I've wanted to try this place for a while and today was the day. All in all pretty good but if you ask for fried rice, they make it to order. The teriyaki chicken is warmed up, so the two come out different temperatures and one seems lukewarm and the other piping hot. I buried several pieces of my chicken so the rice would warm it up. I would have rather had the chicken on top of the rice for heat and I'll ask next time, because there will definitely be a next time. And paying 4 extra for fried rice is a bit much compared to others but it was pretty good fried rice so again, no complaints. read more

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It has been a while since I have been here. Decided to come here for a quick dinner. They have Teriyaki and Chinese wok style cuisine, as well as Korean food. The Korean food is listed in Korean...so unless you ask questions, you may not know what you're ordering. In the past I have tried the Bulgogi, which is good and comes with banchan--but a little pricey. This time around we chose Mongolian Beef and Teriyaki Chicken with Gyoza. The Mongolian Beef was not good. I didn't care for the sauce, the meat was chewy, and the styrofoam noodles were rancid--and there were a lot of them! The actual portion size was pretty small. The salad on the plate with the Teriyaki and Gyoza was big chunk of lettuce with a giant glob of dressing--pretty unappealing. Service was mediocre. There were flies buzzing around as we ate. I think we are the only Americans in here right now. Pretty busy for dinner. Not really sure that we would return, better places in the area. Overall 2.5 rating. read more

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It's a restaurant that offers a typical teriyaki menu along with a variety of traditional Korean dishes. The menu is so extensive that instead of feeling like a place specialized in one type of dish, it seems more like a place where any customer can find something they like. Since I was there, I ordered a mix of four different dishes: from the typical teriyaki menu item, chicken yakisoba, to traditional Korean dishes like hot spicy beef soup with vegetable and even soondae only plate (Korean blood sausage). After trying the food, I found that the flavors were a bit different from what I had expected. The taste reminded me of Korean home-cooked meals--rustic, but not without flavor. The fried rice was slightly sweet, but not in a natural way from the rice itself; it seemed like something had been added, which didn't suit my taste. The soondae was disappointing and didn't taste good. The hot spicy beef soup with vegetable didn't have a deep broth flavor, but it was well-seasoned and not too spicy. The chicken yakisoba was well-seasoned but lacked the smoky, grilled taste I was hoping for. As it's a teriyaki restaurant, they only serve three kinds of kimchi as side dishes, and even then, only if you order Korean food (they didn't serve it with the teriyaki items like chicken yakisoba or fried rice, and not even with the soondae). The owner himself does the serving, and even when there aren't many customers, the food takes some time to come out. He does give a heads-up if a particular dish will take a long time to prepare. Here is more information: - Food: Below average with limited side dishes (three types of kimchi for certain menu items). - Price: Average (slightly cheaper than other Korean restaurants in this area but similar to Korean Mart food court prices). - Service: Slightly below average, as the owners struggle to manage all the customers' orders during busy hours. - Ambiance: This is a somewhat divey restaurant and flies (mentioned other people's review as well). Parking: The restaurant has its own parking lot (free of charge). read more

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Too many different kinds of food. Not only Korean food also, Japanese and Chinese dishes but much better average.

Came here because I love soondae and Seattle doesn't have a decent place. The reviews said the soondae was the best they've had so we decided to give here a try. The price was good compared to Seattle prices but compared to other Tacoma prices, it's average. I got soondae soup with soondae only. The soup broth was decent but the soondae itself tasted very stale like thawed from freezer... which honestly was so weird because I saw them making fresh soondae. In addition, there was literally nothing in my soup other than little bit of green onions and couple pieces of soondae. I was super duper disappointed!!! Soondae has been one of my absolute FAVORITE Korean street food as long as I can remember. I've had soondae from just about every single Seattle area restaurant. I have not found a restaurant that has really good soondae Since other reviews brag about how good their soondae is, I would be willing to give them one more try before I completely dismiss their food. If their soondae is good the second time, then I will change their rating and make edit to this review. This might be a while since I do not plan on driving down to Tacoma out of my way to try here. read more

