Woo Rae Ok 우래옥 — Restaurant in Batam City

This is my 2nd time going here for dinner, and here's my experience:

(TL;DR: Food tastes great and lives up to its branding as an authentic korean restaurant. Recommend eating here for authentic korean food. Service is impeccable, the waitress was helpful and accomodating the customers perfectly. However, the smell of barbeque lingers slightly and may stick to your clothes.)

Firat of all, food. I ordered 2 pax of samgyeopsal (300gr) and japchae. Samgyeopsal is juicy and somewhat chewier, so I'd recommend Daepae Samgyeopsal if you want less chewing. Not only that, they will give you sesame oil, gochucang (if I'm not wrong), sliced green chili peppers and raw garlic as grill seasonings. They also provide lettuce for ssam (and allow refills for all of those!). Using those I have mentioned before actually enrich the flavours of the meat and doesn't differ much from the restaurants that focused on authentic korean barbeque.

Japchae is honestly one of the best noodle I have ever tasted in my life! The glass noodles are sweet, chewy, yet bursting with flavour. Lots of stir-fry vegetables and mushroom, along with some small pieces of meat. I love it, Japchae is definitely my favourite meal from here.

At the time, they gave us complimentary drink called Sujeonggwa. To me, it tastes like ginger tea brewed with cinnamon sticks. It had a slightly bitter aftertaste that cleared and refreshed my palate. I actually like this, even if I'm actually not a big fan of traditional herbal drinks.

They also have 3 types of banchan (korean side dish) that changes regularly. At my 1st visit, I was served with napa cabbage kimchi, macaroni salad, and small anchovies. At the 2nd visit, there were radish kimchi, seasoned seaweed, and fusili salad. I asked for refill and they complied as well, staying true to their branding as an authentic korean restaurant.

As for the service, it was excellent and made me wish to go there again! The female waitress were very kind, offered help in grilling the meat (and she did quite nicely!) and gave us good explanations for choices of food in the menu. She would even help us to consult with the chefs for some slight changes to our Japchae so that we can eat it with ease. I can't thank her enough for the lovely service she has given. Without her, I don't think I can enjoy dining there that much.

My only issue it that the grilling smell sticks. There were no exhaust pipes for barbeque smokes, so the smell slightly lingers even when I first entered the store. My clothes smelled like smoke after going out, but thankfully it's not very noticeable.

Overall, I would recommend visiting here. Food is expensive, but the taste, service, and authenticity of it is...

[UPDATE] In respond to the restaurant, No one in your restaurant suggestion mix beef plater for us. Your staff just put the beef down and left didn't offer any service like what you mentioned. All in all, it would be better if your staff can converse in english Restaurant is clean, toilets are clean but too bad we must climb to level 2 for toilet as the 1 and only at level 1 is broken. So if you have difficulties climbing stairs re-consider this place. There are lots of table in the restaurant though level 1 and 2. But sometimes I would like to highlight is.. if you wish to order steak beef, there's min order of x 2 set. So if you are a couple who's small eater then you re-consider this place. Even we are a big group we also gave up the ideal of ordering x 2 set for steak, we selected another kind of beef(also need min order) as we don't wish to over order. They don't provide plain water like what korean restaurant does you have to purchase it but watch out as their mineral water is in blue cap not white cap. So it's best you bring your own. They dont provide garlic like original korea restaurant does but you could asked for it. The staff didn't assist to grill unlike other review mentioned so not everyone get the same service. Smoke free yes it's true smoke free. But their kimchi soup and kimchi pancake does not taste like other kimchi soup/pancake I've tasted in singapore or korea the sourness is not there. But the pancake portion is huge. If you ask me I will never step foot again. I never expect it to be expensive in...

We came twice while they’re having discounts for their grand opening, i like the vibe of the place, very clean and crisp. The table placement is far from each other, giving the restaurant some exclusive or expensive feel.

While the service kind of meh on the first visit, (which is lunchtime on weekday) like the waiters don’t know what to do, or no guideline to their work. But things got better at second visit (lunchtime on weekend). The servers are very attentive, very easy to get their attention, and food also coming out faster. We wait awhile for food on first visit which caused us too late went back to office.

The food taste quite good, though not very much variety available. We check the menu online on ig and they said all menu is available, but some menu isn’t printed yet, while showing up online on link they put on ig.

We tried their samgyeopsal, chadol sundubu jjigae, gimbab, dakgalbi. Their dakgalbi is bomb, you need to try it, really recommended. The food is actually taste good. But i’m missing some of my favorite which is not available there. Like kimchi jjigae or samgyetang.

Overall very good experience visiting there, maybe they can improve their waiting area. I saw people loitering around cashier area while waiting for tables to available. Make it a bit put off when you wanna pay, need to push...