Ju Mak Jib

This is one of my favorite restaurants. I’m Korean and have eaten at hundreds of different Korean restaurants throughout the country, and the food here is second to none. Wife does all the cooking and husband is the waiter. If you want good service, don’t expect it here. If you want traditional Korean food with everything made from scratch, this is the place to go. My two favorites are pork belly, and their kimchee soup with pork ribs. My mouth begin to water as I was writing this.

The food was okay. The service was terrible and slow. What really made my meal unbearable was the cockroach that crawled across the table at the end of my meal. When I told the wait staff, they just shrugged and went «sorry.»

A hidden gem on the outskirts of Annandale, further away from the big name Korean BBQ places like Honey Pig (garbage). It’s in a small shopping center across the street from the Salvation Army. A small mom and pop restaurant operated by a husband and wife. The husband took the orders and served the food while the wife stayed in the kitchen and made all the food to order.
We ordered samgyeopsal (pork belly), chadol bagi (thin sliced brisket), goat tang (soup), mondoo (fried dumplings), and nakji bokkeum (spicy octopus). Their samgyeopsal was the best I’ve ever had, thick and flavorful. Also the goat tang was deep with flavor and the goat was tender, a must if you ever dine here. They had an array of panchan (side dishes). Fresh and you could tell everything was homemade.
Only downside was they didn’t have galbi (beef short ribs) on the menu. I love my galbi but the cuts of samgyeopsal made up it. Also, service is a little slow since the husband was doing all the service. I had to get up and get a pitcher of water to refill our cups. Not a deal breaker and they didn’t seem to mind I refilled our cups of water.
This would be a five star review if they had galbi on the menu but that won’t stop me from making this my go to Korean BBQ restaurant.

i was introduced to ju mak jib by my two korean friends as they frequent this restaurant.
it is a little further away from the main drag in annandale where most of the korean restaurants are located (across the street from the salvation army). totally fine because i will travel anywhere for good food. i actually think the fact that it is a little further helps that it is not super packed to the point where you have to wait for a table.
the restaurant is owned and run by a husband and wife team. i would describe it as if you were eating dinner at their home. the wife makes her own panchan and it is excellent. especially those sesame leaves! the rice has some barley in it. you must order the pork belly! everything we ordered was so flavorful!
the husband waits the tables. he is not the most service oriented (as you can see from all of the Unilocal reviews) but hey, it works and it i think makes the place what it is. in fact my friend just got up and got me a water. no big deal. worth it for the food!
it is definitely a hidden gem. i will be back for sure!

The food is to DIE for but the problem with this place was the older man was really rude at first but when you get to actually talk to him, he’s okay. I love the samgyupsal and chadolbaegi here and the dwenjangjjigae is to die for. The food heres amazing. Only reason there’s one less star is the service. But we go for the food, not the people haha. AMAZING food though. Would recommend to literally EVERYONE.

Hands down the best Korean food in Northern Virginia. I have eaten at pretty much every restaurant in Annandale and a few Korean restaurants around the area, but nothing matches Ju Mak Jib’s taste.
When eating here, you HAVE to get the Goat Tang (). Also the Sam Gyub Sal ().
The side dishes are also all home-​made by the owner’s wife, so you know its delicious.

I love the food here. It’s authentic Korean fare/​family owned and operated. The owners are very friendly and are very helpful, English is so-​so SO know what you want or use your phone if you’re not sure of what things are. Their menu is usually pretty standard, but seem to be out of a lot of stuff depending on when you go and the season (obv) their dumplings are amazing, they’re very fresh (the first time we went the owner’s wife was making them at another table). I think I could eat my weight in their dumplings and potato salad.