Samwon Garden Restaurant - Korean Style Sausage Soup (Soondae) - Korean Near Me - Lakewood, Washington

We stopped in and while the exterior says dive the inside is very clean and well maintained. You can see the clean kitchen when you order. Tried the Gyoza, Sesame Chicken, Mongolian Beef and Sweet and Sour Chicken. The Sweet and Sour Chicken was good and so was the Sesame Chicken. The Goyza and the Mongolian Beef were outstanding. Especially the Mongolian Beef served on a crispy bed of rice noodles and the taste was full and balanced. Goyza was perfectly done and no taste of oil and served in a little boat with the sauce (mmm ginger). No kids menu but order and share. Order extra Nd take some home! Service: excellent, slight wait as food is made if it's busy (and it is busy at times) Cleanliness: Very clean Kids menu: no MyFitnessPal: no Restroom: yes but only use if you need. Very clean but you need to ask as it is around back in the kitchen read more

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Service was great - helpful and fast. Had the pork fried rice and general tso. Will visit again!!

Teriyaki joints are saturated w/ Korean owned businesses. I was only interested in the Korean food he had to offer. I ended up ordering Soondae (Blood sausage pork blood with cellophane noodles and glutinous rice) and Spicy Pork Bulgogi (Pork, Onion & Spicy.) The ugly looking establishment exceeded my expectations as far as their quality of food! Recommended. Thanks Blake read more

Samwon Garden Restaurant - Korean Near Me - Lakewood, Washington

I used to go here once or twice a week for the soondae gook or sullungtang. Banchan is not as good nor plentiful as other local places. But the soup is good. Then why the one star review? I haven't been there in over a year. Here's why - a Korean place should NEVER charges for extra rice - particularly to someone who frequents your business once or twice a week. So you got your extra $2. But you will not get my business again. Plenty of other places to eat in Lakewood read more

Come here if you want delicious soondae!!! Like VERY DELICIOUS soondae. I almost lost count of the years I've been searching for spots that serve good, quality soondae. First off it's RARE to even find a Korean restaurant that serves it at all, and then if in the rare instance they do, it's just meh. But alas, Samwon Garden Restaurant is it. Even though it's a 40 mile drive for me from downtown Seattle, I've been every weekend for the last three weeks. So good! Like I shed a happy tear good. I get soondaeguk and then an order of soondae. The soondaeguk isn't fancy or complex by any means--no noodle, no deulkkae garu..just broth, green onion, and soondae. I bring my own bag of deulkkae garu to add to it lol. It's so good!!! Sometimes the broth is fattier and more flavorful than other days though, but still always delicious. So glad I found this place! Thanks, Yelp! read more

Samwon Garden Restaurant - Delicious Soondaeguk - Korean Near Me - Lakewood, Washington

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Was craving Beef Bulgogi so grabbed some for takeout. I was pleasantly surprised to receive 3 side dishes of kimchi along with it! It was flavorful and such a large portion that I still have half of it for lunch tomorrow. I'll admit it wasn't as smokey as if you dined in but the flavors were all yummy. Try this place if you haven't! read more

Samwon Garden Restaurant - Beef Bulgogi to go - Korean Near Me - Lakewood, Washington

Food was Delicious! Had the kalbi beef. Very clean! It's definitely one of those hidden gems that from the outside doesn't look like anything. Service was very nice. read more

Friend recommended this place for the authentic taste. The flavors were delicious but there were a few things that bummed me out. They didn't have the traditional coarse salt and only take salt. The service was also not that great. I'm used to most Korean restaurants that come to check up on you. read more

Samwon Garden Restaurant - Sul lung tang for me and soon dae gook in the back. - Korean Near Me - Lakewood, Washington

Very good food! I am from Spokane and was looking for a good Asian restaurant. This one is a gem.

