Eagerly anticipating our first time coming here for Korean flavored chicken wings, we were very disappointed in the service (or lack thereof).
We were already running late to bring home lunch, but we were in the area running errands so decided to come here. I recognize that we could have placed the order beforehand, but 1) I wanted to minimize the time the chicken was standing uneaten while already sauced, since sogginess is the enemy of deliciousness when it comes to Korean-style fried chicken. 2) was first time so wasn't sure what to order. To maximize our time, I ran over to the Pho place next door to place my order (I can't help myself). My daughter placed and paid for a to-go order here: 30 wings (up to 6 flavors, but we stuck with 3: Mild, Asian-Cajun, Soy Garlic for $39.95), order of large fries with snow cheese ($4.28), and 5 piece asian-cajun fried corn ($4.09). It was clear from the beginning that this is a Filipino owned/operated local restaurant (Filipino artifacts, newspaper available), which she LOVES to support so ordered a lot of food and gave a very generous dine-in level tip for a carryout order. I got my Pho under 15 minutes, so came back to sit with her to wait. We found a place to sit in the dining room, and watched orders being fulfilled by the waitress/order taker...even take out orders that were placed after us. My thought was that they must prioritize dine-in orders since we saw food being delivered within 10 minutes of an order being placed. And each time, the waitress never acknowledged us that we were there. Neither of us like to make a fuss, but finally after 25 minutes. she got up to ask her what was happening. She then went to the back, came back with a response: "Oh, the fried corn still needs to be made"....like that was a perfectly valid thing. Bothered by her nonchalant answer and visions of our crispy chicken wings slowly getting soggy because 'the corn wasn't ready'...I got up and angrily told her to skip the corn so we could be on our way. That got her attention, and she rushed back to the kitchen. She came back out immediately, preceded to take care of another thing in front (note there weren't any other customers waiting at this point). but then came back to the kitchen to get our order, and came back 3 minutes later with the order. She gave a half-hearted 'Sorry for the delay' and that was that. No other apology, or attempt to make it better, or even offer to take back the $10 tip. To be clear, I don't believe she had any maliciousness about any of this...but an attitude to keep us informed because we were waiting (while others got their food first) was just missing....and it wasn't THAT busy.
Service like this just makes me want to write a one-star review, but I had to admit when I got home, that the wings were good. As expected, the mild wasn't good...the sauce had made the wing no longer crispy and the flavor was underwhelming. However the two drier sauces (Soy Garlic and Asian-Cajun) had not made the wings soggy, and the crispiness along with the unique sauces made it very good. The Asian Cajun reminded me of the southeast asian sauce drier sauces that I've tried back at home (Like the Dirty Elvis). I wouldn't call this a KFC place, since the only Korean sauce was Buldak-Gochuchang, which we skipped. But they do wings well, and many of the wings were jumbo sized. The fried corn was just as good as what you can get at Wingstop, and at a better price. The fries were bad...even though they had gotten soggy, they were never crispy to begin with...they had been undercooked....and the snow cheese was not what we expected (Korean style powdered cheese)...plus it was supposed to be a Large size, but would be considered a regular at other places. Would definitely skip that if I knew.
So I can't recommend this restaurant, even though I really, really wanted to (a Filipino-owned restaurant serving Korean chicken wings...c'mon...). And don't tip them until your interaction is complete....and if that means no tip because you have to pay up front, so be it. read more