This family run business really is a hidden gem! I enjoyed the gopchang and samgyupsal they have here. The side dishes are also hand made by the wife of the owner and the owner puts a lot of care into how the meat is cooked. The only reason why I wouldn’t give this place 5 stars is because of the service.
The owner is the only server in the whole restaurant so all you can really do is be patient. He likes to serve everything his style and in his way. If you want to order something on the menu that he thinks would be too much trouble or would end up going to waste, he WILL tell you he won’t give it to you. The owner’s practical but he’s not too much into the concept of putting the customer first. If you’re willing to accept that, then I definitely recommend this place as the food IS really good. :)

Great service from the young fellow, but the old gentleman was a little rude. Besides that, the food was tasty. I meet my good friend here and usually have a nice time talking about old times. Place is a little outside of K-​town in Annandale, just down Little River.
Panchan was tasty as they have several small dishes that include potato salad I like. Spicy octopus was full of large octopus pieces. Kimchi pancake was a little dry. I did not get Galbi this time around as I was wearing a shirt and tie, but from the guests beside us, it definitely looked delicious.
Prices are reasonable average for the food, but why I like coming here is that it tends to be more intimate (less crowded) during rush times.
Stay Hungry Unilocalers and give yourselves a toast for good health, good friends, and fun times.
Leonard ‘lil pip’ Pipkins and his trusted dog tuffy.

Beautiful food!

About a 2 – 2.5: I was really excited to try this place. My husband and I ordered the Samgyupshal Jumooruk (marinated in wine, then has the spicy red chili bean paste, jalapeño slices, and onions), the Bulgogi, and an appetizer of the Mandoo (fried dumplings). The dumplings had a weird aftertaste, sort of seafood-​like, and they were the ‘flat’ mandoos, compared to the regular ‘gyozas’ you find elsewhere. The soy sauce mixture with the sliced scallions were good, but I would have preferred just regular typical gyozas — I wasn’t much of a fan of these. The bulgogi was more on the sweeter side, and there was way too much ginger. The ‘soup’ that formed on the bottom was a little watery, but it was good enough to mix with your bowl of barley rice. It was okay. The Jumooruk was a total miss — it was just way too liquid-​like, the samgyupsahl were mostly fat; I wasn’t a fan of the marinated sauce and I would probably should have ordered the other samgyupsahl kimchi bokkeum instead. The banchans were also just okay; there were stale myul chi (the anchovies were more of a stale/​chewy consistency); the potato salad was alright; the moo kimchi was a little too ‘moolung’/tender; and the spicy root was decent.
+okay bulgogi (more on the sweeter, watery side)

This is a mom and pop place! If you want good service, pick another spot. If you love Boyangtang (spicy goat stew), come and keep coming! The menu says it feeds 2 but i think it could feed 3 – 4 ppl depending on how hungry you are.

This place rocked my socks off. We ordered bbaaa baaa lamb soup, gopchang (beef intestines), and some thin sliced beef. Each time we got new meat, they changed the grill. The meat was top quality, the service was great and we had a wonderful time. The owner is very friendly and the place is nice and quiet during the week. It’s sad it’s not more popular but this place had me singing «Ohh La La that’s what I like»

This is as authentic as Korean can get in Annandale. I equate authenticity with the ambience and the method in which the Banchan /​JJigae are prepared. However, without the Korean service.
Pork Belly:
The place serves very very good pork belly — not frozen and thickly cut. It’s fantastic with either Chu-​Um-​Churum Soju or the Korean beer served here (Hite, OB, etc). The meat has also been brined in white wine to get rid of the «pork odor.» This is just fantastic.
Banchan:
It’s homemade and it reminds me of the places I’ve been to in the country side of Korea. Some might find it overly fermented finding the dishes to be too sour. But I think that is the charm when it is eaten together with pork belly. The acidity neutralizes the meat. Good stuff.
JJigae:
Dwen-​gang-​jjgae (Korean Miso soup) has good flavors — deep fermented miso flavor combined with pork induced broth. It’s good.
Ambiance:
Old school Korean moms & pops flock to this place after a game of golf. It looks like someone’s living room. Smells like one, too.
Service:
This is where it deeply troubles me.
At times, it is so understaffed that many tables are not cleaned. Leftover dishes and plates just laying there. Further, this is a two-​hour journey because the service is horrendous here. The owners seem to be micromanagers who are not fond of delegating the work to others. Because of it, the service horribly suffers. For instance, it’s a common theme for me to remind the owner multiple times that I ordered drinks for the table. Expect the meat and other dishes to be served 40 mins to an hour later.
This place could have been the best place to eat in Annandale, serving fantastic Korean style pork belly. However, it’s unfortunate the service completely ruins the experience.

