Ban Chan

Great food! Price is not bad compared to many other Korean restaurants. Awesome service and best of all the food was great will be going again for sure

a new family owned korean restaurant in arizona! I highly recommend spicy chicken, YUM

I tried their food at the Asian Festival in Scottsdale this past weekend. For $ 10 I got spicy pork, rice, bean sprouts, and kim chi. Pretty good value considering the price and quality of the other festival food that was offered. I really enjoyed the texture and flavor of the pork. I don’t think I’ve ever visited the restaurant, but now I would like to. Especially now that I see that their menu offers a spicy tofu soup, I love that stuff!

It’s a small family owned restaurant but the food is great! The side dishes (ban chan) is good and they give you a variety. Their kalbi tang is really flavorful too!

Back from work and now I am in the mission to find Korean restaurant & grocery shopping.
This place had lower reviews but I wanted to try my own.
Visited on Thursday night which it was pretty quite & kind of empty.
I ordered Kalbi tang (Kalbi soup) & my guy ordered spicy pork.
Lady brought ban Chan & rice.
I want to know why this place is not over 4 stars!!!
Call me an old lady but their ban Chan has very shigol (country side) flavor. I asked the lady why not so busy when her food reminds me of country side food in Korea. She said her popular customers are elders. If you know Korean food, the flavor is different depends on territory in Korea. Their radish kimchi was really good, other veg I dishes were really good too. But surprisingly, cabbage kimchi wasn’t that good.
My Kalbi soup was pretty good. Spicy pork was better than the soup. I have to say the pork was better than I expected. Better food than Hodori Korean restaurant.
So good I went back on very next day for lunch. This time I ordered saum jok tang (beef tendon soup) & my company ordered Tuk-​mandoo kook (dumplings & rice cake soup). The owner brought out few more extra ban chan for us to try.
Both dishes were so good. I asked the owner lady if they have a mackerel & radish dish, she said even it’s not on the menu but I can still order it.
She also sell ban chan if you ask for it. Her ban chan was far better than the one I buy from the market.
Ban chan is my top of Korean restaurant near me.

A male maybe is the manager, is very rude to his customer. When we ask for a refill of side dishes, he is very unhappy and said: no more, last one. Alright, then I will give you one star. Every Korea restaurant will have free refill for side dishes, if you restaurant don’t have just let you customer know, don’t let me feel uncomfortable about it.

We decided to go here to try the Meat Jun. What a mistake! The meat was very tough and bland. We’ll be sticking to Paradise Hawaiian BBQ for our meat jun cravings. Our dining experience wasn’t pleasant since they didn’t have their AC on. The waitress stated that it was a little broken but it seemed to me that they may just have been cutting down on operational cost especially seeing how slow it was at noon.
On the plus side their yuk gae jang was delicious, better than takamatsu and hodori. I wish they served kimchi with it which I thought was quite odd..

Meat jun was on point here. Not greasy and bangin flava. Only downside is the dinner prices. A bit steep. Aside from that I’ll definitely be bringing back my Korean bitches. Fa sho. Now leave Korean Jesus alone! He ain’t got time for your problems! He busy, doin Korean shit!

I went to eat here the other day just before dinner time. I’ve tried 2 other Korean restaurants and i think this place has a lot of potential.
I was scared because the place was empty. Not a soul in the place empty. Mid meal people popped in. Korean people and they genuinely enjoyed the food so I finally understood how this place works.
Atmosphere: it feels like a pop up restaurant with not a lot of thought put into it. If you can get past the old musty smell it might not be so bad. I grew up in a big family and found myself in the most humid places (Texas) so it didn’t really bother me. It feels rundown but not quite hole in the wall just yet.
The food: my sister and I split a tofu soup and bulgogi. I actually enjoyed the food a lot and it totally hit the spot. Tofu seafood soup had a deep seafood flavor but no signature egg but still lots of seafood in it and it was great. The bulgogi wasn’t too dry, too sweet and they tenderized it so well and you still got these thick cuts of beef with great flavor.
The service: homeboy was cool. He refilled our drinks, apologized for lack of Mountain Dew I wanted on a hot day and thanked us for coming in.
The price: people always tell me Korean food is so pricey for each entrée. But you get tons of side dishes and they are unlimited so I have no problems paying $ 9-​$ 15 for a plate. If you had any idea all of the ingredients that go into these dishes it’s worth it.

My favorite Korean restaurant in Arizona now. We were leary to try it because we arrived at 830 on a Wednesday night and the open sign was off and there were no customers at all.
Also, the Unilocal reviews were mixed but we decided to try it anyway.
The Kalbi was well marinated, it wasn’t overly sweet like most restaurants. All the small Kim chi dishes were the best I’ve had at a Korean restaurant in Arizona. I always complain that the Kim chi in AZ restaurants suck.
This is a very authentic Korean restaurant with many dishes I’ve never seen offered at most Korean places.
With that being said… be careful when ordering some of the more interesting dishes because you may not be used to it.
For example, we got the stir fry octopus which I LOVED! But it is very very chewy… so it’s not for everyone.
We also got the cold noodles with skate and squid. The skate is like a salted raw fish with all the skate cartilage intact.
We LOVED it and will be back!

I didn’t think I’d like this place by reading all the mixed reviews. But I am very happy that I went in. My son who has become a very picky eater was already upset when we walked into the establishment. He wanted American food and wore a frown on his face. We got a very mild tofu soup for him. Ordered the Meat Jun, bbq chicken and Panjeon too. We were amazed to see how much banchan was served. Most places serve 4, but we had 8, and they were all delicious. My son’s face lit up when he saw the potato banchan. I gave him some chicken and Meat Jun. He didn’t care to eat his tofu soup. He was all over that Meat Jun. My son doesn’t really care for Korean food but that Meat Jun won his heart. My husband is now a big fan too. We found out the server is from Hawaii, and that was a big plus too. He served us with that big Aloha spirit. We will certainly dine here again.

