Healthy Zone Jook Hyang

This place was wonderful and perfect for a cold night. We ordered the ginseng chicken soup with abalone and the oxtail stew with abalone. Everything was delicious. Banchan was fresh and made with love. We finished everything literally each piece of meat off the chicken. It was even stuffed with sticky rice which mixes with the hot soup very well. Will definitely come back again.

My friend and I were craving/​needing some samgaetang and found this place on Unilocal.
Small interior and seemed to be family owned/​run. We ordered their regular samgaetang and galbi tang. Came out with a good selection of banchan. All fresh and pretty tasty. Not sure what others are talking about their banchan being «dry» or «bland» when everything we tried was great. They even give this chive/​cabbage salad that you’re supposed to eat with the chicken from the samgaetang. We really enjoyed that part of our meal. Made the hot soup have a «fresh» aspect to it.
The jun banchan we got was super yummy. I’ll definitely order that in the future. The oyster kimchi was great. If you don’t like oysters then you might not like it but it’s not heavy with oysters… Mostly tasted of oysters but very good. I almost got full off of just eating the banchan.
The galbi jeem was good. Good portion but I’d probably not go there for that. Ended up taking most of it home since we had so much banchan and samgaetang.
I ended up ordering a serving of the abalone jook to go. They packed it up really well with several banchan, some different but ones that go well with the junbokjook.
Service was great by the way. I believe we were served by the owner’s son who was nice, but one of the ahjumas came out with our to go order and was super nice.
We’ll definitely go back here, especially for their samgaetang and various jooks.

So clean and refreshing feeling! Especially when you’re feeling under the weather. Great and friendly service.

I come here whenever I feel a little under the weather or when I want to have a simple, healthy meal. So far, I’ve always ordered the abalone or chicken porridge although I did notice that the chicken soup looks really hearty too. Maybe I’ll order that the next time I come.
Every time I visit this place, it’s never really full and food comes really fast (which is a huge plus in my book!). I love the variety of well-​seasoned banchan they give, that goes really well with the porridge. Service is a-​ok. The staff seemed really nice, although they don’t really speak much English (or so it seems). There has been times when miscommunication happens during my visit, and I get the wrong order. Still, it has never deterred me from visiting here time and again.

The sesame chicken ginseng (samgyetang) was so comforting & rich. I have visited at least twice in the past month and keep coming back to this gem in LA. Thank you!

Just ate here with my family. They put actual ginseng in the soup! Awesome. Will come back again when I am in la.

This is the place to go to for healthy Korean food.
I come to this place whenever I am sick. The food is very homey, and they use premium ingredients and do not add any MSG.
I like the Abalone porridge, and the abalone steamed short rib the most.
Prices are a little higher compared to other Korean restaurants, but you get what you pay for :)

The place was in such a location that made two of us really worried and nervous walking from our car to the restaurant. You just need to be careful walking at night in downtown LA and Ktown area. The food is pricy as most korean places are. We tried the signature abalone and pumpkin porridge with the chicken soup. To be honest, I like the pumpkin porridge more than the double priced abalone one. The chicken soup is decent but I have had better ones in many other places. I do like the way that the chicken is stuffed with mochi rice which is my favorite. But the chicken itself is too dry to eat. We just finished the soup with the chicken left. It’s a good place to have porridges but I probably won’t go again since there are so many other choices in Ktown.

Recently when a family member fell ill and felt that mediocre juk just won’t do the trick, I Unilocaled around and found this place. Juk was delicious and so was their ban chan. The waitress was so attentive and she made sure we had everything we needed to enjoy our meal. The owner noticed my family member having difficult time chewing ban chan, when she realized we may need softer juk (as what we ordered was vegi juk and jun bok juk, involving more chewing)… What did she do? She discreetly brought us a small bowl of ho bak juk which was so much softer and creamier than what was on the table, free of charge. Wow! I was genuinely surprised by her thoughtful gesture.
I’ve grown accustomed to waiter/​waitress ignoring refill requests… This place made me realize there’s still good people out there, working in restaurants and making customers very happy. Hat’s off to you for your resilient compassion and dedication!

If you’re looking for soup or porridge, then definitely check out Healthy Zone Jook Hyang. The restaurant is rather simple on the inside. One wall is plastered with mirrors, which makes the restaurant seem much bigger than it actually is. Other than that, the white walls are pretty much bare with images of food mounted on several walls. Everything seemed clean, but as someone else noted, the entrance to the restaurant seems a little cluttered. Nonetheless, this was comparable to other hole-​in-​the-​wall places you might find in K-​town.
In comparison to many restaurants in K-​town, Healthy Zone serves a whopping 10 banchan (plus a bonus seafood pancake that came out later). Most of the banchan was good; as usual, I preferred the pickled cucumbers and soybean sprouts. The seafood pancake, which came out later than the rest of the banchan, was delicious, as it was meaty and flavorful as opposed to greasy and bland. While I enjoyed the samgyetang, it couldn’t compare to the homemade samgyetang my friend’s mom makes. But, that might simply be a matter of personal preference, as I like my soup to be on the garlicky side. The flavor profile of the version served at Healthy Zone was pretty balanced — neither overly salty nor overly garlicky. The chicken was tender and moist, and the rice was nicely cooked. Overall, this was solid samgyetang, and I wouldn’t mind coming back here to have it again. The price for samgyetang ($ 12 – 13) was comparable to what’s charged at other places.
Service was generally pretty good. We had to reminder the server to bring us water, but other than that, the staff was pretty attentive and available. But, then again, that might have been due to the fact that there were only two other parties in the restaurant by the time we left. Although you could do valet parking, I would recommend parking on the street or in the K-​Town Galleria Garage — both are free! The restaurant does accept credit cards, so no need to worry about cash.
Overall, I thought this was a decent restaurant with good soup. This isn’t the fanciest place in K-​town, but you’ll leave with a full stomach!