For a restaurant that doesn’t employee any wait staff, the three star rating is well deserved for the pure reason of good quality food. Ju Mak Jib boats arguably the best kimchi in the area restaurants and many dishes they feature remind me of a countryside traditional Korean restaurant that I’d dined at 30+ years ago.
Obviously with no wait staff, there is practically no service, but the owner doesn’t seem to mind when I approach the counter to ask for refills of water, kimchi and other side dishes.

Seeing Asian people eating in the restaurant is always a good sign for the place to be good. The food was pretty good but I feel like if we spoke Korean then the service and food would be even better. I saw the grills you could grill on, but didn’t see a menu for that… we ordered the bulgogi and the marinated pork, which I was hoping we would get to grill ourselves, but it came out already cooked… which was fine too I guess. The bulgogi was really good (had onions and green onions sauteed with it) and the marinated pork belly was rich in flavor (had onions and some hot peppers sauteed in it). a little too spicy for our taste, but it was really tasty.
Overall, food was good… but they lose a star because I wanted to actually grill my own meat and also because half their menu was crossed out…
It’s a nice family run place… but we definitely felt like we weren’t treated as well because we didn’t speak Korean… so I took off another star for that… (I mean, most Asian places, I don’t expect the service to be good, but…)

Mmmmm… some of the freshest veggies around.
Ju Mak Jib rarely has more than a table-​full of people when I’ve been there. It is a gem though with hands-​down the best banchan… most from home-​grown veggies. Their pork BBQ is a little different than normal, so you may or my not like it… but they do something to it to keep that Korean BBQ aroma from soaking your clothes.
They would get five stars, but sometimes the staff (as nice as they are) are lacking a bit in the customer service department. I think it really comes down to running this family business with a very small staff… so I can’t hold that against them too much.
Give it a try if you are craving some traditional Korean dishes in an environment that is a perfect match.

This has been on my list of places to try ever since I first started Unilocaling. Today I finally got that chance and was terribly let down. The location isn’t the greatest to begin with and the impression I got was an operation on a shoestring budget trying to fill some big shoes. It wasn’t one particular thing but rather a combination of things such as the messy, cluttered, homely interior with random thing strewn across the restaurant for storage; dingy, tacky, black and white checkered, tiled floor; outdated beat-​up, menus; and finally, poor or no ventilation that resulted in stale, warm air.
There was only one other family in the restaurant when we arrived and when they left, their table was not cleared off. In fact other tables had not been cleaned off either. You could blame it on the fact that there was no waiter or busboys to do the job, but the gentleman that took out order and served our food (who I imagine is the proprietor) really didn’t look all that busy. Either he was just having an off day or he just didn’t care.
In fact when i went to the bathroom (which was clean BTW) the soap dispenser was empty, as well as the paper towel dispenser… but at least the electric hand drier worked.
When we sat down, I tried to keep an open mind. After all this place was a hidden gem according to my good friends Nicole and Mikkela. I picked up the menus that were covered with more tape and stickers on them than my little nephew’s arts & crafts project. I’m not kidding when I say practically ALL the prices were covered up and raised. Good heavens… you’d think these menus were first printed in the 90’s or something.
Anyway, being that it was warm inside, I thought the barley tea was quite nice. I am convinced it tasted more like roasted corn tea though, but regardless the tea was good, but that was pretty much the only thing that they had going for it.
The banchan wasn’t too bad, but if I were to complain, it’d be that they were a bit too sweet, except for the kimchi which was too sour for my taste (but I’m a fresh kimchi kind of guy). The garlic stem side dish was much too chewy and fibrous. One of the vegetable side dishes had what I think were dandelions along with the asters (chwi-​namul) which I thought was kind of unique… although it made me wonder if it was picked from someone’s backyard… but hey, nothin wrong with that… I’m down with the whole locally-​sourced bandwagon.
Okay…now getting down to the meat of the review. My Galbi-​tang was downright terrible. I mean it was edible but just barely. Just imagine, your grocery store overstocked good quality prime filet mignon, and did a buy one, get two free deal. Heck, you’d buy a bunch of steaks and put them in the freezer to eat later. Half a year later, you find a hidden severely freezer-​burned steak that looked old, dark, and tough as leather. Yeah… it sorta tasted like that. I wish I were kidding.
The other dish we ordered was the Sengtae Jjigae. It’s a spicy fish stew I think made with cod. I didn’t eat too much of it since I’m a lightweight when it comes to heat… but it was alright I guess. Not as disagreeable as the Galbi-​tang.
Definitely not coming back and certainly can’t recommend this place to anyone.

