Chung Dam Dong Restaurant

Great if you’re craving spicy food. Love crispy fried rice at end!

Maybe the best Korean BBQ restaurant on Broad Avenue. Comfortable. Casual. Approachable for non-​Koreans. Good banchan. Have a few Vegetarian options (like Bibimbap).

This restaurant can be hard to locate if you didnt where to look. Its inside a building and up the stairs. I really enjoyed the BBQ meats (Galbi and Marinated pork) here along with many different types of lettuces/​greens to wrap with. The servers are attentive and helpful, I will definitely return

My first Korean bbq experience and it was awesome. Had the cal galbi (I think that’s what it’s called… marinated short rib) and it blew my mind. It’s slap yo momma good! The tenderness was beyond belief and bursting with flavor. I wasn’t a huge fan of the tea. Thanks for the great experience!

Smells like your Korean grandma’s kitchen upon walking in the establishment. The hostess/​cashier was friendly and spoke to me in Korean. Off the bat, this gives off the vibe that they host many native Koreans. We put our name down for 2.
After waiting for about 5 mins, she brought us over an extra chair and asked us to sit. Nice gesture. After another 10 mins, we were asked to look at the menu. 10 mins later we were asked if we were ready to order — We decided to order the F 03 — octopus, squid, beef and pork seasoned in spicy sauce (stir fry dish and asked for less spicy which was accommodated) along with a thick ribeye beef in their special soy sauce soup. Only complaint is you have to order a minimum of «2» portions per stir fry dish. The 2 portions could’ve have been more than enough for 3 – 4 adults.
We continued waiting, and we really wished she would have initially told is the approximate wait time. We arrived at 6:43pm and had to leave by 8pm. We didn’t get a table for 2 until 7:30pm. Granted it was a Saturday night, but notifying us of the wait time would’ve been nice. It gave us the impression that there would be little to no wait upon walking in since we were not informed.
There was a sense of urgency though from the staff, upon sitting down, our table was filled with yummy look ban chans and rice — soon our entrees.
Hence none of the menu items we ordered contained any shellfish — shrimp. Or at least described shrimp! Our lovely waitress put down the wok, I snapped a photo and she started to stir fry the food. I almost spit out my spicy cucumber because I saw a shrimp in the mixture! I had to ask my boyfriend to clarify if that was shrimp?!
He nodded. My boyfriend is allergic to shellfish, nonetheless shrimp!!! (I love shrimp & all seafood)
It’s a nice surprise for someone who did not expect shrimp and have it appear magically in your dish. But for us, it was a nightmare.
I thought it might have been an error, wrong dish wrong table? I asked our waitress and there was a language barrier, «oh yes, it is not too spicy.»
I had to point to the shrimp and say no shrimp. he is allergic with full on hand motions and all.
Not only were we hindering behind on time but we had a super difficult time trying to have our stir fry dish replaced. The waitress was friendly and apologetic, but she came back and said «sorry no change»
Apparently the manager lady (also language barrier) wasn’t keen on replacing the dish. All we wanted was the same order as described on the menu. She came over and started to suggest we eat it and take our time. I had to emphasize we can not eat this because there’s shrimp in the dish. She suggested that oh you’re allergic? Just take out the shrimp and enjoy. No, if it’s mixed together with the other food, it’s already contaminated.
«No, we can not change this.» with a big smile. She suggested my boyfriend enjoy the dish and I can order something else from the menu to eat. (at this point I did not want to explain he is the one whom is allergic, not me.)
She became defensive and put the blame on us that we did not order the dish without the shrimp and asked if we saw the sign to inform them if we have any allergies. Indeed I saw the sign, yes I should have further clarified, but I emphasized that the menu did not describe shrimp in the dish — simply only octopus, squid, beef and pork, and that’s why we ordered it.
She kept insisting the menu listed shrimp in this dish, my boyfriend asked her to bring over the menu. Low and behold, F 03 was listed as octopus, squid, beef and pork — did not list any shrimp or shellfish. She tried to twist it around and say this means all seafood included. What!!! I had to read each English word to her. I told her «seasoned in spicy sauce» is not seafood. Finally, she agreed to change our dish, to have it reordered as stated on the menu.
Yet she was still not 100% willing to do so, as she still made it difficult for us and tried to put the blame back on us. «I brought this to the kitchen and told them NO SHRIMP. Next time please tell us» with a smile — 3x did she come over to our table to tell us this.
Really bad business and horrendous customer service I must say. This should’ve been an easy task. But it was instead super difficult and a lot of going back and forth. You don’t want your customer to end up in the hospital now, do you?
Our lovely waitress came back quickly with the the new dish and was extremely apologetic about the entire mix up. We did enjoy the dish and whatnot. But our time here was jaded. Behind on time, we had to bring about ²⁄₃ of the remaining stir fry to go with us, and sadly, we did not get to try the stir fry rice they mix up at the end of the meal.
Also the beef soup could’ve had more noodles in it. We tried to make the best of the meal, this place could have and would have easily deserved 4 stars, if they were more accommodating with the mix up and didn’t give us such a wicked hard time.

