POCHA Original Korean Restaurant — Restaurant in Prague

This is not the original POCHA that many of these reviews are for, this is its new location and it has completely dropped in quality since the move. I have been to this location twice and both times there were noticeable problems with service and food quality. To summate my experiences I'll give an anecdote from my last, and final visit. After seating ourselves and waiting nearly 10 minutes before our server first came, my friends and I ordered a set dinner (ddakpal) and some tea. After the tea was delivered the waitress let us know they were out of this common order (at 7pm). It would have been nice to know that before the tea because there are plenty of places we can find that dish, the reason we came to POCHA, around Prague. Fine, these things happen. We order three separate dishes. After maybe half an hour one dish arrives, and the other two some ten minutes after.

I ordered bibimbap, a very middle of the road Korean dish that any restaurant can make; so simple in fact is bibimbap that it is often the 'Korean' meal you'll receive on an airplane. After having lived in Korea for four years, and been married to a Korean for five years, I can say with confidence that it was the worst bibimbap I've ever had. Poor quality ingredients and presentation aside, what was most odd was that it came with no sauce and when informed of this understandable oversight the waitress was overcome with confusion. Sauce, for bibimbap? What a outlandish concept for one's mind to grasp!

I asked for gochujang (red pepper paste), and after explaining to her what gochujang was she left for the kitchen only to return with what can be described as ketchupjang. This clearly water based substance resembled gochujang in neither texture nor taste, more so resembling a McDonald's 'Asian Inspired' sauce which would never reasonably be considered for anything outside of a test market. As the waitress was unaware of what gochujang was ten minutes prior I asked for a manager who could hopefully mend the situation. This was also fruitless. After reminding the manager what this mysterious sauce was she informed me that the restaurant had run out of gochujang.

This might be a somewhat confusing point of contention for those unfamiliar with Korean cuisine. Gochujang is in half of the dishes on the menu, it is a fundamental flavor in the Korean diet. For this Korean restaurant to say there is no gochujang is like a Japanese restaurant to claim that there isn't a drop of soy sauce anywhere to be found. There are only two possible explanations for this: gross negligence on the part of the restaurant's management for allowing a critical ingredient to run out, or this is the worst Korean restaurant I have ever been to.

After a confused apology the manager left us to our meals which according to my friends, a Korean among them, was at best 6/10. I however ate a bowl of bibimbap with only the flavoring of bulk ordered sesame oil and the aforementioned poor quality ingredients: 4/10. After stomaching what I could I excused myself to the restroom where I happened by a chef stepping out of the kitchen. I asked him if there was any gochujang in the kitchen and he replied to me in Korean, a language which I have enough of a grasp of to know that he understood my question and was annoyed that I was asking about gochujang. It was clearly not an issue that there was no gochujang in this Korean restaurant, rather that I was asking of its whereabouts. I said "ok, thank you" and returned upstairs to the table.

A moment later the chef appeared at our table, still confused by our earlier encounter and appearing to want to make a definitive statement on the matter. Through my friend as an interpreter he explained that there was indeed no gochujang sauce. They had used all of the gochujang making the ketchupjang earlier and that if we really wanted gochujang we could buy some at the K-shop one street over. He then returned to the kitchen, leaving us in disbelief of the absurdity this experience has been. We paid and went out for a night filled with trash...

After reading the reviews, we were excited to dine here. We ordered tteokbokki, jeyuk jumeok-bap, and bulgogi fried chicken. All the dishes tasted great at first, but the first two's flaws became apparent as we continued eating. They were either a bit too sweet or too salty for our liking, and eventually, all we could taste was sesame oil. I would definitely recommend their fried chicken. Along with our order, we also received complimentary plates of four side dishes: kimchi, cucumber salad(?), tofu skin(?), and pickled daikon radish. These were a great addition to counterbalance the sweetness of the aforementioned dishes."

Now, onto the service. There were three servers, two of whom served us during our visit. After receiving our food, it was difficult to get the servers' attention. It might have been due to a busy evening, but apart from our table, there were perhaps eight more tables, which is about half of their total. Every time I tried to get their attention as they moved around the restaurant, they were all staring at the ground, making it impossible for them to see us or other guests trying to get their attention. I would understand if they ignored us while taking an order from another table or entering it into the register, but even after they finished at the register, they didn't look up to see if anyone needed anything. During our entire stay at the restaurant, none of them came over to ask if we needed anything else. We even purposely left a menu on the table because we were considering ordering more food, but after trying to get served for so long, we decided not to give this restaurant any more of our business during our stay.

The decor choices were certainly intriguing. The interior of the restaurant resembled an old Czech pub from the USSR era, with Korean signs and posters adorning the walls. The lighting in the restaurant was unremarkable, making the food appear unappetizing despite its decent taste. The ambiance was negatively accentuated by a low-quality Bluetooth speaker playing continuously. If music is to be played in a restaurant, it would be better to invest in a high-quality sound system that doesn't resemble the scratching of a metal sheet.

Overall, the food was all right, the servers need more training, and there need to be some major overhauls to the look of...

✅ Pros: SUPER FRIENDLY AND HOSPITABLE STAFF!!!!!! (This might be the reason I’ll come back although the food wasn’t spectacular). The guy who was running the service area alone on Thursday 22 May after lunch time was really a nice guy. 100/100 to him: genuine, quick to help, give customer a comfortable dining experience, quick to clean up, answer ALL of your questions as much as he could,.. again I hope he could get a raise. One of the BEST customer service I’ve experienced in Prague. 100/100. Love the genuineness in what he explains to customers. Clean place Korean pocha vibe (more of a drinking/hanging out places with friends) The banchan / complementary side dishes were quite good 👍 Fish cake was really cold but the taste is fine. Onion & seaweed were excellently made.

❌Cons: The toilet is really old and quite dusty (I see dust everywhere: on top of the toilet paper roll, around the area). As this is a restaurant, I expect the toilet to be at least better than some bars but this is opposite. The toilet is a bit worse than some of the pubs / bars I’ve been to. Not necessarily dirty but more dusty. The main food was mid. I tried both restaurants in the chain and although they have really high ratings and professional branding image, I’d say the food was mediocre (a bit overhyped by tourists). Only the tokbokki at Numaru was a bit better. The food at POCHA, in my opinion, was too salty. It feels like it could be done on purpose for people to order drinks (this is more of a drinking place so quite understandable). But since I only want traditional Korean food, this was not a good choice sadly :( My expectations were really high but the mid food ruined them.

Will come back with groups of friends for a nice hang-out place but not necessarily for the food :( Indeed really salty and...