This place is unassuming but delicious! Don't trust the menus online, they've since updated their prices and eliminated the lunch specials. :( Otherwise, the staff is kind and friendly, and the food is very good! We called in an order to-go, but I did spy ban-chan on a table, so I would like to come back and dine in! read more

My wife and I were out without kids and we thought we would try something new. We like all kinds of Asian food, but we have very limited exposure to Korean food although Tacoma has sort of a Korea town zone along South Tacoma Way, where we have seen Korean Restaurants. Anyway we turned to Yelp to find a place open for lunch. We guided to a place off the main drag to a teriyaki place that also said Korean. They had a menu board with the teriyaki stuff in English and the selections under Korean selections were all in Korean, fortunately they also had paper take out menus in English. Anyway we ordered our stuff: pork bigolbi and spicey beef soup. I thought both were nice, I don't know if it was authentic, but we were the only people there that were not speaking Korean. It seemed the others were enjoying their meals too. We will have to try some more places, but now I going with a 4, the food tasted good, the service was fast, the price was reasonable, there was a good flow of customers for lunch. read more

We had our Korean fix this evening. Daughter, Kaylah agrees that the food was very tasty and flavorful. She got the Spicy pork bulgogi and I got the Kalbi. They both were delicious. Our first time here. The owner was very nice and cordial. We would return again. read more

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Don't let the exterior of this establishment deter you from coming in as they have, by far, the best tteokbokki in the area. Rice cake is chewy and the sauce has the perfect spiciness and sweetness to it. They also have other options such as soondae but I can't say much since I go there specifically for their tteokbokki. read more

Not my favorite place even though the owner was very nice and kind. Thought I would try the most expensive thing on the menu (Mung fish w spicy sauce)...flavor was one dimensional, mung beans overpowered the fish, and I kept hoping that I ordered fish from another restuarant. The mixed sausage plate was tasty...and if you haven't tried Korean sausage you need to come with the attitude of trying something new. The yakisoba and the chicken teriyaki were the better of our choices...too bad it was the Japanese dishes that we better than the Korean ones at a Korean place. So, overall, food was a bit meh...but super nice owners! read more

IFYKY maybe the best hole in the wall joint you can find. Even though it looks like a typical teriyaki restaurant, trust me, they got some banger Korea dishes! read more

Worst Chinese restaurant we've ever been to. Today I ordered beef broccoli with Rice and chicken teriyaki on the side. The beef and broccoli had an burnt taste to it & the teriyaki chicken was cold. My husband got orange chicken. It literally looked like microwavable meal you buy from the frozen section of the grocery store this was the first time we've ever been to this restaurant and we will never go back. read more

I came here for the soup and this place did not disappoint! Wow! What a gem in Tacoma! I'm not sure if I've spelled this correctly, but I ordered the Seolleongtang soup. It includes beef in light and flavorful broth with green onions. Absolutely delicious! I ordered this for carry-out and was not expecting a side of glass noodles along with kimchi, rice, and some spicy green salad included with my soup which was a happy surprise! There was a generous portion of meat and broth too. I will definitely be back for more! read more

Samwon Garden Restaurant - Seolleongtang soup (to go). Generous meat and soup portions. They even included glass noodles! Everything here was delicious!! - Korean Near Me - Lakewood, Washington

The egg rolls were good. The pork fried rice had regular pork, not the bbq pork we expected. However, it had peas which not all fried rice has around here. There wasn't much flavor to the sweet and sour chicken. We asked for very little spice in the general Tso's chicken and it was still a little too spicy for my husband. Our search for a Chinese restaurant continues read more

