Seoul Restaurant

When I feel first walked in at 6:30 on a Thursday no one was there besides my friend that I was meeting. Then a really annoying drunk man sat down and started talking to the staff very loudly. I felt like I was in a cult movie.
We ordered the scallion pancake which was ok but not authentic. Very greasy. Then they brought out our little side dishes very late, after we asked where they were. Much later than people who came in after us.
My stone pot bibimbop was all right but the rice completely burned and wasn’t edible.
And yes, the other reviewers were right about the price. Not a great value. I actually think I prefer Midori in Hamden which is kind of sad.

Last time I was at this restaurant, it was Sept 2003 when I was a student, it was for my birthday, it was long time ago but I remember the food was really not very good, so I’ve never been back since then until tonight. And just when I thought maybe after 12+ years there would be some nice change to the restaurant, well… I was severely disappointed. Yes the space looks a little different from a decade ago, but it’s still expensively priced mediocre korean food at best. I ordered the beef daikon soup dish, a whopping $ 18 after tax and tip. In L.A. I can order really good all you can eat korean bbq with that price. My friend ordered a bibimbap that she said had very little meat on it. I agree with many reviewers that if there was another decent korean restaurant in New Haven, this place would have closed a long time ago. Probably only surviving because it’s right across the street from where many Yale medical students and young doctors live, so prime location for easy customer access. Lets just say I have learned my lesson and will NEVER be back again, I’d rather take the 2 hour ride into NYC to get some good korean food, this place would make real korean food lovers and their pocket books cringe with horror.

This is the the only Korean restaurant in New Haven, so you don’t really have a choice. The food here is actually decent. The price, however, is steep, and the portion would be small even for two-​thirds of the price. So all things considered, the food here is actually more expensive than the already expensive (but better) Korean food you get in New York.
The service doesn’t help either. Food takes a long time to come, and they bring you the small dishes very late, sometimes after the entrees are already here! And of course they never refill your water.
If you want Korean food that is A LOT cheaper and A LOT tastier, try Jung’s Kimchi Corner. I know it’s a food truck, not a proper sit-​down restaurant, but holy crap does it wipe the floor with this one.

The best Korean food you will find in New Haven. I had a delicious beef dish. However I will agree with everyone that this place is definitely overpriced. Spent around 60 dollars for a meal/​drinks that easily should have been 30.
I really did not notice any service issues because I was there to slowly eat, relax and enjoy time with a friend.
If you need a korean fix, Seoul restaurant will basically be your best bet.

Like other reviewers said, the service is slow, especially when it’s busy. Last night was the Yale-​Harvard Football game, so the restaurant was more crowded than usual. You could tell the wait staff were stressed out and a bit disorganized.
I have been here a few times, and every time we order the table side Korean BBQ. They are usually reluctant to do it because they have to stand there and cook it in front of you. Then why even have it on the menu?
A couple days ago I called ahead and asked if they still do the table side BBQ. «Yes, no problem», said the woman on the phone. Now, we’re at the restaurant, and you’re telling me it’s on the menu but you don’t offer it?
My heart sank, so instead, we ordered the scallion pancakes to start, two hot pots and the Jam Bong. Their scallion pancakes are some of the best I’ve ever had — crunchy but chewy on the inside, not too greasy, and full of flavor.
The Jam Bong was delicious as well, with a nice spice and flavor to the noodles. Our hot pots however, were dry and lacked flavor, and I had to drown it in soy sauce.
The reason I come here is for the Korean BBQ, so if they no longer have it, I probably won’t come back.

The owners are lucky that it’s the only Korean restaurant in town or else they have close the business long time ago. Very little banchan and too pricey for the little amount of fish or meat in your dish. If you have time, you’re better off going to Hartford or New York for real Korean food.
Please don’t review this business if you received a freebie for writing this review, or if you’re connected in any way to the owner or employees.

It’s okay. Small plate, few rice cakes. Delicious but expensive. Maybe go back later.