Quoting my friend, «Just making sure you didn’t disappear in the obscure foodie world?» Yes, that’s the extent of my quest, on the verge of a near heart of darkness experience. The string of Korean restaurants in Annandale is a mystery that I love to explore and it may just transform me. I wonder if I will turn into a Korean someday.
The gentleman who appeared to be the proprietor of Ju Mak Jib had the kindest face — he reminded me of my grandfather. We instantly struck a chord with him, he was just a VERY NICE MAN!
The menu was simple with the usual tofu casserole and BBQ dishes, as noted in previous reviews the to-​try dish was the BBQ spicy pork belly! We ordered a few other items, for which the very nice man exclaimed, «That’s too much food!». He served the banchans to us, explaining each item. I loved the anchovies because it was made properly, it was crispy, sweet and savory at the same time. The chestnut paste made into a jelly-​like cake drizzled with soy sauce, it was so good and thank god, Mikkela didnt like it! The kim chee was very tasty as well. The items were definitely made in-​house.
The mandus had a nice brown on the outside and the inside, filled with marinated ground meat. It tasted good. I had the spicy fish/​vegetable soup it was so flavorful. The cross-​cut fish pieces were tender and fresh. The pork bellies came in a spicy sauce they were thinly sliced and flash sauteed. I would love it better if the fats were more caramelized but that’s not how they do it! So suck it up!

A gem worth keeping secret. The restaurant seems closed and dumpy from the outside. Inside, the restaurant looks like Korean restaurants from the 1990s, blond wood with ventilation shafts over each table. Large screen TVs emit golf (it’s a Korean thing!). The menu is taped, crossed out, tattered, sticky and most of it has been modified, but the basics are there plus a few unusual items (goat with sesame seeds and bone marrow).
I am an hour early. The slim gentleman owner brings me tea and menus. Then he leaves me alone for the next hour, but when we are ready to order, he’s attentive and at our side. We order dumplings, spicy seafood soup, beef rib soup and spicy pork belly. He seems concerned that we have ordered too much food. We assure him that we can take it home.
Good dumplings. Good banchan which included hard chewy beans, chestnut paste, excellent kimchi, potato salad, chewy fried small fry, bok choy kimchi, and cold egg custard. The toasted corn/​barley tea was served cold with ice cubes. The spicy pork belly is cooked with jalapenos and served hot out of the kitchen. The broth in the beef rib soup is subtle and delicious much like a good matzo ball soup. The seafood soup is a cauldron of chunks of fish, green onions and tofu.
The owner is a sympathetic character. He seems like a nice man. You just «like» him. A restaurant can live or die based on likability. Like the rice flecked with barley, this place contains pearls of goodness under the steely exterior.