Mono+Mono

I really miss this place — was hoping the close would be only temporary. Every time I’m planning a trip back to the City, I wish it were still open. Haven’t really been happy with any potential replacements, either.

There are plenty of places to get Korean Fried Chicken in NYC.
Bön Chon, Mad for Chicken, Boka…
All of them have the similar recipe, but each place has a different vibe.
Mono + Mono is my favorite.
Dark wooden walls and metal, piano table, and vaulted walls of records and DJ spinning jazz on vinyl. Yeah, it’s like that.
Now if you haven’t had Korean Fried Chicken in NYC it’s it’s like nothing you’ve had before. It’s the most crispy moist chicken spicy chicken that I’ve ever experienced.
I always get the large combo and take left overs home.
½ soy garlic seasoned, and ½ spicy
You can also ask for the radishes dipped in vinegar. It’s a great clean crisp taste that cleans your palette and takes the edge of the spices.
Quick Tip: the only downfall is that they only accept cash or American Express so come prepared.

When are you reopening!!! We miss you!!!
One of the best restaurants in the East Village with incredible food and a great scene… if it ever reopens.

My friend who’s a local took me here and I’m so glad he did! Such a sexy restaurant in NYC! Great vibe, good food, yummy flavored soju in a jazzy lookin restaurant! Discs on the wall, piano made into a table,
— Flavored Soju
— Crab fried rice
— Korean fried chicken (soy garlic)
I want to find more sexy, trendy restaurants like Mono+Mono!

I can’t believe I’ve never reviewed my favorite bon chon places, Mono+Mono being in the top 3 easily.
I LOVE THIS PLACE. I come here EVERY time I’m in NYC. With deep sadness, I found out right before heading to eat here, they had to close due to fire. NO, NO, NOT MY SWEET MONO+MONO WHERE YOU FRY MY MORSELS TO PERFECTION. How the heck will I live without you?!
After going through my stages of grief, I bounced back and hit up every other KFC place to subdue any craving I had left.
I still crave it as I type.
What else is there to say about the delicious Korean Fried Chicken that NYC made me fall in love with?
— The Sauce: I always get spicy. I love spice, so I get it thrice.
— The Fry: The special DOUBLE fry gets it CRISPY. Always.
— The Atmosphere: I’m a foodie and a music-​ee (???) and I love the rotating records! The DJ booth pumps out some really great music.
— The Soju: I mostly get the yogurt and watermelon. Can’t really go wrong. The yogurt soju comes out with little umbrellas so you’ll feel like you’re on vacation at the beach.
But then you bite into that crispy and hot and spicy wing; You’ll forget about the beach and wish you were rolling around in KFC batter. mmmmmmmmmmmm.
Sorry M+M for the recent fire. I wish you the best of luck, and I hope that the temp. closing gives all of us a newfound appreciation for those succulent wings. I will be back, and I will love you like that first night I met you.

Cool vibes /​nice service with, in my mind, two standout characteristics:
1. Lychee soju (lychee flavored alcohol. yum)
2. Records are on a conveyor belt around the ceiling which the DJ (he’s up top, above your heads) rotates around to grab the records he wants

Want a hip place to hang out along with some Korean Fried Chicken? Find your way to Mono+Mono!
Yikes, I think I am on a roll for Korean food! This time is not for a special occasion but just a casual *Girls Night Out*. My girlfriends and I definitely deserve it after working so hard! Mono+Mono caught my eye when I read that they serve Korean Fried Chicken which we were all in the mood for hehe. I think Mono+Mono is an excellent hang out spot. The place is very hip, unique, and stylish with old records as décor. Fun enough for a group celebrating!
We got to Mono+Mono just in time for the Happy Hour Special!!! An awesome deal! Please take advantage!
Happy Hour Special:
Sun-​Thurs 4pm-​7pm /​/​Fri-​Sat 4pm-​6pm
20% OFF on all drinks!
$ 49.95 per group of 4 people (WOW-​Original price $ 75!!!)
Includes:
~Mono+Mono Chicken (Large size of Soy Garlic, Hot & Spicy, or Half & Half)
~~Mono+Mono Fries (Wedge cut fries with rosemary sprinkles, spicy mayo, and bacon mustard sauce)
Choice of 2 Sides (Kimchi, Corn Salad, Korean Scallion Salad, Okra & Radish Pickles)
~~~A Pitcher of Beer (House Beer)
~~~~A Decanter of Soju (Any Flavor of Soju — 6.9 oz/​205ml)
The drinks were very good. Loved the soothing house beer and sweet lychee soju. The wedge fries were delicious. But the Fried Chicken was the best of the night. Crispy chicken skin, tender meat, nicely flavored. Although we thought the chicken was a bit bigger than regular size, we still ordered a second large fried chicken batch to share. Korean fried chicken is soso addicting in general lol
It was an overall enjoyable experience for me and my ladies.
Cheers!!!

