Meju

The décor is great — modern, clean. I feel like gave a lot of thought into the décor and style of the restaurant. As for the food — the veggie dumplings were good. Pretty standard. A weird thing about it though is that if you want the steamed dumplings, you have to order 5 pieces while for fried dumplings, you get 4. Not sure why that is. The dipping sauce was enjoyable. We got the tofu kimchi fried rice and chilli octopus bibimbap with purple rice. We also got a tray of different picked/​fermented things like kimchi, black beans, potato, daikon. The items on the tray were meh… they were more memorable in appearance rather than taste. As far as the bibimbap, I wouldn’t go with the octopus because they were very small, cut-​up pieces that were just chewy and added a dissonant texture to the dish. It did come in a stone pot though, giving the rice a good crunchiness. The flavor was good. I did like the option of having a choice with the grain. The kimchi fried rice was also decent. Overall everything was OK/​good. I wouldn’t seek it out, but if I’m in the area and feeling some Korean, it’s a decent place to go.

Lovely spot! Great décor and bar, wonderfully nice but not intrusive staff.
The bimbimbap with steak was one of the better ones I’ve had because the steak has been marinated and is delicious. The purple rice was new to me and a great treat. Make sure to order the ginger tea with honey for dessert. It’s fantastic! I look forward to returning.

This place looks like the real deal inside and out. Very modern and classy. The food especially looks amazing. Definitely a 5 for presentation.
I was very excited to come to this place but was utterly disappointed by food quality. Every dish tasted like some vital ingredient was missing. Don’t get me wrong, the food was fine. For the cost, however, I was expecting to be WOWed, and I wasn’t.
Started out with homemade fried beef dumplings and scallion pancakes. They were pretty good, but again, nothing out of this world. The dough of the dumpling was very similar to the scallion pancake so it felt like we just payed for almost the exact same dish twice.
Then they brought out the platter of marinated goods that comes with a main dish. Ours had kimchi, potatoes in soy sauce, black beans, and pickled cucumber. I was excited for the kimchi — I love kimchi. I don’t expect to like everything on these kinds of platters, but I actually didn’t like anything, even the kimchi. WHAT KOREAN RESTAURANT HAS BAD KIMCHI? It tasted almost… flat? Like soda gets after a while. It was just missing it’s crisp.
My favorite thing was the purple rice that I had on the side of the beef bulgogi, and I think that’s pretty sad for how many other dishes could have impressed me.
The beef was just low quality and had no flavor — had to dip it in the soy sauce left over from the dumplings.
I could have gone to a less fancy Korean place and spent half as much for virtually the same thing.

We had the opportunity to try this place new years eve. At peak dinner rush on a holiday there was only one other couple dining. Oddly we were asked if we had a reservation. Our party of 8 was quickly seated. Wait staff was attentive, though drinks took much longer than anticipated. We enjoyed a variety of all the offerings on the menu. Everything was excellent. Picky, adventurous and vegetarian diners were all pleased. I would definitely return, though I’m not sure I would seek this place out.

It’s just. First of all, the décor is incredible. And the scallion pancakes were literally the first time I’ve ever been like, damn, those scallion pancakes are GOOD. Which might mean that they aren’t like every other scallion pancake in the world? I just thought they had a lot of veggies in them and were tasty.
The other entrees, though. I had the tofu bibimbap and my friend the beef bulgogi. Maybe is the was the rice, which was I think overcooked, or the lack of moist protein, but we both felt the food was just very bland. Meju, I wanna like ya, but you’re not worth it for just some good scallion pancakes.

I was pleasantly surprised by Meju; not only is it a beautiful space with rustic wood and modern fixtures, but the food is fresh and delicious as well.
Everything on the menu looked high quality and tasty. The bibimbap with purple rice was excellent, but there was so many other items on the menu I wanted to try, including the bulgogi and various soups. Excellent cocktail menu and draft selection. Can’t wait to come back and try additional dishes!

I was at Meju with couple of my friends on the other night.
The food and place are great, I would definitely go back in the near future.
(Two things that caused me to give a 4-​star rating:)
1. We were sitting close to the window and it was kinda cold and heating was not enough for us at the time.
2. People were smoking outside of the restaurant and you can smell them if you sit close to the window seats.

