Mountain

They are no longer at the Gardena location, they’ve moved to Buena Park. I am sad that they are so far away now!

It’s always really surprising to me to find a decent Korean restaurant when the South Bay has such a dominant Asian population. My mom’s friend recommended this place to us a few years back and ever since my grandparents have moved to Hawthorne, we’ve all come back here a few times in the last month.
The restaurant itself is pretty large as there are two types of seating-​the regular tables and chairs, but there’s also the traditional rooms where you sit on bamboo mats, similar to Japanese tearooms. Even though mostly elderly people sit in this area, it’s pretty cool and interesting to have this sort of traditional seating as most Korean restaurants opt out of it.
As for the food, it’s very good! I love their grilled fish (they bake it instead of simply grilling or frying it), and it’s extremely moist and full of flavor! The banchan, side dishes, are great and have lots of variety as well! I also really like getting any of the soups (I’ve tried the spicy beef soup-​yukaejjang) as they’re all really good and have great portions! Come here as all the portions of everything is really big! The pajun (Korean traditional pancake) is great too, lots of seafood in it!
Service is really good here as staff is very friendly. Ask them for recommendations as they know what’s popular or good there.
Overall, this place isn’t stellar or downtown LA Koreatown worthy, but it’s decent enough for the South Bay locals.

Man, I hate eating out on a holiday. You either run into 1 of 2 problems: the place is closed or the place is insanely crowded because it is one of the few restaurants open!
Our original target for lunch was Kotohira, but it was closed due to Independence Day. Not wanting to wander anywhere else, we ended up at Mountain because it was open. Oddly enough, we were the only ones there for about 30 minutes until another couple of parties came in.
I spied some pretty awesome lunch special prices at their door, which lured me to eat here, but alas, no lunch specials on a holiday — understandable. Bf got a tofu soup and I got their version of Japanese pork katsu w/​rice. The tofu soup was pretty good but the katsu was a no go. Their side cabbage salad was overwhelmed by this strange dressing and the meat was pretty thin. That’s what I get for ordering Japanese food at a specialty Korean place. Our banchans were pretty good & refillable (you get 6 kinds).
Would consider coming back for their lunch specials.
Parking: easy — huge lot. Takes Credit card.

HORRIBLE SERVICE. TOTALLY UNPROFESSIONAL. PERIOD.
They dont deserve to run the business under the name of ‘saan’. Shame on them! I have and had good memories and dining experience from the original LA branch but definitely not here.
I think it was on Sunday night when I was here the last time. We walked in knowing that restaurant closes at 10:00 PM and it was only 9:10 PM. I walked in and I can tell these two ladies were very very unpleasant. First thing they said to me was that their kitchen is closing so if I want to eat here I have to order like RIGHT AWAY. Are you freaking serious? How can you say that to the customers who just walked in? We had 50 minutes. Isnt that enough?
Then we ordered because she sort of forced us to. Another lady came to us with the side dishes and she said ‘we are closing so no refills for side dishes, got that?’ I seriously wanted to tell her off.
Food was mediocre. Not good or bad. Rather too sweet my bulgogi stone pot rice was. It wasnt bulgogi flavor. It was just weird. PLEASE DONT ORDER THIS.
service is extremely selfish and bad that I dont wish to see these two ladies ever again. left without tipping but a penny because they dont deserve anything from me.

I’m supposed to be studying but I had to leave a review here so that people can recognize this place. I’ve been to Mountain when they first opened few years ago and meaning to come back sooner. I love tofu bowl out of any Korean dishes, but this place offer something different that I can relate to. As I am not a big meat eater, their food is more comfortable (rather than Korean BBQ place and etc).
Waitresses were so nice and attentive.
I tried Korean noodle soup with spicy beef broth. Nice texture of noodles, flavorful vegetables including lots of Shiitake mushrooms and enough amount of tender beef. And endless appetizers offered with it as well. Amazing!

A small unassuming Korean restaurant in a strip mall. This place is a hidden gem and has excellent Korean food. There is a wide variety of Korean food. The soups are excellent. The meat is generally on the very good side. Not quite as good as the nearby yellow cow restaurant.
However, this Korean restaurant has a much greater variety than yellow cow.
The interior Décor is somewhat spartan. Service is excellent.
Prices are very reasonable.
Unfortunately the restaurant moved locations and isn’t here anymore!

