Ara Fusion Restaurant

I usually come here at night with friends for drinks. The only dish I usually get is their chicken nuggets (Korean styled). At night they start clearing up the area and there’s a «dance floor» and a DJ.

I came here a total of two times and each time I got something different. First time I got Sushi and Ddeokbokki, second time I got Chicken Teriyaki and Kalbi. First time was a mistake. I’ll give that experience a ⁴⁄₁₀; sushi was not good at all, and Ddeokbokki had cheese; not trying that again. HA. Second time ⁶⁄₁₀ meat was seasoned well, but service was not very good.
Actually, every time that I’ve been here I had to wait centuries for someone to take my order. I’d like to try the karaōke rooms out, but that’s for another review!

Fun place for late night drinking and eating. They have a kareoke! This place is pretty popular for late night hang outs. I recommend for people that wants to kick back and relax and have fun. Service is not bad could be better. Very nice atmosphere, very colorful. Has that clubbing feel.

Went to Ara on a Saturday night with friends. We wanted to grab something to eat before karaōke. It was pretty empty when we arrived so we were able to order quickly. We ordered the boo dae jji gae ($ 27.99) as well as the squash cheese ddukboki. We thought you can’t go wrong with boo dae jji gae and I was pretty excited about the squash ddukboki since I heard a lot about it. When the food came out, just by appearance, I was impressed and expected a lot! Boo dae was good but it wasn’t anything extraordinary. Just your typical boo dae. Squash ddukboki was pretty tasty but the center cheese ddukboki part was just… okay especially towards the end. ~$ 60 for these two dishes was not worth it in my opinion.
Service was good. They played loud upbeat/​club music so I felt like I was eating dinner inside a club/​lounge lol. After dinner we walked over to the karaōke/​NRB section of the restaurant. The room we used was perfect for our group size (7 of us). We sat around a table that took up most of the room. ~2 hours ended up being over $ 100 which is pretty expensive. Overall, I would probably only come back if friends wanted to meet up. Otherwise I wouldn’t personally choose this place as one of my top choices.

This place is aiiiight. Not a place you want to have a great convo with friends/​family, but just to drink and hang out. The place doesn’t feel «warm and cozy», but cold and dark… think of a night club. I hear from friends they overcharge at the bar, so just be cautious.

This place used to be okay i actually liked their bbibimbap and jampong and their drinks but now they changed the menu. They no longer offer much although it is a karaōke place afterall.

3.5 stars overall, the service was good. Came here on a Saturday night for a late meal.
Must get: CHEESY CORN. I repeat, get a LARGE cheesy corn PER PERSON. (maybe a little excessive, but it’s that delicious). That is all.
…but actually — got the buddaejjigae to share with a friend. Extremely salty, and we added dumplings and they gave us 4 fat fried dumplings… hrm. okay.
Also, tried to get a room with our friends for KTV, but the wait was pretty long, so make sure to book in advance. They also have DJs playing to the restaurant/​bar side.
Drinks wise — came in cute mason jar cups, yogurt soju & a sunrise something cocktail were tasty.

Came here with a few friends shortly after boring once. From my understanding, this is a Karaōke bar but I can’t say that the singers were too great.
Overall good service.

The food and atmosphere is decent! You should try the ddukbokki — they put it in pumpkin and it was pretty good!

I have only tried the food here and they have pretty good Korean food.
The atmosphere is pretty nice and clean. But nothing special about it.

**Karaōke review only**
They have a pretty good selection of songs, including relatively recent American pop songs as well as a pretty thorough Korean library. It’s 30 dollars an hour for a small room that could probably fit around 8 people max… not sure if they impose a maximum though. I think the price is pretty reasonable, but not cheap. However, drinks are very expensive and they don’t sell pitchers of soju cocktails… how disappointing :(sorry but I’m not paying 13 bucks for a 16oz yogurt soju.

It’s been a while since I’ve been here. I remember Ara being somewhat pricey for the kind of food that was served, but at a place that’s more bar than restaurant it didn’t bother me too much. We went to Ara because it was late, it was convenient, and we wanted something very specific. Wished I hadn’t.
Ara’s made two fairly significant changes since the last time I’ve been:
1. Consolidated menu, always a smart move in my opinion.
2. Heavy price increases.
I hate overly large menus, and Ara seemed to do a pretty good job of slimming theirs down. But the prices… price increases ranging from $ 3 to $ 10 on what was already expensively mediocre food.
I ordered three things: a pitcher of Miller Lite, donkatsu, and their spicy pumpkin rice cake dish.
— Donkatsu is hard to mess up; thank God they didn’t. $ 18 (used to be $ 15 which I still thought was a bit outrageous) for some flattened, breaded, deep fried pork with a small ice cream scoop sized portion of rice.
— The spicy pumpkin rice cake thing is $ 30 (used to be a little over 20) When it came out, it wasn’t cooked all the way through. Rice cakes and pumpkin were both hard, and the cheese wasn’t melted. We sent it back asking to for it to be cooked more. It took about twenty minutes to get it back, and it seemed like they had just popped it in the microwave, forgot that it was supposed to come back out, and came out not hot again (gripe note: this is a big problem with Korean restaurants that most paying patrons won’t ever be faced with in an American establishment. If you send something back, the restaurant’s position will always be that there’s nothing wrong with it. If that’s the attitude they adopt, they will do little to damned near nothing to fix whatever it is that they ****ed up).
— Miller Lite: watered down. Yes, their beer is watered down. I won’t go as far as to say that they intentionally water down their beer, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
TL:DR.
1. Ara is a good example of why I never rate a restaurant for its service. The waiter was nice, but a how a low wage worker treats you has no bearing on the restaurant itself. Good and bad restaurants hire good and bad employees no matter where you go. The food and drink flat out sucked.
2. The food is not good, but priced exorbitantly.
Ara is loud, overpriced, and empty.