Dt wanna give any star, we (5 people) enjoyed our foods and had a good time.(several menu were not so tasty)
Then we asked to separate our check, they looked so uncomfortable and wanted to cash only lol. Anyway when we paid it each other, the woman (boss) asked that «why did you guys give the tip only like that, didn’t like our sever?» With Korean.
Huh? What a rude? Anyway thx for spoiling our time.

Came here for lunch and we had the pork bi bim bap and the yook gae jung. Wish we had more people so that we couldve ordered the table stir-​fry which looked awesome but too large for lunch with 2 people.
For those not ordering the stir fry — the bibimbap was very good. Different from other places and definitely more meat than vegetables, and Im used to the reverse ratio. But very flavorful, Id come back for this.
The soup was nothing to write home about, typically fare I would find in an hmart food court. Kept sneaking the hubbys bi bim bap instead and took this for leftovers.

This Korean restaurant has never disappointed me.
Their Chul-​Pan-​Bbok-​Eum (stir-​fry dish) is the best around the town. One day I brought my friend who is very picky about food and she enjoyed it. I brought my family for my dad’s birthday as well and staffs were all welcoming and courteous until we left. Many Korean restaurants would hustle and try to get you and your group to leave if you guys are done with the food but I was not given that impression.
Their side dishes are very nice addition to their entrée as well.
When I have guests who wants some Korean food in NJ, I take them here and they all love it.
I just hope the quality of food and service do not degrade over time like many restaurants that start off solid and then gets worse and worse until they shut down. (Knock on wood)

Couple of my friends recommended this place so I decided to give it to a shot.
What I liked
— the ambience — nice place to take your family. Big and spacious and the corner booth like tables are the best
— food — delicious, fresh, hot and Cooked perfectly as promised
— drink menu — bubble teas and their tea Selection is quite interesting
What I didn’t like
— menu card — was so hard to read. Lot of stuff written in another language
— staff — lot of the staff doesn’t speak English and don’t understand what you are saying
— knives — They DON’T have knives. I was a little confused by this. When I needed a knife to cut the chicken in my soup, the waitress said they don’t carry knives and got me a kitchen knife. She was kind enough to offer to cut the chicken for me.
I am not sure if I’ll return.

My favorite spot in my town! Their Chulpan Bokkum and Goni Jjim are the best menus ever I had in my life! Unlike other Korean restaurants, their side dishes are pretty creative and fresh! Always ordering one bottle of Soju while I eat here because good food has to be eaten with good drink! Haha I definitely recommend this place if you are looking for Korean restaurant in New Jersey!

The waitress doesn’t speak a lot of English but she has definitely improved since the last time I visited. Although, sometimes you may still need to use body language to communicate, as soon as she understands you, she’ll try to provide the service you want.
As for the food, Ssam jung sik is really good. The default spicy level is probably 4 star as to the normal restaurant scale, so you may want to ask for less spicy if you have low tolerance for that.

FYI: this place is located on the 2^nd floor of a small shopping center.
Be warned, the food is spicy! Typically priced korean food but the service was attentive and fast. Free refills on the side dishes was a plus. We had 2 servings of the squid and spicy pork with rice cakes. It was enough to fill up 3 of us and could’ve fed another person.