Rundown
— Abalone Porridge is really good!
— Yummy banchan
— Amazing service
This place is really close to my second home and I love coming here on cold nights or nights when I’m just really stressed from studying. (I just wished this place was open later!!)
I have to start by saying that the service is really good. Everyone is really nice and when I’m not 100% of how to eat something, they explain it to me! (I’m glad they never laugh at me).
Here are some of the dishes that I’ve tried:
Abalone Porridge — This has a little egg and you mix it all around and eat it. There is a beef side dish that I mix it with too. Its really good and I agree with other Unilocalers that this is best eaten at the restaurant.
Sahm Geh Tahng: Ginseng Chicken Soup — I wasn’t sure about this but it started to grow on me. The soup and chicken is lightly flavored with garlic and ginseng. I love eating the chicken and saving the yummy rice till the end so I can have it with my soup. This is a large dish and I recommend sharing this dish.
Galbi Tahng: Beef Short Rib Soup — My other half and I had this and he wasn’t a big fan. We both felt that the soup was a little too bland.

I’m rating this place for service. Not for the quality of the food. The only reason I’m giving this place an extra star instead of one is because the owner/​manager of this place has been nothing but sweet/​hospitable to me since I started eating here in 2012.
I use to be a regular here when I was in Torrance a lot. After being MIA for several months, I brought my friend I barely see here.
I was seated right away. The waitress with glasses in her mid 40−50s came up to take our order. I didn’t realize the menu changed and I didn’t look. I ordered what I always ordered for the past 2years at mountain or ANY sundubu restaurant in koreatown, sundubu jjigae (tofu soup with seafood). The waitress seemed confused so I ordered it again. She had a smartass smirk with an «um…wth are you saying?!» attitude and told me she doesn’t understand what I asked for. So I thought maybe I’m pronouncing it wrong (even though other restaurants in ktown understood what i asked for all the time). I told her I wanted tofu soup with seafood then she thought I was taking two different orders for myself.
I didn’t want to waste her time by flipping through the menu. So I asked her if tofu soup with seafood was still on the menu. I started getting irritated cuz she kept saying «I don’t understand you, what do you want? This or that?! «and I felt rushed.
Finally she took my order after i thought she knew what I wanted. I ended up with a beef sundubu… Apparently me pointing at a photo of sundubu and saying «can I order this with seafood?» Wasn’t clear enough. Seriously, she could have said,“no we don’t have those «then I wouldn’t be complaining on Unilocal.
Once she dropped off the food my friend wanted to take a photo together. So she asked the waitress if she could take a picture of us with our food. She clearly heard my friend who had a camera in her hand and and responded with «aaa?!“and walked away as if she was super busy (it wasn’t that busy) and never came back.
As much as I love the manager I’m sure I can enjoy my food elsewhere.

Had my Birthday dinner here last week and boy, did I love it! Even though Unilocal said they don’t take reservations, I took a chance and called since I had a large party. A nice lady picked up and was able to accommodate me with no problem.
Parking lot was super crowded around 7:30pm, fortunately, the restaurant wasn’t. We got seated right away and waited for our party.
Delicious:
Couldn’t get enough of their beef short ribs, spicy BBQ pork, and chicken karaage! OMG they were so bomb we had to order two of each. Yook geh jahng was also phenomenal, but I was so full I took it home.
Blah:
Seafood pancake– Bland
Soon Tofu — Too watery
Bibimbap– was just ok
Service was warm and all the ladies were very friendly. I will definitely go back just for the Karaage alone!

I am stuffed & I still want to eat…
I am a glutton & I know it…
That’s how I felt after eating here. The food was so good I did not want to stop eating.
We were on our way to Furaibo (our favorite Japanese fried chicken /​wings place) but they close at 2 pm boo. So, we settled on Mountain which is directly on the opposite side of the plaza from Furaibo.
We were warmly greater as we came in. We were handed menus (regular & specials). But we already settled on a couple of dishes.
They have pictures outside of their menu items (a plus for sure).
Here’s the rundown.
Chicken Karaage was so good. Super crispy outside and tender & tasty inside. It’s made from leg meat. I personally prefer dark meat, I think it’s more flavorful than breast meat. So, this was a hit for me.
This dish came with a cabbage salad with a thousand island «like» dressing, absolutely delicious.
Pork Cutlet w/​Soba was also good. Cutlet was perfectly cooked. The dipping sauce for this was the star though. It was so good. We were using it as the dipping sauce for the Karaage as well.
Soba (cold buckwheat noodles) was excellent.
Pork Belly w/​Oyster is the bomb! (My wife has told me not to use the word «bomb» in my reviews, too juvenile. Sorry dear) it’s the bomb!
First off the pork belly is braised so tender, very delicious.
The oyster is marinated in a chili sauce and it’s RAW. Yes!
Components: 3 types of cabbage, carrots, cucumber, garlic & jalapeño chili sauce and a radish chili sauce.
You make a wrap from your choice of cabbage and put the meats, vegetable and sauces you liked. A do it yourself taco lol.
This dish is good for at least 3 people, maybe more. It’s a lot of food.
I would get this again for sure.
Banchan was really good. We got six of them, I can’t name you what they were, but it was the best banchan I’ve had. (this coming from a non Korean who likes to eat Korean food, so take it for what it’s worth. lol)
Service was excellent. Very helpful with the menu and they cooked my son’s food first. That was very cool. Feed the kids first, get you an extra star for that. I think you have to be a parent to appreciate that gesture. lol.
Price was on the high side, but worth it IMO. They do have lunch specials and those prices are very very reasonable. I’ll be trying those next visit.
My Rating: 4 Stars Plus 1 Star for great great service
I had a really good experience dining here. I love Korean food and the food I got (although Japanese in origin) had Korean flares that made it unique on to itself.
I’ll definitely be back.