In my opinion, I think my first experience deserves 3 stars, it was just "A-OK" but because I am hoping to come back and have better experiences here, I am going to go ahead with the 4 stars. I don't want to bring down the reputation with the already existing reviews to lower the rating. 3 stars would only be given if I wanted to be super strict about every detail that went wrong with my dining experience here. My friend and I ordered the larger plate of "soondae" A.K.A. blood sausage (I still dislike how it is called that... quite disturbing but so yummy). That's the main reason we came but we wanted something else on the side so we ordered the Mongolian Beef. I was a huge fan of Mongolian Beef [at teriyaki shops] when I used to work at one for awhile. Not too long ago, I ordered Mongolian Beef elsewhere and it was horrible. I did not think I could find another place that makes Mongolian Beef the way my tastebuds desire. The Mongolian Beef was a tad bit too salty but it was good! The meat wasn't extra chewy and hard to swallow nor tasteless. The meat was mostly on the tender side except for minor bites where I had to spit out. The onions definitely compliment well with the meat [I always hated onions but I started eating it with Mongolian Beef]. The noodles that are underneath are okay, nothing special. The soondae [I used to go to the one in Federal Way but they closed a few years ago] was alright. I had high hopes for this place since they sell soondae and it's in Tacoma but ... it would be rated 2 1/2 stars under my radar. There was an odd taste when I chewed it and I had to mask the taste with the special salt that comes with it. I tried eating it with the "kakduki" cubed radish and even with the Mongolian Beef... Sriracha... couldn't mask it. As for the texture, it was more on the dry pasty side but not too harshly. It was just in the middle of good and bad. I think I might try the soondae bokkeum [stir-fried] or the one in the soup later if I crave soondae but I definitely plan on coming back to try the other dishes. Oh, the restaurant is also a small little shop run by a family- which makes it better. I love small familiy restaurants. read more

Samwon Garden Restaurant - (). - Korean Near Me - Lakewood, Washington

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Food is authentic, owners r incredibly nice and the portions r good. Highly recommend!

If it wasn't for the other reviews I definitely woulda overlooked this hole in the wall. I'm so glad I didn't because the spicy beef soup was A1! My husband ordered the teri chicken/ chicken yakisoba combo and that was delicious as well. We had came just as they were opening, and they already had a line of people coming in after us. They only had one employee working the front (cashier, dining, and takeout orders) but he was such a sweet man so we didn't mind that there was a bit of a wait. He was doing an amazing job at efficiently getting orders in and out all while taking care of the dining customers. We will definitely be back read more

I've been eating here since it first open back in 2008. Great food and great service. They have a large selection of Chinese dishes and some korean dishes/soups. I always order the Sundae and pork intestine soup. That is my all time favorite. The owner is korean, but she definitely can throw down on some Chinese dishes. Prices are great as well. Check it out! read more

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The gomtang here is super satisfying! The broth is clean and they give lots of beef. It reminded me of my mom's homemade version. Not the most modern ambience but it's almost better to have something a bit run down when you're slurping down some hearty soup. read more

Small quaint place that the food speaks for itself. Took my kids there one time, now they ask to go there every day.

We had a wonderful family dinner at Samwon Garden and will definitely visit them again when in town. We had a party of 17 and reserved ahead to get a room they have available for such large groups. The food, all 22 orders(!), came out promptly, and was uniformly delicious. The two chefs preparing the food somehow managed everything with ease and good humor. The restaurant is not impressive physically, but do not be deterred. Samwon Garden is a great choice for a Chinese / Korean dinner or lunch. read more

When looking at the exterior and the menu, this place may not look like much. Normally I avoid places with menus consisting of a large menu of foods of varying origins. Now I can't speak for their Japanese and Chinese food items but their Korean food is just goddamn fantastic. Head and shoulders above the newer fancier places up north and like 1/3 cheaper. Their soondae is the best I've had outside of Korea. I can't wait to get back there and try their rendition of some of my favorites. I've found my new regular place and though it's a bit of a drive for me, it's worth it for some legit Korean food. read more

Was really craving spicy stir fry squid. So glad I found this place cause it is so yummy and satisfying. The only thing I didn't like was that the watee pitcher was old and worn out looking. I think they should get new ones. But other than that I would be coming here over and over for hot squid read more

The place is very unassuming as you pull up and go inside. The building and area was nothing fancy but the food was excellent. It was hot and fresh and the flavors are excellent! I highly recommend this place! read more

Best soondae and dubboki you can have in the seattle area. All other Korean dish here are very authentic and delicious also. I would want to eat here everyday If I lived close read more

