Go Koong

Go Koong is another addition into the growing number of Korean businesses in Sunnyside. And though the hood has neither the Korean food cred of Flushing or Elmhurst, it is seemingly making Sunnyside one of the most diverse spots in Queens.
Before Go Koong, this place was «Noonah on Campus,» a café joint that specialized in Korean comfort food with a home style touch. Go Koong has taken the same elements and given it a broader regional base and with some souped up renovations to complete the ultimate makeover.
Go Koong, or «Palace» in English, is hardly palatial with it’s modest sign and lackluster exterior. It also doesn’t help to be sandwiched by it’s much larger neighbors, which in this case is a large CVS Pharmacy and Korean church. Street side parking is next to impossible, though there is parking across the street under the subway. The 7 train to 40^th street or the Q60 bus stop (which is right in front of the place), stand to be the more convenient options.
I’m not sure what to make of the décor /​interior. It’s clean, with a narrow layout and some interesting designs that give it a French Bistro meets old school dining room type of a feel. The ceilings are tiled in black and adorning the walls is a faux brick wallpaper, complete with windows and fireplace like facades. It’s does become hard to take this place seriously, especially when there is a sign on a random part of the wall that reads: «Bienvenidos („Welcome“ in Spanish).» Group seating is ample and the bathrooms seem well maintained. Usually they’ll have music playing here but when it’s not, it can become eerily quiet.
Where nearby Natural Tofu specializes in SoonDooBu (Tofu Soups) and Shin Chon in Korean BBQ, it seems Go Koong is big on their Bibimbap. The majority of their menu aside from the usual appetizers has a whole dedicated to selection to Bibimbap available plain and in stone bowl (dolsot) form. For me personally, the stone bowl is the best way to go about it, the experience is always far better and tastier (crunchy rice anyone?). I am went for the beef bulgolgi ($ 13) and seafood ($ 14) and came away relatively satisfied.
Other items such as the Haemool Pajun /​Seafood Pancake ($ 12), Mandoo Gui /​Fried Dumplings ($ 8) were a little dry but packed solid flavor. The pancake was dry at times, with little scallion and even less seafood. For the dumplings, one bonus is Go Koong actually offers a choice of a dumpling filling. I went with plain (meat + veg) and shrimp and they both came out tasting virtually the same. For roughly a $ 1.25 a piece, I don’t know if it was worth it.
Another dish that was sampled, the Bibimmen (chilled buckwheat noodles), and for $ 13 I was able to try their seafood version. The sauce was heavy, but the noodles were ample with plenty of seafood packed right in. The Banchan /​Side Dishes were limited, but I’m told they’ll give out more for bigger groups of people. For now, their prices are a step below Shin Chon and definitely higher than Natural Tofu. By far the best deal is their lunch specials, which depending on the a choice of U-​dong noodle soup or soondubu jigae, comes with a pajun and bibimbap side for roughly $ 13.
But amidst everything, the real winner here for me is the service. The mom and pop owners, aside from being genuinely nice people, are courteous to all of their patrons and do their best to make sure everyone leaves with an optimum experience. They are good about answering the phones and keep the ringer toned down to prevent more disturbance. I’d also like to point out that while delivery is quick here, the optimal experience always comes with dining in (and with more banchan!).
3 stars for the added hope they’ll stick around. My hopes for Go Koong are to stay alive in a spot where so many businesses have struggled to survive. Sunnyside needs more variety and Go Koong is one place that adds to it.

One of the best places to eat in Sunnyside. Not only is the food great, but the restaurant is very clean, the staff friendly, and best of all, it’s affordable.
Our friends in Brooklyn make the trip up to eat here, and we haven’t had a bad comment yet. Several have tried «Natural Tofu» the next block over, but didn’t have as many good things to say about it.
I’ve had the seafood bibimbap and the beef bulgogi, and it’s been delicious every time. The gochujang is great and adds a lot of spiciness to the food. A+

I love this place– they are super speedy with deliveries and the «sprouts» bibimbop is awesome– no oil or salt, just veggies and whatever meat/​tofu and sauces you choose. A little on the pricey side but yummy.