ZOMG I just died and went to Korean food heaven…
Thanks for the find Clara K., but how the hell did I no know about this place, and more importantly how the hell have I gone so long without it? Everything we tried was AMAZING starting with the banchan. There were two or three dishes that I had never seen before, nothing out of the ordinary, just some new flavors that I instantly fell in love with as soon as it hit my lips. LOL
As far as main dishes go, we tried the Jeonbokjuk (abalone porridge), Bibim Guksu (cold spicy buckwheat noodle), Kalguksu (knife cut beef noodle soup) and Bimbimbap, all of which were delicious. Each item was prepared perfectly and gave me a sense of comfort as if it was prepared by my own mom, except my moms not Korean and she could never make anything as good as the food at Mountain. L
Long story short, we devoured every last bite of food on the table, including 3 rounds of banchan and were treated to a delicious ginger drink to close out the meal. LOVE this place and will definitely be back for more.
APPROVED!

Basically, they took Mountain Café (a hole in the wall restaurant in LA), expanded that into a bigger venue in Gardena, then added a more extensive menu, thus creating Mountain. It’s kinda like Mountain Café on crack.
All the things you wanted in Mountain Café, they put into this location. Ample space, a wider variety of ban chan (side dishes), a clean environment, and most importantly, an expanded array of Korean entrees and dishes. I was WOW’d by the sheer selection. There’s also elevated seating to the right of the restaurant for stews. More on their inventory later.
What started it all was their:
ABALONE CHOWDER aka jeonbokjuk
Rice and abalone porridge, topped with a raw egg. Note that the ratio of abalone is much less than that of the rice, so don’t expect the abalone to overfill the bowl. The secret way of eating this dish? Dine in and eat it hot and fresh, right out of the kitchen, before the porridge cools. Once it does, then you might as well just make some porridge at home.
The above average quality side dishes (ban chans) that accompany your meal.
Soy Sauce Beef Strips (jjang jorim)
Fermented Cabbage (kimchee)
Pickled Radish (jeol in mu)
Radish Kimchee (kkakdugi)
I add the oily soy sauce from the Soy Sauce Beef Strips (or regular soy sauce) into the bowl of porridge (do not mix with the rice too much) and then take a spoonful, followed by a combination of the 4 ban chans. When the porridge is steaming (with the egg yolk mixed into the rice) and you eat it with the side dishes, that’s when it has the maximum taste and flavor, or what I call, that warm and fuzzy feeling you get when it goes down your tummy.
When I Recommend Eating This Dish
* cold weather days
* when you’re sick from the cold or flu
* trying to sober up after a night on the town
* the morning after a rough night of intoxication
ADDITIONAL INVENTORY (what I would eat here)
* Sahm Geh Tahng (Ginseng Chicken Soup)
* Galbi Tahng (Beef Short Rib Soup)
* Yook Geh Jahng (Spicy Beef Soup)
* Boog Uh Gook (Dried Fish Soup)
* Ttuk Mandoo Gook (Beef Soup with Rice Cake & Dumpling)
* Explore their menu. You’ll be surprised, in a good way.
Mountain is an above average Korean restaurant with great food choices, without the hassle of driving to LA or searching for parking. I plan on making many more trips with the family in the future cause I know we’ll appreciate the food.
So go check it out. Cause it’s Mountain Standard Time…

Mountain is known to not have MSG in their food. My friend and her family loves this restaurant so I decide to give it a try. I tried liking their food, I really did. But nope, I’ll stick to my MSG-​filled food instead.
Being Japanese, I always ate MSG-​filled meal at our dining table to say the least. I grew up with it all my life so I’m not really hesitant to MSG food and I usually think non-​MSG food taste bland. Likewise, Mountain’s spicy seafood noodle soup did me no justice. Even though my soup was nicely red, I didn’t taste an ounce of flavor or spicyness. The soup tasted a little better if I ate the radish kimchi along with it but there was no flavor otherwise. If my soup is full of seafood like crab, mussel, squid, octopus and more, shouldn’t the broth be a little bit more rich? Nah. But I sure did like my homemade cut noodles!
Mountain will gets two stars from me for being Non-​MSG restaurant and serving pretty good homemade noodles/​banchans but I’ll most likely never visit again.