I love love love! This spot is awesome! I havent had such soft and fresh abalone! I had the abalone chicken soup and it was super energizing and healthy for me. They have great service their their side dishes are pretty good! I do think they need to advertise a little more but other than that, it sgreat!

I’ve been going to this place for 5 – 6 years now. It is one of the best chicken ginseng soup I’ve tried in LA. The atmosphere is very clean; it is operated by family members so it has that welcoming vibe. Their side dishes are on point; in quality and quantity. They really don’t skimp on neither here. Sometimes I go here because I am craving their delicious side dishes! Another thing I love about this place is they don’t use MSG. So after eating a giant piping hot bowl of chicken ginseng soup, I am not going through hours of food coma. I feel healthy and well fed!

This place really deserves 2stars for the quality, execution, and flavor of their food. But I do give credit to owner’s hospitality of bringing out extra soup, banchan and smoothie (I know, what a fancy free treat! Probably because they noticed I was taking some serious photos of their food…)
First, I don’t know where their parking lot is hidden, but I just parked on the street. When I walked in the restaurant, I noticed so much clustered stuff everywhere. I felt like I was visiting someone’s house who was not so clean. Stuff like vitamin bottles, napkins, newspapers, paper cups, and etc were on the customer’s table, a bunch of tables were not ckeaned (because there’s not enough people working!), more stuff were clustered over the counter, all the way to the restrooms… oh my… I was about to panic. How can you keep your business place so unorganized, clustered, filthy and dirty like this and serve food to people here?! Wow…
I ordered Galbeejjim and one bamboo container rice combo platter with mackerel and another platter with beltfish.
They laid out unnecessarily many banchans. Everything must have been sitting and collecting dust waiting to be served all day or even longer. Bamboo container must be used only once and must be tossed. If you re-​use it, it won’t provide bamboo fragrance to rice anymore, bamboo gets easily moldy, cracked and dried. They re-​use the container way so many times I bet. Rice was overcooked, no significant flavor what so ever. Side banchans with the platter were tofu with soy sauce, a piece of cold, stale, soggy jeon, sweet spicy dried squid, and two of those fish were unbelievably old, cold, soaked in oil and salt, stinky, and dry.
Galbeejjim, meat was tender, pumpkin was moldy and absolutely undercooked, old browned carrot pieces, so little meat. They even tricked with the portion by stuffing two giant radish pieces at the bottom. The sauce was too, too sweet. Ewww.
They need to clean the place. Close the business for a few days and do some big time cleaning. Then work on the menu. They have so many items, so many banchans, in order to keep all the quantities, I bet everything is pre-​cooked and just served not fresh at all food always. Like its name, Juk Hyang –bamboo fragrance– the bamboo container rice combos must be their signature items. They need to use fresh bamboo container everytime and let customers take it home if there’s any left over rice. Juk Hyang is a well known bamboo rice franchise restaurant in Korea.
It looked like a family owned, mom, dad and kids all work together, but it seemed so out of control. I just wasted about $ 60 tonight.

My hubby and I were sick and it was early morning. Not likely you’d find healthy korean food at 7am. And there it was! So glad we came here. I’ll visit more often.

Review in #Haiku:
Great comfort food here
When cold, down or even sad
Soup is off the chain! =D

This is my go-​to for when I’m sick. Jook hyang has a huge variety of jooks (Korean porridge) that reminds me of the kind my mom used to make for me.
I usually get the yachae dak jook (vegetable chicken porridge) and it’s perfect and healing when I’m feeling terrible. It’s well seasoned, and you definitely don’t get that yucky over-​salty MSG taste after eating it. It tastes homemade and you can imagine a cute little Korean ahjumma cooking it with care.
I usually just get my food to go, and the portion they give you is big enough that it will last you two meals and it comes with a few banchans (beef braised in soy sauce, cold kimchi soup, potatoes in a savory but sweet thick sauce).
Parking: there’s a plaza right by where the restaurant is located with valet, but they don’t let you park there if it’s the weekend/​a busy time. There’s a bunch of street parking though right by the restaurant entrance on Olympic.

I was starting to feel sick, and was in need of some Korean rice porridge (jook). I got the chicken jook for my cold, and everything was great. Well seasoned and you can tell a lot of care goes into the food. The side dishes reminded me of my mom’s cooking which was a pleasant surprise.
The only reason I’m knocking off a star is because service was really slow even though it wasn’t that busy. It took almost 40minutes for them to make my order.

