Soban

Family style restaurant. The guy and lady feel like and old korean ver of my parents and i feel love. The food is good, not the best, but pretty good. There are also a lot of nice sides to eat.

The food’s alright and the space is meh. I’m amused anyway.
One interaction:
Bf: can I have this less spicy? (gesturing toward a picture of a bright red chili soaked fiery concoction)
Owner Lady: ???
Bf: less spicy. I don’t like it so hot.
OL: (Answers to me, sotto voce, shaking her head disappovingly) nooooooooooooo…
Me: (what do I have to do w/​this?!) he doesn’t like it too spicy.
OL: (sad face) … a little spicy?
Bf: (eye roll) fine, whatever.
Food comes in. MOLTEN LAVA, just the way the Owner Lady intended.
Lesson Learned: You’re gonna eat the food, and you, little one, are gonna like the food. That. Is. All.
Culture.

Food was pretty good. I opted for the seafood bibimbap and ended up with plenty of leftovers to take home. However, when we tried to get a to-​go container we were each begrudgingly given a tiny container that could’ve been no more than 1 cup in size. The waitress explained that giving people larger containers encourages them to take more of the bancha (side dishes) that are offered in buffet form. While she was not rude, she was getting to be accusatory, saying that we took more than our share.
This confused me. If we were at fault for taking more, it would’ve been because we front-​loaded our hungry stomachs while waiting for our food to come out. Why offer the bancha in buffet form at all if there is a hoarding issue?
In the end, I was able to magically compress all the leftovers into this tiny container, but left with an unsettled feeling at the whole encounter. I don’t live in Providence so my business has little bearing on this establishment, but my friend that brought me there is a resident, and may think twice before coming again.

A very nice Korean place near the Brown University campus. It is half-​self-​service — you order and pay at the counter, pick your pickles yourself, and get the dish you have ordered to your table. The tables were not very clean. There was quite a long queue to order, even though it was spring break. The food was great — a wonderful dish of Jap Chae [Korean glass noodles] with tofu. The kimchi was also very good. There are many vegan options. The portions are very large, and a moderately-​hungry couple can actually share one dish. Keeping that in mind, the prices are totally fair. To conclude, it is a most rcommended spot in Thayer Street.

Nice buffet with fresh vegetable choices. Vegans will be happy. The restaurant is very student oriented… cramped and not fancy. The food is tasty although you may have to wait for quite a while if the place is crowded, usually around dinner time. A lot of variety. The reason why I prefer not to give a higher rating is the general appearance of the place. Very cramped and could be cleaner. The staff is very nice, not proficient in English, but they do work hard

After eating here several times, and reading the reviews, I’m compelled to chip in my two cents on Soban. This place is great, one would mainly come here for Korean fare, I come here for the dolsat bibimbap.
You need to calibrate you expectations, as this place is not fine dining. Soban is an eatery — Just like Asian Food Courts and Hawker Centres frequented and showcased by celebrity chefs such as Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern. With that expectation set, you soon come to love the value and great food that is to be expected from a quality eatery.
I love the fact that there is a self service bar/​buffet for bancha (Korean Side Dishes). You will always have kimchi on the line. But you can expect two or three other side dishes depending on the day.
Stone pot dishes and soups are perfect for New England winters. Every table also has the house red chili sauce — gochujang. Which is excellent, no required, for bibimbap. The gochujang sauce has a fermented red chili paste base mix with a custom blend of other juices, chili powders, and ground aromatics. Thus resulting in a sauce that is complex with just the right balance spicy, sweet, sour, little bitter, salty, and umami. I keep the squeeze bottle at the «ready» to hit a dash of it on every spoonful.
Go here to appreciate the food, bang for your buck and convenience. If you are looking for ambiance or fine dining try downtown.

HOW NICE! It is Thanksgiving tonight and they share a plate of delicious turkey with me while they are having their happy family dinner I feel so honered and welcomed. The Bibimbap I ordered is very good!

So impressed with this place! Yum! I got the mushroom bimbimbap and it was my first time ever having Korean food. It was delicious and stayed hot until the last bite. They offer free water, soup and sides as well. This is a hidden gem!

Soban’s quality has varied over time. As it’s the only Korean sit-​down restaurant on Thayer, I inevitably land here once in awhile. The management changed a couple years ago, and since then the quality of the food has as well. When I came back this fall, I was disappointed to find that their serving sizes have shrunk a fair bit. Nevertheless, their offerings still hit the spot.
A variety of side dishes including kimchi, sprouts, pickled seaweed, and potatoes, as well as miso soup, are always complimentary and delicious. My go-​to order is seafood jjampong, chewy noodles and seafood swimming in a spicy, savory broth. The jjampong is sometimes delicious and sometimes just okay. It comes with a lot of squid and a whole prawn. The broth is addictive and tasty, though the salt and spice levels have varied for me with each iteration. My favorite part of the dish is the noodles, which have a wonder, chewy, elastic texture.
The service is a little brusque, and you have to be really, really clear about your order, as I’ve gotten the wrong dish before. The food also takes quite a long time to come sometimes. Nevertheless, the food is good enough to keep me coming back.