They’ve changed the menu a number of times as well as the quality of the food. Not sure why Korean restaurants in AZ just can’t get it right.

Came here because of the pictures of the Kalbi tacos and I’ve been craving some korean/​mexican fusion due to the lack of Kogi trucks in my new state.
Sadly that was only a temporary promotion/​special so they weren’t available and the food was just OK.
There was a miscommunication with the server with one of the menu items and her recommendation (the soup stew) actually ended up being the best dish we had all night!

(Lyrics — Def Leppard — Love Bites)
I really wanna try your cuisine Ban Chan
Cause eating food from your menu drives me crazy
I know you think that Kim Chi is the way you make it
So I don’t wanna be there when you decide to make it
Oh!
Bo Bites, Ban Chan
It’s bringin’ me to my knees
Bo Bites, Ban Chan
It’s no surprise
Bo Bites, Ban Chan
It’s what I need
I rather enjoyed visiting this place. It’s definitely a family owned restaurant. I totally dig the 80’s pop music playing in the background of the restaurant!
I attended with my buddy and his wife. I went for the usual Tofu beef stew while my friend went for their special kalbi beef stew and seafood pancake. I regret not getting their special cause my tofu beef stew was pretty bland in my opinion. It came along with some vegetables mixed within however, it just didn’t work for my taste buds. The seafood pancake was okay at best since it was overly done with scallions; like way too many! The star of the night for me had to be the Kalbi beef stew; man why didn’t I get it! I had one bite of my buddies to try it and right away I knew I made a mistake in my ordering. With similar ingredients as my mines, but it had that salty sweet kalbi beef taste along with the stew. The aroma itself was strong enough to make me saliva!
In the end, Ban Chan is lovely homey spot. I definitely would return to keep trying out their food and just to listen to some good 80’s oldies! — Enjoy!

i was excited to see that a new Korean restaurant opened up and decided to drive over for dinner. Both the food and the service were very disappointing.
The service was beyond terrible. I walked in and had to seat myself because no one gave me any direction. I sat there for five minutes and no one came over, so I went to get a menu myself. I waited for 10 minutes and still no one came over to take my order. There were two tables right next to mine, and the female server brought items to their tables while I was sitting there trying to get her attention. After 15 minutes of just sitting, eventually the male server came over and took my order.
For a place called «Ban Chan», their ban chan is not only very limited, but gross. There were a total of 4 side dishes, 3 of which were odd and inedible. The cooked turnip had a very fishy taste to it, then there were the mushy/​flavorless collared greens, the picked vegetable and pickled turnip were just not good. All of the side dishes were lukewarm.
I ordered Haemul Pajun (Seafood pancake); it was thick and full of undercooked green onion. The Kalbitang was very salty.
It was a very disappointing meal.

Last time I went, we were given poor banchan while the two tables next to us received much higher quality banchan (?) We got beans, potato and some cabbage, while they had kimchi, kimch radish, spinach, bean sprouts, etc. Why???
Also kept hearing the lady in the kitchen that she «found the meat» after overhearing the waiter tell the table next to us that they were out of spicy pork. How do you lose the food in your kitchen?! I had apparently ordered the last order for spicy pork, but I was extremely dry and overcooked.
The prices are also a bit unreasonable. The nengmyn-​kalbi combo comes with a good portion of noodles but literally 4 pieces of meat. Probably won’t be returning here for a while.

If all you care about is taste, this place is good.
But I can’t get over my horrible experience last time. My boyfriend and I ordered one dish each. I got my dish kimchi stew about 15 mins later. And we kept waiting and waiting for his food to arrive — which was bulgogi btw. When I saw the huge group who arrive much later than us getting their food, I had already finished my food.
I asked the waiter about it and he told me we didn’t order the other dish! That really pissed me off. I distinctly remembered ordering his because my bf fumbled on saying bulgogi and I corrected it. That shameless man cannot get 2 orders right and tried to act like he did nothing wrong… AND made us wait another 20 mins before it came.
Zero apologies and absolutely horrible attitude.

With a name like Ban Chan, you should expect nothing but freshness and high quality with the ban chan they offer. The name does live up to the hype, as they make their kimchi fresh, and all the other ban chan they offer is very flavorful and goes well with your meal.
I’ve been here a few times, and the service can be spotty. It seems hit or miss based on my experiences. Our last outing here, they forgot about one of our dishes that we had specifically requested to bring out before the meal as an appetizer, and also did not put in one of our orders.
The food though, is good. I’ve had the meat jun, spicy chicken, pork and kimchee pancake, and the mandoo. All have had great flavor, and have been prepared well.
Also to note: If you order iced tea and ask for sugar packets, they’ll give you a covered bowl of sugar since they don’t have packets of real and imitation sugar.

This place was highly recommended by my foodie friend and I had high hopes that I was going to be absolutely delicious. Perhaps because they went there for dinner while we were there for lunch that might have made a bit of the different in our experiences. First off, they didn’t give us decent portion of Kim Chi to start with and we had total of 4 people. We all ordered ice-​tea and the server did not ask us if we want refill once. I ordered the Gabi lunch dish and it was only average. The last dish didn’t show up until we are almost done with our dinner. Service is great, owner seems nice, but it doesn’t make up for the small portion of Kim Chi and the food.

The restaurant is kinda hidden in the plaza on Dobson and Guadalupe. The place is small but clean. Service was good and we didn’t have to wait to long for the food. We ordered some Gogi, spicy chicken, tofu soup and some Korean street tacos. Everything tasted delicious and the portions were generous. I highly recommend the Korean street tacos!