All cultures around the world are obsessed with phallic images be it in art from ancient Rome, an entire Icelandic museum dedicated to penile parts, or that girl that used Nike+ to run in penis-​shaped paths.
Shoot (pun intended), in that way Korea is no different. So when they saw this penis-​shaped radish (
) and made kimchi out of it, they aptly named it «chongak kimchi» or as Google translate says «bachelor» kimchi. This type of kimchi is really popular amongst Koreans and is one of my favorites and not because my nickname is «Dick». Yet strangely, you rarely find it in Korean restaurants.
So, when my office walked into Healthy Zone Jook Hyang (a horrible name for a restaurant by the way) and were served the bachelor kimchi, I literally said HOT BALLS!!! And when I put one in my mouth and tasted it, I turned to my coworkers and said «come on» y’all gotta eat it too. Kimchi Party!!!
Joking aside, Healthy Zone Jook Hyang (HZJH), serves some good old-​fashioned Korean food the way your halmeoni (grandma in Korean) would. While the name of the restaurant literally means «Healthy Zone Scent of Porridge» and they fittingly serve an array of porridge of which the abalone porridge is quite popular, I decided against being Goldilocks and ordered the Korean chicken soup also known as «sam gye tang», which turned out to be «just right»!
Sam gye tang is chicken soup where a young chicken or cornish hen is stuffed with glutinous rice and boiled in a broth of Korean ginseng, dates, ginger, garlic, and other herbs. The broth is pretty bland so salt is definitely required and the blandness is made up for by the kimchi.
Now along with the aforementioned bachelor kimchi, HZJH makes great regular kimchi, cucumber kimchi, and even cubed daikon kimchi (if you ask for it — it’s like In-N-Out’s secret menu LOL). In addition to the various kimchi they also provide other amazingly tasty banchans (side dishes) of which I liked the sugary soy sauce potatoes.
Also, what really impressed me was that the ladies working here had the friendliest smiles. No grumpy «no soup for you» Korean ladies here. Furthermore, despite our party of 8 continually asking for more penis-​shaped kimchi, they were more than happy to refill us without a single frown.
At the end of the day, they really ensured we had a happy ending because the food was really good. Can’t believe I had never been here before. Will definitely be back for some more. Too bad the parking sucks. Try to find street parking.
* $ 12.99 for the sam gye tang. Don’t order the abalone sam gye tang which is double the price.
** Speaking of kimchi parties, here is a link to the craziest Kimchi-​making video ever.

Jook Hyang is known for their soothing comfort foods, junbok jook (abalone porridge) and sahm geh tang (chicken soup) but they also serve quite a number of other healthy eats. I came here for lunch and was pleasantly surprised by the tasty banchan (assorted side dishes) and the quality of my lunch combo.
I ordered the memil nengmyun & galbi. The buckwheat noodles were refreshing and a little softer than the usual chewy nengmyun texture, and the broth was also more akin to a yulmoo kimchi (water radish kimchi.) The beef ribs came out last, but were definitely worth the wait.
The flavor is clean and bland compared to most other korean restaurants so I would rate them a 3.5 but the fact that they use no MSG and less sugar and salt boosts the rating to 5 stars. Looking forward to revisiting and trying their dduk galbi and galbi jjim~

Jook was what I was looking for. I’ve been wanting to try another place other than Mountain. I was curious. I love Mountain, but I have been pondering… if there are better jook in K-​Town. I feel so dirty. I feel so mischievous. And now that I’ve been to both, I feel so unfaithful.
Jook Hyang is a great alternative. The restaurant is spacious. It has more seating. It has a huge variety of jook selection. Abalone, black sesame, chicken, green bean, mushroom w/​oyster, red bean, or sweet red bean just to name a few. Then there are soups like samgyetang, a ginseng chicken soup with glutinous rice, garlic and dried dates stuffed within the chicken. You can even get that with abalone slices for an extra $ 11.
The menu is actually quite extensive with plenty of meat dishes, combination set dinners. All in all, we were just looking for jook.
Abalone jook and a samgyetang were what we went with.
The hook here is chunky, thick. It isn’t smooth but it isn’t any less wholesome than the creamier alternatives. It’s sprinkled with sesame and seaweed, and it is paired with two banchans. Namely the marinated cubed beef and pickled daikon are supposed to be eaten with the jook. The flavor I’d certainly more exciting when eaten with the parties banchans.
The chicken soup here felt heavier and felt much more hearty. The meat of the chicken doesn’t quite fall off the bone, but it gives better meat consistency. It is paired up with a side of salt and a cabbage, chives, and soy sauce mixture that can be thrown in to the pot.
The varietal of banchan is greater as well comparing to what I have had in other Korean established jook restaurant.
However, while there is more of everything, I feel like there is less of simplicity and quality. Jook Hyang certainly didn’t persuade me to be the absolute k-​jook alternative, but it’s good to know the fair competition… for wholesome comforting meals.