Chung Dam Dong is one of those hidden restaurants I would have never found without Unilocal.It’s tucked away on the 2^nd floor of a mini mall and it appears to be a place visited mainly by local Koreans.
What I liked about this place is that they offer some unique dishes that our regular Korean restaurant in Fort Lee does that serve. Also, they offer a good variety of banchan. I particularly liked sweat potato salad, fried zucchini, tiny fish, seaweed salad.
We ordered:
— spicy octopus and pork belly stir fry — VERY spicy but tasty dish. Cooked on a cast iron wok at the table. Once cooked, the octo-​pork mixture is set aside and the server adds rice to the wok, soaking up the spicy sauce. Everyone at my table that likes spicy food enjoyed this dish.
— grilled mackerel — had a nice smokey flavor and was cooked well, not too dry. However it was on the salty side.
— galbi — nice tender delicious meat. The portion is small though
— seafood pancake — very good. Loaded with scallions
Our waitress was very attentive and monitored the grill. She also served the food from the grill to each person.
As far as the space, my party of 10 was seated in a private room which was somewhat awkward. It was fairly tight and there was some random furniture there as well. The room has its own A/​C and there’s a button on the edge of the table to call the waitress. Next time I would request seating in the main room.
The prices are moderate and comparable to other Korean restaurants in the area.
Overall a great place for Korean food that offers something beyond BBQ.

I’m not quite sure whether I am qualified for describing this place as authentic as I’m not a native Korean, however this is definitely the best place I’ve ever been around this neighborhood.
Everything started to impress me since the beginning. At least eight different appetizer plates were brought to the table with ones that I cannot even name of. Specialty dish marinated raw beef, paella with octopus/​beef (rice cake edition) were more than enough to feed me right towards full. Even though it was a bit too spicy for me!

Octopus bibimbap comes in a hot pot and is super spicy and super hot (temperature wise) so let that shiz cool a little before you devour it. So so good (my fav part is the rice that gets crunchy on the bottom of the pot).
I also recommend the agu jjim, which is angler fish stew kinda thing with bean sprouts in a spicy sauce. It’s $ 35.99 and massive (can feed up to 4 people). So hearty and delicious. my family of 4 ordered these two dishes and the bill came out to under 60 $ and we left stuffed.
Love this place because it has a little bit of everything. Only complaint is that in one section of the menu (meats) they require that you order at least 2 servings, you can’t just order one, which is kinda silly.

Since I don’t eat four-​legged creatures, we decided to get the grilled mackerel ssamjungshik. The fish was burnt on the sides and middle, which I had to painstakingly peel off in light of the carcinogenic effects eating burnt food can have (yes, I believe it). They gave us an abundant variety of greens to wrap pieces of mackerel and the miso paste (dwenjang) in. I wasn’t blown away by the taste, but I was blown away by the diversity of menu they offered. We went on a Tuesday night at around 8pm, and there were still lots of people coming in after us. Looks like it’s a great place for large groups (5+) as well, as they have large (and somewhat) private areas around the restaurant. The bathroom is outside — shared bathroom past the elevator.
The side dishes (banchan) were impressive in size, variety, and taste — a bit on the salty side, but they’re meant to compliment a spoonful of rice anyway. The soju is cheaper than in NYC restaurants — we had a bottle of that and two coors light beers. Not sure what other beers they offer, but i’m sure they offer more than just coors light (maybe even some Korean beers).
I’ve been wanting to try this place out because it’s always SO packed — I used to look from the adjacent building and wonder what the heap was all about. Well, now I know — the food and price is decent, and I just love how they cater to both fish and meat lovers alike! The service was also standard in comparison to any other Korean restaurant — I like how waiters in Korean restaurants aren’t really assigned to a particular table and will respond to any table’s needs.
I’ll definitely be coming back to try some other seafood dishes — I think the seafood stew jungol is next on our list. Very authentic Korean food — I highly recommend.

I LOVEEE their jujuhmi bokkum. with pork belly, veggies, octopus, stir fried in spicy korean marinade. ugh its amazing. and then you can add a side of noodles to be mixed in like udon (what I always get) and they have ramen noodles.
At the end they also mix in rice so you get fried rice in the same marinade. SO GOOD. heavenly… ugh I always feel SO STUFFED after cause I just cant stop.
Portions are huge so you need to share with at least one other person. its good for about 3 ppl also.
also. their side dishes is the best around town. always changing it up.

