience was comfortable.
I will definitely be back.

This is the first review I have ever written and it’s worth the post. This place has some of the best food I’ve ever eaten and I eat out a lot. I haven’t been able to stray any further than the bibimbap but after trying some of my dining partners meal there wasn’t a single bad thing on the table! Would recommend this restaurant over and over again.

We were dying for sushi and this hit the spot! Nigiri and handrolls were yummy, fish was tasty, environment was perfect.

The food was excellent, the service was top notch, and the atmosphere was elegant and quiet. The chef was willing to adapt any of the menu selections to make them gluten free. I have been here for both lunch and dinner. It is a great choice if you want to enjoy your food and your company.

The wife and I tried it for the first time. She ordered the dup bap and I ordered the yum yum roll and the hot and hot roll. Both meals were well served. The ambiance was nice; the gas fireplace was on. Overall, a pleasant experience.

Really! my kimchi pajun was burt… Tastes wise hmmmm? I don’t know because I didn’t try it. But according to my husband wasn’t good. Not sure if I’m coming back…

I do like this restaurant and it is one of the few Korean restaurants in town. Their prices have gone up since they moved from their old location next to the strip club, but it isn’t horribly overpriced. The service has always been mediocre– the wait staff generally forgets something here and there and takes a bit of time before they come back and check on you. I only gave them 3 stars because they have gone really (I mean really) cheap on their carry-​out. For instance, it is normal to get side dishes with your korean meal regardless of whether it is dine in or take out. These side dishes could consist of fried egg, beansprouts, cucumbers, kimchee, radishes — etc. For anyone who has dined a meal or two at a k-​restaurant knows this.
As of late, Koreana has gone totally cheap on their side dishes — especially for carryout. They started giving you 2 items as opposed to five for instance. Then the next time you order from them — you get nothing (0). However you won’t have a clue until you get home and open the bag. Beware of this — ask for the banchan «sides» — it does come with the meal and you paid for it.

First time at Koreana today and it definitely won’t be my last! The ambiance of the restaurant is great and welcoming. I came with some friends after an exam late afternoon and we were greeted promptly by our waiter, Sam. He was very sweet and polite! I was craving ramen and was recommended the Budae, the Army Stew. While I enjoyed the ramen noodles and the tamed spicy flavor of my broth, I did not enjoy the ham and sausage meat that came with the entrée. For this reason, I would probably not order it again. My friend ordered the seafood pajun (seafood scallion pancake) as an appetizer and it was delicious! I also really enjoyed the small traditional Korean dishes that came with our food. Sam was very generous with the portion sizes.

Wow! We just moved to Toledo from Washington, DC and were worried about not having Korean restaurants close by. All I can say is, I do not have to hold my cravings til we get back to DC! We will be eating here weekly.
Everything was amazing… Even the banchan (side dishes) that sometimes restaurants get lazy with, are wonderful. We had jajangmyun, jampong, seulleungtang, kimbab, kimchi fried rice, and all of it was fabulous. We got to meet the chef who is classy and the staff is very friendly and service oriented. See you next week Koreana!

I have been to Korena three times now and is one of my favorite restaurants around here. The food has been consistently good and the service staff were friendly and accommodating. The place looks new and up-​scale. It is definitely worth every penny that I paid.
Being a vegetarian, my options are usually limited, but this place has a lot of vegetarian options, and the stock can be made vegetarian.
Oh, and don’t forget the ginger tea!

Love this restaurant! Best kept secret in toledo by far. The atmosphere is amazing & the staff is friendly. The food is amazing and is high quality.

Whoo hoo! They are open again. I finally got to take the Mr with me. We shared Kimbap then I had the Bulgogi and he had the seafood pancake. Both meals were absolutely delicious so they have not lost their touch. A tip though, ask about your water if you order any, I am certain they use tap water, DO NOT ever drink Toledo tap water, even in your tea. (Boiling Toledo water doesn’t kill the pathogens, it just makes it angry.)

Nice atmosphere. Food was ok. Waitress was not very attentive.
I ordered a Philadelphia roll which was very tasty. I also had the bulgogi which had some well flavored pieces of beef, but much of it was lacking any kind of marinade or sauce and therefore a little bland. I could not get the attention of the waitress to ask for more sauce and they were not really busy. The side dishes were not remarkable.