Samwon Garden Restaurant - Korean Near Me - Lakewood, Washington

Possibly Tacoma's Best Kept Secret for Korean "Soul" Food ! My parents brought me here via recommendation of their Korean 1st-generation posse friends. Now, I pass by this place at least 3-4 times daily on my general commute to work-home-gym-parental's-etc but it never occurred to me to check it out because the outside looks like another generic teriyaki restaurant. Yes, this place does offer your standard teriyaki and Chinese food BUT they offer authentic homeland Korean home cooking and the freshest street food I've ever had. Better than the original street food in Korea. My favorite Korean comfort food is dduk bokggi (spicy rice cakes) and soondae. The later is difficult to find. I've tried a few places in Federal Way and it wasn't enough to satisfy a craving for decent soondae. This place is FRESH soondae aka it couldn't have been frozen previously. And for soondae to still be fresh for Saturday dinner - that's impressive. My father got the soondae soup - which is bone marrow soup with soondae. We both simultaneously commented that this was better than the competition across the street that solely sells bone marrow soup with assorted meats (kinda like a korean-style pho). AKA: Good soup for a hangover :) I'm blown away that a place can make my Korean comfort food better than Korea; I've never even fathomed that that was possible. Honestly, the generic on the outside. But it's the food that counts for me. And I'm okay with that since we're not paying for ambiance in the price tag. P.S. The cucumber side dish with soy sauce is not salty at all and it goes perfect with the soondae :) read more

Samwon Garden Restaurant - Freshly made soondae + dduk bok gi (spicy rice cakes) ! Better than the Korean street food from my childhood memories ! - Korean Near Me - Lakewood, Washington

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If you have an aunt who is a good cook and an uncle who keeps his place spotlessly clean, you would be happy to to be invited to their house to eat. If you don't, then come here and pay a reasonable fee to eat good home cooked meals. Nothing fancy, just well executed comfort food meals. I've had their "lunch time" specials and traditional Korean meals. The lunch special menu in English caters to those not used to authentic Korea food. They are Americanized Asian items. Not badly done. Their Korean dishes are my meals of choice. I really like their spicy beef soup. Solid consistently well prepared meals at a good price. read more

Samwon Garden Restaurant - Spicy Beef Soup - Korean Near Me - Lakewood, Washington

This little restaurant is a hidden gem that cooks really tasty, authentic Korean food. I grew up in Korea, and the dishes here remind me of flavors from home country. The soondae is good here, which is hard to find in the states. The spicy pork bulgogi is very good and so are the kalbi and spicy rice cakes. We also ordered the shrimp fried rice, and it was one of the best we have had. Everything is very tasty. My only disappointment was the banchan (side dishes) - there are only a couple options and the quantity is small. read more

Ordered many items and combos. We had a group of 12. The spicy Ramen was good, but it didn't come with any meat, so we had to add chicken. The teriyaki had too much sauce. General Tao chicken was great!! Friend rice was ok, even tho we asked for a combo, all it had was chicken, no shrimp or beef. The combos where annoying because he wouldn't allow for any changes. Also frustrating was the man taking the orders, he didn't speak English. The short ribs were good. The kung pow chicken was overly sauced as well. They advertise that it's Korean bbq but it's more like a little bit of this and that. Exceptions were really different. The place was super small. I wouldn't come back read more

We are so happy we found this little hole in the wall Chinese/Korean restaurant. We ordered spicy beef bulgogi, Mongolian beef w/fried rice, and Gyoza. The food was ready in less than 15 minutes and everything was delicious. It also came with pickled cucumber, kimchee, radish and Chinese cabbage. The portions were huge! We're definitely coming back! :) read more

Samwon Garden Restaurant - Delicious! Big portions! - Korean Near Me - Lakewood, Washington

If you want the best Mongolian beef around this is your place. I'm sure all the other food is delicious but their Mongolian beef is so good this is the only thing I ever order. Fast friendly and good lunch time special prices read more