Poor Korean food for expensive prices.
Soondubu seafood: only seafood I found were a few pieces of dried fish. Tofu was all broken up into little tiny pieces. Could not appreciate any tofu whatsoever. No egg to be dropped into the stone pot. No veggies either? The soup tasted like water with chili oil. No flavor. Just spicy.
The house special kalbi: is served boneless. Which pretty much takes away from the whole dish. Overcooked, dry, tough.
Japchae: is okay. Can’t go wrong there I guess. Flavor may be a little too sweet for my liking but some sriracha can fix that.
Ban chan: low-​mediocre-​unimpressed. 6 were brought out. Not varied. For example, they put the same sauce over three types of veggies. Some were bland. I’ve had better. They also brought this out after they brought the first dish. Weird.
Portions were not worth the prices. Huge disappointment because it smelled so good from outside.
Restaurant is slow at 8pm on a Thursday. Yet between two servers, they only checked up on us once. Had to make an effort to get their attention since we were seated closer to the front. But they were nice and friendly.
NYC has cheaper Korean food with five stars quality.

The food was good. Very filling and great spices. But I truly have to say, way to expensive. For 3 adults, we had 2 appetizers. 3 entrees, 4 glasses of wine, 1 beer and a lemonade. The bill was $ 150.00!

Decent local Korean restaurant. The couple are really kind friendly and nice. Great setting and service. Recommend their seafood pancake and seafood bowl which is yummy. Great place to get together with couple friends. Do not need to make reservation during off peak hours.

I wanted this food to be great, because Korean food is my favorite and this is a Mom and Pop Korean joint. It was not great, maybe not even good. It was bland, mediocre, and the banchan were meager and watery. It left me with a bigger hankering for REAL Korean food. Also, more expensive than solid great New York restaurants.
I bet Pop was an engineer in Korea, definitely not a chef. Mom must have been a teacher or maybe an engineer too. The highlight of the evening, though, and some may love this restaurant for the kitsch factor this provides, was that the owner went to a tiny little stage in the corner, and serenaded all of us with delightful and well-​played Korean pop songs. The wife, which we named «Sarge», can use a bit of smiling.
Here are some suggestions: Lower your prices even a couple of dollars, make your portions slightly bigger, put more banchan on the table, and do not charge extra for banchan, when your initial banchan serving is not enough for even one person. Get a Korean cookbook, and go over that parts that you missed before, and refresh your cooking;-) Would have loved to love it, but couldn’t. Boohooo…

This is a typical situation where there is no competition. They are the only ones in town so anyone wanting Korean food will have to travel an hour or so into NYC or just deal with it.
The «bahn chahn», which the veggie little plates that come prior to the entrée was weak and no variety. The cod stew had so little cod. I counted 5 little pieces in the whole dish and had very little flavor to boot. I also ordered bulgoki, a simple marinated beef dish, and had diarrhea shortly after and my son threw up afterwards. Unfortunately, I was already in Manhattan by the time the symptoms came so I didn’t even bother calling them back for a refund.
Plus the service was horrible. The owner was the server and she was taking care of other tables. She was the only one there, granted it was slow. Also, very pricey for what you get, even if we didn’t get ill.
If you want Korean and your in New haven, take a trip to K town, 32^nd st in Manhattan. It’ll be worth it.

Had my favorite Korean soon Rudy soup. Good flavor and spicy as requested but ultra salty. Upon closer inspection, lots of chopped up old kimchee in it. No egg to go with.
Bön chon was limited. Again, kimchee was old and salty. The only other customer in place asked for more of these sides and owner said «this is not New York, we charge for more»
If craving Korean and no other options, acceptable. Not planning to return anytime soon. New York it is.