(This is under the new management) Rude service with hidden prices, inauthentic food, dirty facilities. The portions are smaller and everything is served on styrofoam. Does not justify the high prices ~$ 10 for a $ 5-​dollar sized meal.
Price — The side dishes used to come with every meal, now they only come with barbecue meals (which doesn’t make sense considering the BBQs are the same price).
Service — The server rudely confronted us and told us we had to pay up $ 5 because the dish we ordered didn’t come with side dishes. This was not listed anywhere on their menu.
Cleanliness — As I was walking to the bathroom, I noticed a big plate of cabbage, sitting on top of the trash can. The bathroom had ants.
definitely going to the den den’s down the street the next time for korean food.

I’ve been back a few times. I think every time the food has been better than before. Highly recommend the curry chicken katsu. It’s more expensive but you get enough to have more than one meal or to feed two people easily.

Small, simple café style restaurant with unlimited seaweed salad and miso soup. Excellent. Order and pay at the counter on a tablet (15% tip already selected), fill up on free sides, and your order is brought to the table. One criticism was steaming hot tofu stew (very tasty) was served in a plastic bowl; That really needs a metal bowl. Soban fried chicken was delicious. Definitely will return for seconds.

The dish doesn’t look like the picture at all. There’s only noodles and a little kimchi in the chilled noodle. Didn’t worth it

Good value, great flavor, great sides, cafeteria feel. This place is not fancy but it’s quite tasty and most entrees are good value considering you can eat a lot of food for 10 $.

The cafeteria-​like environment might throw you upon walking in, but Soban is pretty good for a quick bite! I am from Northern Virginia, which has a vibrant Korean community and is where I had bibimbap for the first time (and fell in love with it).
Both times at Soban I have ordered the stone pot bibimbap and it does take the experience to another level. On a cold winter day, it stays piping hot the entire time you eat it. The rice gets nutty and crisp where it is touching the pot which is quite tasty. However, for the price, I feel that the portions were a bit small. Skimpy on both the veg and the protein. I have ordered mushroom and squid versions… the mushrooms were delicious but the scant portion of squid unfortunately had the texture of rubber bands. Both times the egg yolk was cooked through a bit, which takes away from the runny goodness. The sauce is good but not very spicy. A very nice staff member the first time I was there brought me some extra gochujang which was much appreciated.
Both times I left satisfied, but not full per se. Also my tummy was nice and warm as I walked through the cold winter night. Really a solid 3.5 stars. Soban does a good job, but they should either change the prices or the product so that they are more well-​matched.

I am Korean. And this is a Korean restaurant.
Im telling you guys that this is NOT the place to have Korean food. There are two reason why.
1. I ordered a soondoobu soup. It totally overwhelmingly taste like MSG and fake spices. You cannot taste the natural broth or the deepness at all. With that much MSG you will have a massive headache.
2. I complained to the gentleman and the elderly lady who both looked like the owners regarding the overwhelmingly MSG taste and guess what. They both looked at me like I was an animal and told me «if you don’t like, don’t come!!!» WOW. No wonder there was only one table besides us in a lunch time. I walk away speaking Korean which was there own language and then they seemed very frustrated. What a joke!!!
I will not be back to this place again! Good luck Soban…

I’ve been here only once, had one of their steaming noodle bowls with mushrooms and beef korean BBQ. The bowl was good, and I’d have loved to try it with meat, and the beef bbq was tasty but perhaps a bit overpriced for the quantity on the plate.
I’ll try it again and see if more or less stars come out.

Came here for some warm food after getting caught in the rain on Thayer and learning that Mama Kim’s was not operating. It’s a bare bones restaurant that’s tucked away below a closed pub – walk in, order and pay at the counter, and be seated. There’s free miso that’s worth taking advantage of.
I ordered the spicy chicken stone pot bibimbap. It was not very spicy at all, which was a letdown. Furthermore, it was pretty dry – I actually added soy sauce and some of my miso to enhance the taste of the bibimbap. Apart from those two letdowns, it was a large portion of food that tasted decent overall.

I’m so torn writing this review because I used to love this place, but I have to agree with others that many flavors have changed and unfortunately I think something I ate here on my last visit left me not feeling so hot.
I still found the flavors of my favorite spicy pork in my bibimbap very tasty, but the kimchi was subpar. I was also disappointed by the tastes of my husband’s bulgogi. For what you get, I don’t think the prices add up. Particularly for what other Thayer St restaurants are able to offer for similar or cheaper prices.

So this is the 3^rd Korean food place that I have found in the Providence area. At first I thought the city was a Korean desert but as I started branching out to new places, I have found that all these great food areas are actually hiding from me. To list them all out here, you’ll find Sun and Moon (which is a longerish drive to get to from Providence … 10 min or so) and then there’s Mama Kim’s which is only by the Brown campus for dinners on week days and on Saturday lunch. Soban is the closest and by far the most reliable in terms of being open.
The restaurant itself is located on Thayer street just a block north of the Brown Bookstore. You’ll probably miss it because it’s actually a level down from the street and you’ll be misdirected by all the other dazzling signs swinging in front of you. Look closely enough and you’ll see that secret doorway taking you down to the lower levels and you’ll find this restaurant that is open every day of the week.
The best thing here I have had is the Bibimbap. Get the spicy pork. I like it better than Sun and Moon to be honest so I have turned to this place as my go to for that. Mama Kim’s still offers other dishes that I can’t get here (mainly the barbecue stuff) so I turn to the truck for my fill.
It’s great for take out and there’s also a lot of places to sit there as well. They are generally not very busy which puzzles me because the food is actually quite good. Maybe people don’t know about it?