Koreana is an absolute standout. If you could only keep five restaurants in Toledo, this would have to be one of the five. Personally, it’s my co-​favorite (along with Registry Bistro). The food is authentic, fresh, and flavorful, and the menu quite broad, with a full range of Korean choices plus a full sushi menu, including a big selection of well-​conceived and beautifully assembled rolls.
We prefer to sit upstairs near the bar as it has an intimate, casual feel, but the main dining room is nice as well, with a fireplace and sushi bar in close proximity. There is also a room for special events. (We’ve been to one special event and it was staffed very well; lots of great food, brought at a good pace, with good attention to drink service, etc.)
Appetizers are uniformly good; the age dashi tofu is probably the best I’ve ever had anywhere (including SF/​NYC/​Chicago/​Toronto). The classic entrees like bibimbob and bulgogi are very well-​executed, so are the other menu items. My favorite is the «seafood sauté» which is a nice mix of shrimp, mussels, and scallops with some crisp vegetables in a zesty, spicy sauce, served with steamed rice.
The banchan come with entrees, and typically include green beans or broccoli, potatoes, fish cake, sprouts, and of course, kimchee.
The sushi is generously portioned and very fresh.
There is a full, well-​appointed bar. For a light, sweet treat to cool your palate, consider the lychee-​flavored sake.
Although some of the wait staff is a little green, being newly hired since the re-​open (the restaurant closed for nearly a year due to an electrical fire which caused extensive smoke damage), the service is polite and attentive. The owner’s family is quite warm and friendly. Mrs. Kim works in the kitchen while her husband and son, Sam, are often caring for patrons in the dining room.
My wife and I literally go here once every 2 or 3 weeks for date night, and look forward to it every time.

I tried the seafood jambong. The noodles were good but the seafood was way over cooked. It was like chewing huge rubber bands. I also had kimbap. That was good. The banchan was a nice variety.

My fiancé and I really enjoy sushi. We’ve been to places all over the Midwest and East Coast. While this place isn’t the best sushi I’ve ever had, it’s certainly one of the best I’ve had in Northwest Ohio! We’ve been on a quest to find a really good sushi place ever since we moved to Defiance. And while there are a few other places we wanted to try, we will come back here.
The soup and salad isn’t free, but they were both quite good. My fiancé loves ginger dressing and she said this place easily had one of the best dressings. The miso was pretty good too.
The sushi was great as well. We always get a spicy tuna or something to try a basic roll… sort of our common denominator for other sushi joints. All very good, no complaints whatsoever. The rice was excellent and there wasn’t too much of it!
Oh, and we also had a great waitress. :)
If it’s any indication, I never write reviews on Unilocal,and I wanted to write one on this place so A) you all and the restaurant could hopefully benefit from another review and B) so I can remember what it’s called!

This is one of our favorite places. We just heard it reopened after a fire and we stopped in for dinner today. The food is authentic, spicy and flavorful. The owner and staff are very friendly. It is not uncommon to see the owner chatting with guests, making sure everything is ok or offering suggestions.
The menu is authentic Korean. There are absolutely no cheesy pictures on the menu or chintzy cheap dollar store decorations. The place looks great with hand carved decorations, lots of wood, an outstanding sushi bar, and a great vibe. This is a place to go if you want a treat or a nice date night with the spouse (boyfriend/​girlfriend if your single). But, it also has a kids menu, for the family. By the way, the kids menu has authentic Korean too. Not the typical stuff most restaurants bring in from Cisco or Gordon’s and microwave (chicken tenders, cheese burgers, etc. no way). Instead, it is authentic yet tailored to a kids palate and size.
This is, hands down, one of the better places in Toledo.

An unexpected surprise to find this really high quality Korean restaurant just off the OH turnpike. Ok, so it’s several miles but you should definitely not eat the fast food at the plazas and make this place a destination. Authentic, delicious, healthy and as good as any I have had outside Palisades Park in NJ. I liked the pork bulgogi and kimchi chigae a lot. The banchan were very good. I especially liked the zucchini pancakes. The service is friendly and the place is comfortable, warm and inviting. Forget about the confusing décor. It looks like the owner is starting a flea market inside. You don’t know where you’re eating or what kind of food they’re serving in there. They should just keep it simple. There’s less to dust and clean!