Korean in the heart of Davis. With the recent closure of a long time chinese counter joint and an otherwise lacking choice of Asian spots, Meju is a welcome addition to the neighborhood.
Although, Mcdonalds will be missed.
Tall ceilings, exposed wood and a long bar separate Meju from many of the other cramped spaces in the square — wall banquets and tables seat diners.
Service is somewhat disjointed and hectic — it seems the chef and servers interchange duties as they move speedily between the back of the house and front of the house.
Metal chop sticks are an accident waiting to happen: chipped tooth anyone?
That being said, the food is good. The banchan are fresh and refilled upon request. A sweet and fiery cucumber dish. Sesame eggplant strips. Potato in chili oil. Crunchy kimchi.
Miso soup is very rich and deep — dashi has chunks of katsuobushi floating.
Beef bibimbap is topped with with bean sprouts a plenty which are steamed (unusual), mushrooms, shredded carrots, sliced zucchini, thin sliced steak, shredded dry seafood and a raw egg.
A smoky gochujang is thick and coats the sticky rice with a deep shade of maroon. The beef is tender. The wood mushrooms earthy.
A full bar is available. Decent prices.

This place should be good. The décor is beautiful and it seems like Korean food is a good idea. That being said, something was lacking. The service was pretty bad, to start. Actual conversation:
Me: What exactly is bulgogi?
Waitress: … Um… it’s… it’s… like… um…
Me: Is it grilled meat or tofu?
Waitress: Yeah, like… grilled meat… or like grilled tofu.
*sigh*
If you can’t explain what one of the only dishes you offer is, that’s not a good sign. My friend’s meal also came out about 10 minutes before mine and my tofu bibimbap was just ok (but to be fair, I’ve had this elsewhere and not been blown away so perhaps I’m just not a bibimbap fan). Also, the credit card machine was down, but they were at least very up front about that.
Long story short, I will not be back.

Went there for lunch. The food was good but it was definitely very over priced compared to the Korean restaurants around the city and for the portions. No wonder the place is usually empty. The spicy chicken bites where very good and had quite a kick to them. The bibimbap was ok.

Before deciding on the number of stars, I had a small dilemma. Should I write strictly from my personal taste POV, or from the general POV? For example, should I be writing from a POV of a Korean-​American who grew up eating amazing Korean food all my life, or from a POV of the ACTUAL target customers of Meju, who would most likely be the hip, yuppy Somerville/​Cambridge crowd that have heard about this new cuisine that is slowly but surely growing in the East Coast. I decided to go half-way…because it seemed unfair to either side.
So I would give the place 2 stars if it was strictly my Korean tastebuds speaking, and 4 stars for a newcomer to the cuisine.
Food:
Scallion pancakes (seafood) = Scallion pancakes are one of my favorite dishes, in Korean/​Chinese/​Taiwanese cuisines. They’re supposed to be pretty thin, with an abundance of scallions in it, but this was literally like… an American style pancake (very thick) with scallion in the mix. The taste wasn’t too bad, but it was just too thick, it had no crisp, and flavor was lacking.
Lemon shrimp = This dish was pretty good! The lemon sauce complimented the shrimp very well, and the shrimp was cooked just to the right amount where biting it would not pull out the entire shrimp from the breading. My friend said the breading was too thick, but honestly, it didn’t bother me at all. Solid choice.
Crispy chicken bites = Once again, pretty good, highly recommend for a first comer to Korean cuisine, but if you’ve had good Korean-​style friend chicken before, you may be disappointed with this dish.
Spicy pork bulgogi buns = I love buns. I sometimes buy just these white steamed buns and eat it at home. So I was pretty happy with this dish, and the spicy pork bulgogi was pretty good too! I like how they were not stingy with the quantity of meat they stuffed into these buns.
Kimchi fried rice = The only «large» dish we got, and a HUGE disappointment. It literally had no flavor. I’m telling you, I can make better kimchi friend rice at home with literally 5 ingredients. I took whole thing home and recooked it the next day with some extra ingredients, and was able to finish it.
Portion: All the above food was ordered for 2 people. HAHAHA I know I know, we went overboard, and had a good amount of left over to take home. For a party of 2, I think ²⁄₃ small dishes, and 1 large dish would suffice.
Price: My friend (also Korean) commented that all the items from their menu are «peasant foods», as in, they were food that were created from inexpensive ingredients to satisfy a meal. So from a Korean-​American POV, the price may seem steep. HOWEVER, from a newcomer POV, not at all. I would not hesitate to spend $$$ for a french or peruvian meal, so why wouldn’t it work the other way?
Décor: I love the décor. It’s very urban, open, with a communal style of look to it. I liked it.
Beer: I love that they carry my favorite stout, Milk Stout Nitro, thank you.
Service: super nice and friendly. Fast and attentive without being annoying. Perfect.
All in all, I had a good experience, but it’s so obviously aimed towards a non-​Korean crowd, which I have absolutely no problem with. I’m actually considering bringing my non-​Korean friends here for their beginner course on the cuisine.