I wish I could rank Go Koong higher as it would be awesome to have a good Korean place in Sunnyside… sadly, I cannot give it more than 2 stars. From the exterior it looks great (clean, quaint, new), then you enter and find that there’s absolutely nothing Korean/​Asian-​looking about the place… the décor is cheap-​looking, the classical music doesn’t really help set the mood for Asian-​dining, and basically there’s nothing authentic about the place. Further, I wasn’t really a fan of the pictures of food posted around the restaurant. As for the actual food — it was pretty mediocre to bland. We ordered succhini pancakes, bipimbop, and mandoo; the miso soup, and scrambled eggs were complimentary. The least bland item was the pancakes, the miso soup was fairly standard, the eggs were watery and tasteless (and looked thoroughly unappetizing), the bipimbop required a great deal of hot sauce for taste and the chicken was chewy, and the mandoo, while nicely steamed and soft, were pretty bland as well.
The best part about this place was the service. Our waitress was very kind and personable. I hope that this Go Koong will read some reviews and work on making improvements! I’d like to be able to go back and have a totally different experience!

Everyone is soooo damn friendly, it’s almost too much! For real? Oh yes.
The food they serve is generally healthy, light on oil and salt. They have many options for the usual bimbimbop if you’re not a meat-​eater: seafood (note that it is the common Korean frozen seafood mix), squid, salmon, tofu… what’s not to love? Although they don’t do the usual ban-​chan style, they always give you additional small dishes here and there.
Décor is kick-​ass — you have to see it yourself. I thought I was in Alice in Wonderland, Asian-​depiction version. Are you for real? Oh yes!!! Cracks me up big time.

This place first opened about ¾ years ago but there was a fire next door which caused them to shut down.
I finally got a chance to go tonight upon my friend’s insistence.
When we walked in we were confused by the modern (French?) décor considering this is a Korean restaurant. Granted, it was very tasteful but… out of place.
First look at the menu, they boast about serving healthy food. Already, I’m a bit alarmed because I like my Korean food greasy (as I like most of my other food). I ordered the Spicy Pork Bulgogi in the hot stone pot and my friend ordered the Seafood Bulgogi. We also ordered a pomegranate tea and kimchi on the side.
Spicy Pork Bulgogi. It was pork, it was bulgogi but where’s the spicy? I was very saddened by the lack of spicy so I turned to the sauce sitting on the table only to be disappointed because the «spicy sauce» was actually very sweet.
Seafood Bulgogi was pretty good from what I tasted and my friend said she liked it so I guess you can go in there for that?
Pomegranate tea was… not pomegranate tea. She brought me clementine tea. And she didn’t offer to change it for me but did offer an apology.
Kimchi… it wasn’t really… kimchi? I don’t know, I don’t like the stuff but they’ll bring you a very small portion of it with some radish thing and a sweet hot potato soup with seaweed to put in it. It was very unpleasant.
I was very disappointed and next time, my friend WILL be dragged to Natural Tofu down the street.

I was a bit skeptical of Go Koong. I’m very happy with Natural Tofu as the Korean comfort food spot in the neighborhood. Last night, my wife and I decided to give it a try. We were pleasantly surprised.
We split the dolsot bibimbap with tofu and the japchae (sweet potato noodles) with vegetables and beef. Both were so delicious that we had trouble forcing ourselves to stop eating once we were full. The tofu bibimbap had delicious bits of mushroom and seaweed which gave it a wonderfully earthy flavor. The japchae was sooooo tasty although the beef was a bit fatty. We were also served a cup of radish soup which was delightfully light and simple.
The décor is a bit bonkers. The crazy wall paper patterns and kitschy ornaments tripped me out a bit. Very interesting choices.

This place just opened and is on our way home from the gym. We tried it Tuesday night and liked it so much we went again tonight. The only reason for 4 instead of 5 stars is that it’s rather pricey for Sunnyside.
First, we’ve been trying to find good dumplings ($ 4.99) since we moved to the area last year. We have finally found them!
Other than the dumplings we’ve tried the Bulgogi Bibimbop ($ 11.99) which is very nicely seasoned beef, with shredded veggies over steamed rice. The veggies were fresh and the steamed rice was amazing. Not sure how they make it, but it was really light and tasty. We went after a workout at the gym and for the price, this is more a lunch portion than dinner.
Tonight we had the Bulgogi Stew ($ 17.99) with our dumplings. The same nicely seasoned beef with veggies and potato noodles. It also came with the amazing rice. This dish had far more food (would hope so with the price) and was really satisfying after a workout.
They were offering free samples of their probiotic yogurt drink which comes in many flavors and was very good. We had cranberry and grape.
They also serve some sides that I’m not sure of, but they were very spicy and I didn’t eat them.
The décor is very nice, the staff very sweet and helpful. I hope this place does well. We’d eat there twice every week if the prices were 15% lower.