I’ve got mixed feelings about this place.
First off, the Bön Chon style chicken is excellent, but no different from the many other restaurants that have since copied the style. I must say that the décor and music at the restaurant is fun and trendy. I like to bring visitors to this place as it’s a fun, hip and has a unique style.
My problem with this restaurant has been the inconsistent service. On two separate occasions I had ordered take out chicken wings for a party and I gave them the recommended 30 minute lead time. I had timed my order to coincide with the beginning of the party so that they wouldn’t get too cold. The orders ended up taking approximately 1 – 1.5 hours and I could see that tables that were seated after I had placed my order at the bar were being served before me.
I’ve had no other problems with this place besides those two incidents, but I haven’t been back since the latest snafu about 6 mos. ago. I would recommend this place if you’re planning to eat there otherwise you can order from Boka a few blocks north.

I came with a large party for dinner and we ordered a bunch of food to share. The dishes came out really quickly, with the exception of the chicken wings as that takes longer to cook.
We ordered:
Japchae, Fried Tofu, Galbi Skewer, ramen, kimchi fried rice, garlic seafood rice, and the kimchi mung bean pancake. All of these were satisfying. I really enjoyed the kimchi fried rice.
The chicken wings were tasty. I had the mild one. It was an interesting texture. fried and crispy on the outside which i didn’t expect.
I wished I got a private tour of the vinyls! best part of the bar!

This place is great, nice ambience, live music (on the right night), excellent food! They were able to get a table for 6 right away on a Wednesday night.
The décor is really good, there’s a wall full of vinyl from the floor to ceiling, and a conveyor belt sort of thing going on in the ceiling where records go round and round. Functionality? None, but it’s pretty cool. They have two kitchens apparently, for one kitchen you can actually watch them prepare food all the way in the back.
Drinks are made fresh fruit. I recommend the Crispy Bun Pork for an appetizer while you wait for the Korean BBQ Chicken to come out, they take about 30 minutes to make but definitely worth the wait.

This place is awesome! I don’t know if this used to be a different restaurant back in the day and when the new owners bought it, they just decided to keep all that jazz and just serve some Korean food with it. Either way, it works for me! Loved the old records in the bookcases, newspaper clippings about jazz stars in the bathrooms, and record covers on the walls. Plus there’s a fucking piano in the middle of the room that you can actually eat your dinner on. You can’t get that just anywhere!
Soju sampler was spectacular — we had blood orange, lychee, mint, and yogurt soju. All of them were delicious, but the yogurt soju is my jam. We also got the passion fruit soju mojito and that was really good too.
I like to think I’m a bit of a Korean fried chicken connoisseur and this place really surprised me — in a good way. Their double fried chicken really was as good as their menu claimed, not at all overly greasy, yet super crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. We got both the soy garlic and hot&spicy and both were delicious! Dare I say this is better than any Korean fried chicken I’ve had so far in K-​town but someone please give me some suggestions if you know of a better place because I’m always searching for «the one.»
My only gripe is that if you want more pickled radishes with your chicken, that shit costs $ 5. Really? Pickling radishes is the easiest and cheapest thing to do, and in my favorite Korean spots in California they give that to you unlimited for free.

