Em G.
Yelp
This much anticipated Korean chicken joint has obviously been on the list of many residents and neighboring areas of First Hill.
First I have to say, we went on a soft opening. 30 minutes before they opened for dinner service a queue was already forming. This is always a good sign.
We ended up waiting for 20ish minutes before getting seated. If you were in a party larger then 2 people you had to wait longer for a booth. If you had a party larger the 4 then they only have 1 table if 6 in the back, be prepared to wait.
The menu is pretty basic: chicken, sides, and Korea dishes.
Chicken comes sauces up, no exceptions that I read. Spicy, sweet crunchy, and soy garlic. You can do up to 2 flavour and do half and half. Unfortunately sweet crunchy wasn't available.
We ordered an 8 piece chicken mix with shale spicy and half soy and a Chicken katsu.
The spice on the chicken is great! My SO wasn't too impressed. But we both loved the crunch that they had on the batter. Even if it was coated in sauce, it was never heavy enough to reduce the batter to sogginess. Which is quite an achievement!
The chicken katsu was good, but nothing overly special that you can't get anywhere else.
The negative: now I get, why they have soft opening. I've been there. Service was slow due to the overwhelming number of people. But we were placed in the center aisle where there were 4 other tables of two. I swear it was like dead zone, no one seemed in charge of that section. It was over 15 minutes before we got water,a bit more before one of the other wait staff found someone to take our order. Wish they had those call buttons in the table like other Korean restaurant had.
But again, soft opening, training people on his table service worked as well as their ordering system. I get it. But it makes me a bit upset when, people who were seated AFTER we were, had orders and received their food before we had even gotten water.
When we got our food, which was great. Never got any traditional radish like the table next to ours with our order if chicken, but coleslaw. As soon as the food was dropped off we were back in the dead zone until we asked for the bill. Even that took a lot longer then it needed too.
Now if you go to Bonchon, and expect side dishes, be prepared to pay. I know they're working out the kinks. But I wish that they'd be smarter about training staff. Or even upgrading to a tablet style ordering, anything to make the process faster and easier in everyone.
Will I go back? Probably definitely. Just hope to not be put back in the dead zone aisle.