This place is alright. It’s changed a lot over the years, but for a local place in Annandale, it’s an ok place to go with friends for a drink. Their DJ is not that good though so the music is… weird. They have food there too, but it’s ok. A bit pricey for the food in my opinion for mediocre food.
It’s a good place for groups though they have a bar and a seating area. They also have karaōke rooms as well and you can order food and drinks in the rooms too.

Food was great but karaōke was a nightmare. Our server tried to accuse us for a window damage on the door when it was clearly there before we were granted the room. Sound wasn’t too clear as well and we would constantly have to leave the room for service when we requested it in the room. I would personally go elsewhere for karaōke.
If you want good budgeting late night food, then this restaurant is the place to go. I gave this place 2 stars due to the service of the karaōke experience detailed above.

Ara is one of those places you eat and drink. You don’t come here to solely eat. You come here to drink while eating. It’s a place you come to on a late night. It’s a place you hang out with friends. Don’t expect to get the best Korean food in town, just expect to have fun.
You can order drinks and eat some side dishes and any type of Korean stew. Along with a wide range of stews, they offer many fusion options. They have bulgogi pizza which I find to be a perfect finger food that accompanies well with beer or in my case, with a bowl of makgulee.
I love drinking their makgulee (Korean rice wine) I definitely recommend it. It’s refreshing with a carbonated bite that embodies a bold rice flavor.
I’ve done karaōke here as well. I’m not a huge karaōke fan because I suck at singing. However, their private karaōke rooms are clean and offer a wide range of songs. So if you like to sign karaōke, Ara is a decent place to do so.

My friends brought me here for late night eats and drinks, when I visited them down here. The food was okay. They didn’t have some of the things I wanted to order on the menu, either. I guess it doesn’t matter after a few rounds of drinks. I stuck with the yogurt soju all night. There was a DJ with not much people dancing — maybe we got there too late? People were throwing up in the bathroom in turns, lol. Not my cup of tea. I’ve probably outgrown this type of situation.

Mediocre Korean food. It’s not terrible, but for a place located right in the heart of Koreatown, VA (aka Annandale) it doesn’t match up to the fare at the other Korean restaurants nearby. The food is also much more pricey. They do have a great variety of dishes– KBBQ, tonkatsu, kimchi jiggae, corndogs, etc.
What this place is good for is a low-​key night of karaōke and late-​night snacks/​meals with a group of friends or a birthday dinner. They are open late on the weekends and serve their full menu all night. You can also order food inside of the spacious karaōke rooms. Who doesn’t like stuffing themselves with calamari and dukbokki while jamming out to ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’?
In addition, they have a bar on the side in the main dining area (although you can order drinks from the dining tables and karaōke rooms). The service here is hit or miss, some nights I’ve had super attentive servers, other times we had to press the call button consistently. Overall, I continue to come here out of convenience plus I also enjoy their dukbokki seafood stew!

Ara Fusion Restaurant is a well-​known Korean restaurant in Annandale with mediocre food. I do not recommend eating here.
Pros
— Many choices for food
— Large bar and large tables, ideal for groups
— Karaōke section with private rooms
— Quick and friendly service
Cons
— Large and hard-​to-​read menu
— Not ideal for guests new to Korean food
— Ridiculously large portions (one plate = two people)
What I got
— Jjol-​myun (spicy, chewy cold noodles mixed with vegetables) ~$ 14
— Kimchi jeon (kimchi pancake) ~$ 8
What I thought
I came here with two friends new to Korean food. We first checked out To Sok Jip, but they had a line out the door on Sunday night! We walked across the busy Little River Turnpike road to eat at Ara. Unlike To Sok Jip, Ara had only two tables with guests.
I haven’t eaten at Ara for over a year, and the menu changed. No pictures, and it is divided into four sections of «Special Menu». I am not sure how the dishes were grouped together, and it was very confusing to read. My friends got the donkatsu (fried and breaded pork cutlet) & curry rice and jjam-​bong (Korean-​Chinese spice seafood stew). Our appretizer was the kimchi jeon (kimchi pancake).
First, all the dishes came out at different times, My friend’s donkatsu came out first, before the appetizer. My dish came out 5 minutes after everyone else’s food was brought to the table. The portion sizes are HUGE; we all only ate half of our plates. The food was mediocre, especially compared to the awesome Korean restaurants all throughout Annandale.

Went for my birthday with a group of 15. When I first arrived, the staff was rude and told me to wait but my room was ready. I was then ignored for 10 minutes until I asked again.
The room was so hot it felt like a sauna! We turned off the heat and kept asking the staff to help make the room cooler however they kept ignoring us. We cracked the door open and gave everyone walking by a free concert. The staff kept shutting our door but we kept opening it. It was either that or naked karaōke.
The waiter was friendly and efficient at bringing us our drinks. There’s a button close to the door you need to push to get your waiter otherwise you won’t get helped.
The food is mediocre but do try the pizza.

Still one of my favorite places to splurge on traditional korean food. Is it the best? No… my umma’s cooking is the best but it’ll do while I’m away from home. We got the dak doritang last night and while it was a little soupy it was still delicious. Eating it on a cold night made it even better! I also haven’t found another place that sells this.