Sometimes the entire «fusion» concept can be taken too far. On the Upper West Side a few months back, some friends of mine were walking down Amsterdam, causally read a restaurant’s sign and had to stop to laugh in disbelief. (French /​Mexican? REALLY?) When I heard «Korean» «Fried Chicken», and «Jazz» in the descriptors of this establishment, I was curious, yet not ready to make fun just yet. I can’t immediately knock a place that some people boast has the city’s best fried chicken.
One of my dearest culinary partners in crime, Aviva G., and I suggested a nice post-​Christmas dinner date. In my mind, I pictured something more in the vein of a restaurant in St. Mark’s Place: a below-​street level restaurant with low ceilings, dim red lighting, and extremely crowded and teaming with people, the sound of hot grease sizzling in the background as the open kitchen was visible to all in the tiny space. When I arrived… I got 20 foot tall ceilings, walls lined with jars of infusing fruits and literally 30,000 records, a DJ spinning jazz tunes overlooking the huge open dining area, a gorgeous eat-​around piano, and just this classy air surrounding me.
Aviva and I were unsure about soju (infused Korean vodka), so we split the four flavor sampler flight: Snow White Yogurt (which tasted like melted Pinkberry), Passion Mint, Pink Lychee, and our personal favorite, Blood Orange. Blood Orange is an absolute must! (Upon our inevitable figure return, we plan on buying a large carafe of it!) Later in our meal, we each got a mojito. She got Passion Fruit. I got Pineapple Coconut. Both were perfect. The «problem» with both the soju and the mojitos is their lack of any alcoholic flavor! We ended up feel VERY GOOD by evening’s end, needless to say. I recall saying to Aviva, «I know I’m feeling these drinks because I’m having trouble enunciating my words,» of course putting extra emphasis on correctly enunciating the sentence BECAUSE I knew of my then-​lack of enunciation ability. (Thank you, soju and mojitos!)
Next, we split the Pepper Jeon: ground beef upon red pepper slices, and grilled corn on the cob, seasoned with paprika and cojita cheese. I don’t think I can ever eat corn any other way.
Finally, the pièce de résistance: the fried chicken! Drumsticks and wings, double fried fresh to order, glazed in an absolutely delectable soy garlic sauce… it’s the stuff dreams are made out of. This is food porn at its finest! The outside, crispy. The inside, hot and absolutely perfectly moist* The chicken that surely, unwillingly, sacrificed its life did not die in vain, I can tell you THAT much!
Fusion at its finest, folks. Aviva and I are already plotting our return. We were almost speechless at points of this dining experience. AMAZING.
* — I am one of «those people» that truly has an aversion to «The M Word». However, it gets a pass here, because it is what it is.

sorry mono+mono, i really wanted to like you, but you are not worth the trip.
it was my best friend’s birthday and she wanted to try this place. i looked at their site and thought, wow this place looks cool. it was a bunch of us and we sat in the back.
we ordered the happy hour special, which was a total rip off. it was $ 50 and came with an order of large wings, french fries, two sides, a pitcher of beer and sake.
the large wings came with 16 pieces and that was really good. it’s about $ 21 if you order it separately.
the two sides are a JOKE! it’s literally those banchan sides that are FREE when you go to a typical korean restaurant. how mono mono tried to make it seem like we were getting sides is beyond me. i felt ripped off.
the french fries came in a huge bowl, but there were no more than 20 fries. please tell me how a group is supposed to share 20 fries when someone can down 10 fries, if not more, on their own.
the sake came in a teeny tiny smallllllllll minuscule sake container. please tell me how a group is supposed to share something that small! one person can drink it all by themselves! we got pomegranate flavor and it was okay. tasted more like pomegranate juice with a splash of sake. i’ll give it a slight edge in that the container was cute, but that’s it.
and then last but not least, the pitcher of beer was your typical size. be warned, the pitcher it comes in is glass and is really heavy.
so overall, this HH deal is NOT, i repeat NOTTTTT worth it. if you subtract $ 21 from $ 50, you are essentially paying $ 29 for everything besides the chicken. this is basically paying full price for everything and you are not really saving anything. if you have to pay extra at almost full price, you might as well use that money to order something you really want. and we didn’t even finish the beer and no one touched the sides.
some of our group ordered some salads and sushi. the salads are not your typical leafy green salads. they are the salads that have a million toppings and sauces and probably come out to be over 500 calories. thumbs down. first off, you don’t come to a korean fried chicken joint and order salad… mind you three people in our group ordered salad. then, someone ordered sushi and the sushi was presented very nicely. don’t know how it tasted.
i don’t think i will be back unless someone is paying for me. this place is out of the way for me and is no where near the public transportation that i need to take home. i’d rather go to ktown and get my fried chicken fix there. it’s practically the same price and is in a central location that’s more happening.
oh and i forgot which night they have jazz music, but it was a thursday night and they did not have jazz music. the piano was not occupied.
this place is more like a hipster joint that caters to non-​koreans. sort of like going to a mr. tang or tao or even a chinese take out place for chinese food.

Love the chicken, love the ambiance, love the music, the people, the food. in fact everything.
Celebrating my bday with my friends headed out there and it was an awesome time.
The dark wood décor, the LP’s on a revolving belt on the ceiling, the comfortable atmosphere, the kind of people that go, makes this place an awesome rest to have fun.
We ordered the soju shots $ 12 for 4. The sushi thats on fire, Litteraly flames come out of it. The korean fried chicken mixed, ginger and hot. i swear it was extremely hot the last time around. My friends ordered beers and billy Madison drink (flowers and rum) i think.
Overall its not a 5* because of the prices, but besides that its a hit.