Started off with a Meju Mule… Korean soju version of the popular. Very tasty and refreshing. We also tried their dangerous red soju, made with pomegranates. We thought it a bit mild so the bartender even made an improved fresh complimentary batch for us! Dinner was great, we tried a but of everything and we ended up with tons of food left over. Really good value for the money and very attentive service. Chili spice pork belly was my favorite.

Great location.
Really nice décor.
Very, very nice service.
But…
The food…
I’ve had much, much better bibimbap at the Super 88 food for much less $$.
I have never had rice which was so oily.
The oil soaked rice at the bottom of the bowl was inedible.
I really, really don’t understand the «Best of Boston» title here.
Don’t thing I’ll be back.
Update:
OK, I was lured back while looking for noodle soup on a cold/​wet day.
(Absolutely surprised there were so few options in Davis Sq.)
I had a bowl of Mandoo Soup which was really quite tasty.
For a bowl of soup it was a little pricey, especially for lunch.
It’s not something I’d do regularly, but it did do in a pinch.
The soup was good enough to squeeze an extra star out of me.

The food here was thoroughly «meh». We had crispy chicken bites, shrimp dumplings, and beef bulgogi. Even the banchan were just so-​so! Everything tasted underseasoned. The cocktails were good, if maybe a little too sweet. I did like that they offer purple rice though, and the interior is beautiful. The service was good.

Been to Meju 4 or 5 times over the course of ~3 months.
In terms of actual Korean fare, I become more incredulous over its Best-​of-​Boston title after each experience.
And I want it to live up to its name — hence the repeat visits.
It does all the accoutrements justice — nice ambience, friendly staff, unique drinks… but the food doesn’t quite deliver.
1) Crispy chicken bites were touted to be similar to that of BonChon — no, not really.
2) Purple rice has always been on the dry side.
3) Short-​rib is of the harder/​chewier variety.
4) ‘Spicy’ plates tend to imply sweet as well.
From my experience, the bartenders are generally pretty chill.
Talk to the two engineers — s/​o to John!

Kimchi fried rice with chicken was tasteful but it came with dark meat. I. Hate. Dark. Meat. I paid $ 2 extra for it too. Shameful. This dish is traditionally served with pork so get that instead. And it’s not as spicy as I thought. I don’t understand why they serve Miso soup which is a Japanese soup (could be American at this point) with the rice dish but it complements the rice really well. But for $ 18, you could get a gigantic and much more tasteful kimchi fried rice at any Korean restaurant in Allston/​Brighton area.
Mandoo (dumpling) soup was okay. The broth was overly fishy tasting and not as well balanced. Their «handmade» dumplings were just okay as well. For something that’s handmade, you expect them to be super delicious but they weren’t. The portions are huge for this soup. It’s big enough to feed two.
Our service brought my fiancé her soup first before her beer or my food. Thought that was strange and perhaps it was a mistake.
They sell soju. But what’s the point of drinking soju if they aren’t open past midnight? They close at 11:30 on weekends. WEAK!
Korean food is still best in Allston/​Brighton area.
I just read some owner’s comments and here’s my advice: don’t modify the flavor for the general public. Make the food that the Koreans love — spicy! People are too smart and cultured to eat watered down ethnic food these days. Look at Kaju Tofu House. There’s a reason why that place is so popular. Spent less money on décor and focused on making the food tasty. Everything else is just background noise.

I knew I should have expected disaster as soon as I walked in and saw a Korean restaurant filled with non-​Asians. Place had a pretentious vibe, and I had a feeling everything would be overpriced and average, which I ended up being right about. It looked kind of like an upscale chipotle with the starkness of the tables and decorations.
Service was slow. Most Korean restaurants start off with a few free small plates of appetizers, but this place forgot to give us ours. When I asked about it, the waitress said they were short-​staffed and then brought them out later on.
My friends got the fried kimchi crab fritters, which came only with three TINY little balls. I’m talking about quarter-​sized, and it was $ 9! It was appalling how small they were.
I got the beef bibimbap ($ 16), which was fine, but nothing amazing and definitely overpriced– nothing I would come back for.
Lastly, my favorite part about the experience was when the waitress asked me if I wanted the sauce to-​go with my leftover entrée. I said «Yes please,» and she stared at my sauce dumbfounded and walked away like she didn’t have enough hands to carry it to the back with her. I assumed maybe she was just going to put a new contained of sauce in my bag, but when I got home there was no sauce. So bizarre.