Stone pot BiBimBop was decent, nothing unpleasant but way way too pricey for a tiny bowl of «burnt rice» and veggies with hardly any meat. This isn’t a «high end curated» type small dish, nor some fancy or rare ingredients.
Perhaps if you are a Yale student far from home and missing your BiBimBop this may be worth the price to taste a bit of home?
For a foodie, or anyone blessed with the bounty of good food that is new haven, I don’t see this as a must try. To further inform you, oh reader, this is the favorite place of my trustafarian acquaintance who likes bad radio pop, bland overpriced restaurants, and subpar middle American theater productions, so I guess this meal is not surprising.
Sadly out $ 20 including tax and tip, but at least I didn’t get stuck splitting the check, which is always a danger with that crowd.

Looks like it’s a family owned/​ran type of place. We went on a Saturday night craving for some kbbq but unfortunately they were not offering the tabletop version. The service was great, the food not so much. For the price the portions were very small and the side dishes were few.

I’ve been searching all over Connecticut for Korean food and have found there is a huge lack of it. I ate Korean food quite often while living in Louisville, KY and Charlotte, NC. It was decent in Charlotte, but Louisville is a secret foodie-​gem and it had some excellent restaurants. I’ve also eaten Korean in San Francisco, and there is nothing like food in San Francisco.
Rating this compared to my across the board Korean food experience, it filled the void, but isn’t excellent Korean. The owners were very nice. The dolsot bibimbap had an option of coming with tofu, so I was happy about that. However, I couldn’t eat the banchan. My favorite part of the meal is the banchan and it just wasn’t up to par. The salad bar at my café at work recently had kimchee that was better than this.
I would go again to fix my Korean cravings, but I wish we had more options.

I came in here on a Saturday lunch with my dad. And wow, it was completely empty. From what we could tell by the setup, it seemed more like a dinner/​bar type (they had a little stage for a band or maybe karaōke in the corner), so perhaps that explains why.
We were served by the owner himself (from what we could tell), and the service was nice enough. The banchan (side dishes) were okay. Some didn’t taste too authentic and the quantity was a little below average. The food that we ordered (Galbi Tang and Bibimbap) tasted pretty good though! For the galbi tang, the soup tasted great and hearty. My only gripes were that (1) the vegetables (radishes I think) were a little undercooked and (2) there was only one thing of galbi meat. (I’m sure the other scraps of meat in there was not galbi.) The bibimbap was good, but then again, it’s hard to mess that up: P The bill turned out to be a bit pricey given the amount of food we were given.
Going in, I was pretty bummed that there was only one Korean restaurant within a walking distance from the medical school. But thank God that it’s actually decent, albeit overpriced, in terms of food.
tl;dr Okay quality all around with a not-​so-​great price to quantity ratio. Definitely not the best tasting Korean food, but it will have to do as I go to school around here. Will definitely make me realize how good it is in Cali.

Food is good, but expensive. We’re talking $ 40 a person. The waitress/​server/​owner seems to be in a hurry all the time.
Then place is very spacious, but normally with two to three tables being «reserved.» the place normally have one or two tables occupied at most.
Overall, I would come here just for the food.

Seeing that the people who work here were Korean, I thought the food would be pretty good. It was below average and overpriced. We ordered the bulgogi bbq and the seafood soondubu. The meat was a meager plate full and grilled on a portable gas stove. Also, the order came with ONE basket of lettuce and when we asked for more, the server said it would cost extra. Last time I checked, lettuce was cheap. I can only say, at least he was upfront about it. The seafood in the soondubu was also scrawny, like those you may find in a bag of frozen seafood.

You have no choice.
Decent Korean food across the spectrum. New Haven’s only option really. So too bad. People are definitely nice, but talk about overpriced :(if it were cheaper and had some smaller portions for quick meals, I would have definitely been there quite often during my heyday.
Decent food. Overpriced. What can you do.
Actually, if you’re really craving Korean food that much go to the train station in New Haven. $ 14 (have prices gone up?) will get you a one way pass to NYC and Grand Central. Take the shuttle to Penn Station, get up and out to W 32^nd and Broadway and voila you are in KTown NYC some 2 hours later with a myriad of choices and at least you’re in NYC so some of the cost is justified … End rant. Seoul isn’t THAT bad, but gosh give me any alternative pleaseeee.
Cheers!