We’re always on the lookout for good eats when traveling the Ohio Turnpike, and we found them in this wonderful Korean restaurant. I’ve had Korean food from Los Angeles to New York and just about everywhere in between… it’s my go-​to cuisine when I’m traveling, as it’s healthier than many options out there. This place stands with the best… delicious, carefully prepared food that’s obviously being made by someone with some mad kitchen skills.
We arrived for lunch and were greeted by a friendly woman who was doing double duty as a hostess and the sole server. We were offered two menus, one with the sushi and lunch specials and one that serves as their dinner menu. While the lunch specials looked fun and were a great deal, I really like ban-​chan, and you can only get that when ordering from the larger dinner menu, so that’s what we did. I will say that I’m not sure why this place isn’t packed for lunch, as for around ten bucks you can order a lunch box, which comes with an entrée of choice plus miso soup, veggie tempura, rice, salad and a dumpling. We saw some go out to other tables and were impressed with the amount of the food for the price. But, as I mentioned, I’m a fool for ban-​chan, so hubby cheerfully let me get my way and we ordered pork bulgogi and kim chee chi gae to share.
Usually ban-​chan arrives before the main entrée, but they serve them together here. I do like to nosh on the veggies and kim chee both before and during my meal, but it’s a small thing. Next time I’ll let them know. The bulgogi was excellent… perfectly cooked, with a spicy sauce that wasn’t over the top hot. Lovely. The soup was also wonderful; they include those wonderful little rice cakes in it, which you don’t find everywhere, and which I really like. The ban-​chan was a thoughtful mix of pickled veggies, potato salad, kim chee, fish cakes and a delightful fried zucchini fritter that was so good we asked for more.
Our server, Ellie, was both friendly and professional. As service is my background, I’m often watching, and she treated every table with equal kindness and assistance, often going beyond with helpful tips to her customers about menu items. She said she’s only been working there for 2 weeks, but you wouldn’t know it.
My one and only complaint is about something that I don’t usually care much about, and that’s the décor. Part of the restaurant is decorated in an appropriate Asian style, but much of this space is unnecessarily cluttered with too many tchotchkes. This was obviously a different restaurant before it was Koreana, and they may have just left too much of the old décor in here… either that, or the owners think all of this extraneous stuff looks good. Some of it is nautically themed, and some of it looks like cheap Victoriana. It’s incongruous and confusing to the customer. The décor that has an Asian feel is lovely… sleek and modern. The rest of it just makes the place look like they’re holding a flea market. I found it surprising, as the signage and logo have an edgy, very modern feel. Maybe there’s more than one person decorating? I hope they get this together, as it gives the restaurant a weird vibe. Plus, it’s just bad feng shui. If they clean up the dining room and get rid of the clutter, it could be a very beautiful restaurant.

I came here a few days ago for a meeting dinner. The outside of the restaurant didn’t look like anything special, but the inside décor was impressive and huge. We were here with a group of 30 people, and they have a private room in the back that can accommodate a huge number of guests.
I didn’t pay for any of the food so my review could be a little biased. I didn’t get to order the food because everything was already determined by the meeting coordinator, so I can only comment on what we had.
Appetizer: edamame and shrimp + vegetable tampura
Sushi: volcano roll and koreana roll
Dinner: bulgogi, kalbi, mae woon tofu bokeum
The chef/​owner? was really friendly and I was impressed they were able to make all the food in a timely manner. The sushi rolls were pretty «Americanized» but still tasty. I suspect the coordinator ordered those because some of the people in my party probably wouldn’t eat sushi… oh well.
The highlight of the dinner was definitely the bulgogi and kalbi. Kalbi was marinated well but there was too much fat in some of the short ribs. The tofu dish was a little too sweet, and I wish they made it super spicy.
They also have an extensive drink and cocktail menu which the whole party enjoyed.
Overall I was pretty impressed with this place. It definitely exceeds the Toledo standard and I had a great dinner here.

The new location is definitely nicer than the previous one. The ambience is nice. We went on a Sat night and they had a pianist playing live music. They also have a private room that seats about 25 people for a private event.
The restaurant not only serves Korean food but also sushi.
Overall, the food & environment was good but for the price we paid, I’d rather eat at a different restaurant.
The Korean food wasn’t bad. The banchan (side dishes) tasted ok. The kimchi jigae was good but a little watered down. The tofu with kimchi was a pretty tasty appetizer. And the kimbap was good but had a little bit too much sesame oil for my taste.
The hwe dup bap was ok but my friend didn’t seem too impressed with it. They give you the sauce in the dish rather than on the side so you can’t tailor it to your taste. The rice came on the side in a very shallow rice bowl that seemed like it was half the size of other Korean restaurants. My friend asked for more rice & we later found put that they charged us $ 2.95 for another bowl! It seems like a rip off considering you get about the same amount of rice in these 2 shallow bowls as you would in 1 bowl at a different place.
As far as the sushi rolls, the selection isn’t that big. I was looking for something that had shrimp in it besides shrimp tempura but there wasn’t anything.
The prices for the rolls are decent. I tried the fantastic roll, spicy tuna and spider roll. They were tasty but not enough to make my taste buds cry out for more.
The bathrooms are a bit small & FYI, there’s nowhere to change a baby’s diaper. Also, the floors in the ladies bathroom was sticky.
You also smell like food after you leave the restaurant.
The move has made Koreana into a nicer looking restaurant. I have to give Koreana props for being the nicest Korean restaurant in town. So if you’re looking for a Korean restaurant with a pleasant atmosphere, this is the place to go. But it is overpriced so if you just want some really good inexpensive Korean food, go to Lee’s market.