Food: This is the first Korean Restaurant I’ve been to since I moved to Boston. I was excited to finally feed my bulgogi cravings … just to find that this restaurant didn’t satisfy my KBBQ cravings (not even a little bit). First, the serving size was small in comparison to other Korean restaurants I’ve been to. Second, the meat was extremely bland. The combination of being a «small» serving size and the meat being unflavorful makes the $ 18 entrée ridiculous.
Service: She was good. Very attentive, always stopped by to check how we were doing (but not too much that it was annoying). Water glasses were always full and food came out in a timely manner.
Overall, I wouldn’t come back here again — just because the food is not worth the price.

Sometimes I feel like a Korean-​food snob who isn’t even Korean, but Meju just didn’t make the cut for me. It successfully pulls off a contemporary feel as other Unilocalers have mentioned and is a good place to grab a couple small plates and drinks with friends if you’re not too focused on getting a tasty Korean meal.
I wanted to like the food but overall it was nothing special. We got two tapas dishes and a main to share between two people. The dukbokki (rice cake in a sweet spicy sauce) with cheese was bland for dukbokki, like the gochujang was diluted too much. I’ve come to love dukbokki with cheese. was skeptical about trying it at first b/​c Asian food + cheese just doesn’t mix in my head but the combo is SO GOOD. Normally, the cheesiness perfectly cuts the spiciness but this sauce wasn’t even spicy! The pajeon (scallion veggie pancake) was crispy and tasty and came with a yummy sesame dipping sauce. It was cut into cute bite-​size squares that made you feel less guilty for eating so many.
Entrée was beef bulgogi with purple rice (+$ 1) that just didn’t impress. There wasn’t much flavor to the dish and the flavors there just didn’t blend together… Even Hmart has a better bulgogi, but I guess that’s expected because Hmart is amazing. The banchan was subpar at best and you only get 4 small portions (which can be refilled by request).
The service is friendly; our server seemed experienced but some others were still trying to get a feel for everything which is reasonable for a new restaurant. Meju is good for Korean fusion and the tapas is a fun idea for an area like Davis Square, but I would stick to the tapas here and trek to Allston for anything more traditionally Korean like soondubu. To be fair to them, it’s a new restaurant so maybe I’ll give it another shot in the future because it’s in the area.

I have been looking forward for this new addition to Davis Square since the summer. I am glad I got to finally try it! I came here for dinner around 7PM on a Saturday night it was packed, but we only had to wait about 10 – 15 minutes for a table.
There is quite a variety of traditional korean dishes to choose from so my friend and I ordered a few things to share.
We started with the dukkbokki ($ 10), which was delicious! I was a little iffy about trying the dukkbokki with cheese on top. It just sounds like a weird combination to me. you never see asian foods with cheese. But I was glad I tried it! The cheese was a good balance to the spicy sauce that dukkbokki is cooked in. The sauce was very flavorful and just the right amount of sweet and spicy. The rice cake was also cooked to a right chewy texture. My only complaint is that it was very hard to eat it because the cheese was SOOO CHEESY. You know like the stringy cheese that never breaks. I felt like I was a fail asian that couldn’t use chopsticks. –_​_​–
The panjeon ($ 12) was my favorite! This is a savory vegetable pancake. The dough to vegetable ratio was perfect. There was just the right amount of vegetables in each bite. The pancake was also fried perfectly with just the right amount of crispiness. This pancake came with a soy sauce based dipping sauce that paired well with the pancake.
The beef bulgogi entrée ($ 18) was not that great. It comes with white rice or purple rice for an extra dollar. The beef was cooked with some vegetables like onions and carrots. There wasn’t too much flavor in the dish and it tasted like something I could put together. This was a bit pricey for the amount of food that came with it.
Side dishes are complimentary, but aren’t very special. We received 4 sides (potatoes, zucchini, cabbage, kimchi). The only one I liked was the kimchi, the other 3 were very bland and didn’t have much flavor. They refill these for free per request.
Overall, the tapas were great! Entrée and side dishes were not so great. I would come back for the tapas, especially that pancake :] Also, I am not a big drinker, but I noticed that they serve Makkoli and would definitely come back to try that!