This is a real toss up on how I want to rate this place. I definitely had better food elsewhere but not in this area. This isn’t in K-​town. It is an okay place and I would go back if I couldn’t thinking of any other place to go or if someone else wanted to go.
This Korean restaurant didn’t specialize in one particular Korean cuisine like most Korean restaurants. It has a little of everything. They offer soon tofu, chap jae, cold noodles, bibimbop and other stuff. So you do have options, few of each but still options.
I’ve been here twice and both times I had the soon tofu because both times I was craving soon tofu. It was okay for the area. I’ve had worst so lucky for them they made it better than the other place nearby.

Good amount of ban chan. Not too busy during lunch (unlike boiling point).
Clean restaurant. Extensive menu and good lunch specials.
We ordered a few different things, bibimbap, seafood soon tofu, kim chee soup.
The bibimbap came out good but the soon tofu wasn’t that great. I’ve had soon tofu at many restaurants and I’ve even had some at home. They claim their tofu is the way it is because they don’t add MSG to it.
When we make it at home, we don’t as well and it comes out great. The soon tofu from Lee’s Tofu down the street or at BCD Tofu House are even better than the one here. The one here was very watery vs. thick. And there wasn’t much tofu in it.
Would not come back.

Stumbled upon this place after Boiling point was waaay too crowded but in the end, it was a blessing in disguise. Great place with awesome Korean comfort food and soups.
I highly recommend all the sides here, VERY fresh and all very tasty! I especially liked the tender beef side, delicious and I’ve never seen beef as a side at a Korean restaurant before. I ended up getting the Galbi-​Taing which was absolutely awesome. The meat was fall-​off-​the-​bone tender and the soup was extremely refreshing. One tip was that there is not much within the soup so make sure that you also fill up on sides.
The service is also very friendly here and they basically let us lounge around for another hour and a half even though we had already finished our food. Great visit and good place, especially if you’re looking to get some soups and comfort food!

Korean food at the Tozai Plaza.
Good food, good banchan, especially when it gets cold outside. Enjoyed their soondaboo, and the galbi tang soups.
Its a super bright interior which makes everything seem so sterile, but then again everything was really clean inside.

Service is great here! That’s my best point for this restaurant and it’s clean. Great for socializing too since it’s not too loud. Calm place. :)
However, the food and my order of galbi-​tang was just A-​OK. Why do so many Korean restaurants struggle with making the galbi-​tang soft and tender so that it falls off the bone? Honestly, there’s only 2-​pieces of meat in this hot delicious broth… why can’t those 2-​pieces be pieces to remember that you savored? Not here. Still on the hunt! Side dishes are just ok too. I’ve had better.

I’ve only ordered the samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup) at the Mountain in K-​town and after enjoying some of mom’s yummy abalone porridge at home, I wanted to compare it to Mountain’s, which a lot of people seem to like. I was surprised they opened another location here and it’s a much fancier place unlike the original hole-​in-​the-​wall location.
So the abalone porridge came out and I quickly mixed the egg yolk into the porridge while it was still hot. I thought it was okay, but I have to say it’s a little weak in flavor. Yes, it’s a porridge you say, it’s how a porridge is supposed to be. Well, I felt like it could’ve used a little more sesame oil for one. The celery pieces, I wasn’t a fan of and it got pretty watery towards the end.
The banchans in their supporting role kinda failed. The soy sauce beef (jang jorim) wasn’t that good and it was hot! I don’t expect this side dish to be hot, so it was a disappointment; I thought this was the best banchan at the LA location. The kimchi was okay but the juhn was pretty soggy. I think there were one or two banchans that I saw in LA but not here. For one, I swear they had one pickled «tsukemono» type banchan there that was missing here.
Would I come back here? I dunno… probably not for the porridge.

For my six hundy… Mountain!
Delish boodijigae! I can’t really judge anything else because this is the only meal I’ve eaten here.
This korean spot is pretty authentic and they offer a lot of «comfort» korean dishes. Everything on the menu looks really yummy, but like I said, the boodijigae is bomb. It’s about $ 30, which unfortunately is standard price at other Korean places, but so worth it. It comes piping hot, and continues to cook on the tabletop grill. Service is a lot more attentive here than at most other Korean spots too, and their banchan is SO freakin good. It’s tasty, it varies, and the quality of it just tastes so much better than a lot of other kbbq places.
YAY for a delicious Korean spot in the South Bay!