Restaurant Rant: Kogi Bulgogi

I had been wanting to try out this restaurant despite the not so stellar reviews from my mom and a few other friends who have tried it. Every time I am the new Eastwood Mall and trying to decide where to eat, I end up picking something over this, so one day after a meeting, I decided to finally just go into Kogi Bulgogi and have a late lunch.

For a fairly small place, Kogi has a lot of servers. The first one that walked over to our table was really helpful, but she never came back and was replaced by, to my dismay, a semi-rude waiter. First of all, I asked for 2 sets of spoons and forks, and he came back holding all four utensils in one hand and literally dropping it in front of me. Second, when I commented that I was at a restaurant and that he could have at least placed it properly in front of us, he kind of just smiled at me in a really annoying way.

C’mon son. You are working at a restaurant, get with the program!

So, after that incident, I decided to just ignore him and focus on the food. Instead of a real meal, I decided to order a bunch of starters including Korean Fried Chicken, Crispy Shrimp (can’t remember the name but it was supposed to be spicy), Fried Dumplings and Garlic Rice.


The Shrimp was so-so. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t awesome. I should have ordered something else and I could have done with out it.


Dumplings were really small and quite boring.


This was actually the only thing I enjoyed (along with the buttery garlic rice) but the thing is, there was nothing that made it different from any other good fried chicken. Maybe I came in with higher expectations of Bonchon style Korean chicken- but to my defense, all the “Korean Fried Chicken” I’ve been too in other countries mean Bonchon style! So although this was good, it wasn’t what I was expecting. I’m better of going to Chicken Charlie’s for that (have yet to try that place!!!)

So anyway, semi rude waiter picked up our plates when I asked him to pack up the left overs for us to take home, some of the side veggies fell from the plate on the table. He picked veggies up from the table with his bare hands and plopped them back down on the plate—-the plate that had the food that I was asking him to wrap for us.

Ugh. Sorry Kogi Bulgogi… I’m not compelled to come back.