Probably the most unique restaurant I have ever visited in NYC. well actually, anywhere. This definitely was not what I was expecting prior to my arrival. I thought Korean wings and some jazz music playing, but was completely blown away by the décor upon my first step in. I actually was confused at first and didn’t know if we were in the right place! I don’t even think I can properly articulate how interesting and different Mono + Mono really is! Walls lined with an enormous library of vinyl, a conveyer belt going around the ceiling with records hanging from it, and a large tree house in the center of the restaurant over the open-​face kitchen boasting a DJ booth. Oh, and let’s not forget the piano with bar stools around it where the live jazz band plays while you eat!
Now, on to the food. I LOVE wings. Wings are my guilty pleasure. Some people like a Big Mac, I love me some wings. The wings here are amazing — crispy and perfect. We had a large order between the two of us and split it between spicy and garlic. Both were fantastic. Also to be noted were the fries, which came with three dipping sauces and the porn buns. which were good too, but if I had to choose I’d just go with the wings. For a cocktail I had the Julie London — not only because my name is Julie but because it sounded light and refreshing… and it was.
This place is ridiculously awesome and I will 100% be back — already recommended this to my wing-​obsessed co-​worker!
FYI: Cash or American Express only!

We were a large party that had a reservation that almost got cancelled because they had decided to have a staff party after we’d booked. They tried to move us around but ultimately accommodated us, thanks mostly to the insistence of our party planners.
Some things were certainly four star. The cocktails, I’m told, were fantastic. I stuck with beer because beer and fried chicken go hand in hand for me. The atmosphere was fantastic (loved the vinyl as previously mentioned), and the little pork buns were quite literally a little piece of heaven. The kimchi pancake was also memorable.
I was a little disappointed by the lack of heat in most of the dishes we had, including the wings, and was hoping we’d see more range in chicken parts — not just wings and drumsticks.
Finally, it was a little loud in there to have conversations, and we all found ourselves yelling at each other. Hoarse voices all around by the end of the night. Not sure that you’d want to improve on this though, as the music certainly added to the atmosphere. I wouldn’t call it a romantic dinner spot.

Other Unilocalers have already mentioned the awesome wall of records and the swanky, nearly-​too-​dark-​to-​see ambiance, so I won’t repeat.
The Angry Salmon sushi roll is shut-​up-​and-​eat-​it delicious. Actually worth the $ 12 in my opinion. And the fried chicken did not disappoint — one of the better versions I’ve had. The mango salad isn’t anything special, but I’d definitely come back for the sushi. Yum!

3.5 stars
This is basically a glorified Bön Chon. I must say, the décor is awesome! They have one wall that is filled with Vinyl records. They even have a piano in the middle of the restaurant where you can actually sit and eat at. My favorites were the pork belly skewers and the London Lady soju cocktail which came with cucumbers. It was super refreshing on a hot summer day.

I discovered MONO-​MONO, a Korean wonderland in the east village. Dim lighting, cute stool-​like seating and rather efficient service. We were in a large group and were seated at the back of the restaurant. We ordered a TON of food so I’ll give you the whole low down. Order the lychee soju large, especially if you’re in a big group. We went through 4 pitchers of soju (it was my friend’s birthday too, don’t be shocked we are NOT alcoholics). We also has the grilled edamame, fried tofu, corn on the cob (with CHEESE), tiger shrimp, the mono-​mono spicy fried chicken, kimchi brown rice, veggies sushi, and the veggie bean sprout pancakes.
Of these my favorites were:
MONO MONO fried chicken all the way!!! SO GOOD
Corn on the cob
Fried tofu was delicious
I even enjoyed the pancakes!
Basically the food was GREAT. Even the vegetarians were delighted. We tried the passion mint soju, lychee soju as well as the kiwi strawberry soju. The last one is the tastiest, the lychee soju was preferred among my friends. It was not expensive, but not cheap either especially if you get a lot of Soju. But its definitely a celebratory place.
OH and there was a LIVE JAZZ band playing! perfect ambience
Are you dreaming Korean food yet?

I had a couple of friends recommend this place for while now and I was finally able to go earlier this month. This place is really growing on me. The music is SOLID. It’s a live DJ spinning all types of Jazz. The restaurant walls are just a massive archive for vinyls. Upon entering I noticed that music was a little louder than what I’m used to for dinner but after a drink and a couple of soju shots, the music just goes hand in hand with the food and drinks. DEFINITELY order the wings. It doesn’t matter which kind, order both variations, both are AMAZING. And order the kimchi fried rice too! (Skip the foie gras meatballs.)
The only negatives to this place is that they only accept CASH OR AMEX and they only take reservations for parties more than 5. Will that stop me from coming back? Hecks no.