Chungdamdong in Korea is one of those snobby towns in Korea that boasts wealth, fashion and food. Tons of celebrity sightings in their famous restaurants and nightclubs. However, this place is not one of those. It’s located in the heart of NJ K-​town called «Palisades Park» or we the Korean-​Americans call it «Pal-​Park» for short. It resides in one of the «Twin Towers» which has many good restaurants including Mandarin and Sogongdong Tofu.
They have LOTS of variety and they are good at what they do but everything is over seasoned and way too salty for me. Don’t get me wrong. I think most people will probably think that this place is pretty good but I think that the flavor can be adjusted to bring out the flavor of natural ingredients more.
I am a big fan of their Baby Octopus and Spicy Pork stir fry with heavy Korean style hot sauce (mix of Gojoojang — spicy bean paste and sugar & vinegar) along with rice cake, onions and cabbage cuts is absolutely my favorite. They serve it in a big wok and continue to mix until there’s little bit of sauce and meat & veggie left. Then they pour a bowl of white rice, bean sprouts, chopped kimchee and some dried seaweed on top of the sizzling sauce. It gets all mixed up for the one last time to make the fried rice on the wok.
They also offer normal BBQ and intestine BBQ if you are interested in that kind of goodness as well. I also like their large size Seafood Casserole. It is packed with fish, squid, octopus, crab, shrimp, clams and mussels. It is a good soup after having your greesy BBQ. The soup is mildly spicy and not thick.
But I really have to say that their SERVICE is ridiculous. I know how hard it is being a waitress but I also have a hard job. If we do not love what we do, then we will make other people feel incredibly miserable.
Dear Miss «I need to have the last word over my customers»… Please refrain using words like «I put it there already. Jeez» or «What else do you want?». You better watch out and you better not pout. Santa Claus is coming to town ~~~.

Chung Dam Dong lies in a sea of Korean restaurants but my boyfriend and I decided to try Chung Dam Dong since fellow Unilocaler Ben L. wrote a wonderful 4-​star review on it.
Right off the bat, I knew I was in for a treat as I walked up a flight of stairs and into the restaurant. It wasn’t the lacking décor, or the run-​down space, or the jaded middle-​aged waitresses but rather the simplicity of it all. Chung Dam Dong lets the food speak for itself; No frills necessary.
The menu consists of very traditional Korean dish, so I recommend trying something aside from the Soon Dobu and Scallion Pancakes that you like so much! (Yes, you!)
My boyfriend and I decided to go with their Ssam Jung Shik, which is meant to be for 2 – 3 people to share. One order of the Ssam Jung Shik comes with 8 – 10 side dishes, everything from potato salad, fried zucchini slices, sauteed perilla leaves, kimchi, etc.
Then comes a huge cast iron sizzling with a spicy pork, marinaded in red pepper paste, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, and garlic, stir-​fried with onions and peppers. That isn’t all. The Ssam Jung Shik also comes with a huge basket of fresh red leaf lettuce, kale, perilla, cabbage, radicchio, hot green peppers, and other greens that you use to wrap a little bit of pork and rice into. That’s what ‘ssam’ is in Korea. You wrap a bite-​size of rice, pork, and maybe a little bit of soybean paste, into a piece of lettuce, and pop it in your mouth. It’s not a glamorous dining experience, but it’s both healthy and delicious! And SO TRADITIONALLY KOREAN.
My boyfriend and I hardly finished half the pork, so I suggest ordering the Ssam Jung Shik with 2 – 3 people.
The Ssam Jung Shik also comes with a sizzling clay pot of soybean soup, which is a strong soybean stew with pieces of tofu and beef. It’s an acquired taste, but I love it. And it’s super healthy.

So this is the second time I have been to this restaurant on «Korea Row» in Palisades Park and I have to say that I really like this place a lot. The place looks like the typical Korean restaurant layout, but I will say this a million times, eat ethnic food where the ethnic people eat aka don’t eat in Ktown in the City. I think Korean food should be eaten in Flushing, Bayside, Palisades Park and Fort Lee. I am no expert but my tummy has been most happy with Korean food in these neighborhoods. The place is located upstairs and they have valet parking, but you are supposed to tip $ 2 bucks.
The food:
Mae Un Gal Bi Jji– steamed short rib with spicy sauce. We ordered the large and it came with huge chunks of falling off the bone, glorious shorts ribs, dukbokki, and radish. The dish is kinda like a Korean beef stew, if you will or for me, kinda like Panang Curry. The broth is really rich with a lot of depth of flavor, it really is a heart warming stew. The short rib was also «no teeth required» tender, nom nom. The broth was so good my friend decided to bag the broth and take that home. Like, it was just broth without anything in it, but yeah, she liked it that much.
Ko Dung Uh Gui– Whole pan fried mackerel on hot stone plate. It’s so weird because my first experience with mackerel was when it was raw aka sushi and I hated it!!! Like want to punch myself in the face for eating it, hated it. Cooked mackerel is a completely different experience. The cooked version comes with nice flaky and juicy meat, it’s soooo good here also with the slightly crisp skin. As good as the fish was, it was on the salty side. But it was so good that my fish hating friend even ate a ton of it. So if a fish hater can enjoy it, so can you. lol