Buldojang @ Desa Sri Hartamas — Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur

Reach G floor by 8:45pm, saw a notice from restaurant that stated: Last Order - 9:00pm and restaurant Close 9:30pm. Fully understood and proceed upstairs to dine.

Host staff (local man), glanced at watch and proceed to grab a menu and seat us on a table for 4 (we are 3 pax). Keep in mind table is long for later reference but was a good seat for us.

2 of us scanned QR menu at 8:49pm. Same server (A) came and serve us water and pickles through the middle of the table = great. 1 of us put in 2 dishes order at 8:52pm for TangSuYuk and Jajjangmyeon. Second of us put an order of JapChaeBap at 8:54pm but seems like system error, hence pressed call button and no one responded. Pressed call button again and no one responded again. Jajjangmyeon then was served by Server A at the turn of 8:56pm through the middle of the table and I checked with him if the order of Japchaebap went through, he said it did not and I need to press place order again, as I did, he mentioned but “you can’t order already, kitchen is closed”. I bet his pardon and said it was supposed to be 9pm closed, he said “today kitchen closed earlier, sorry” and left. Super frustrated.

Tangsuyuk was served at 9:01pm by server B, left at the side of the table where 1 seat was empty and bill together at the most corner of the table. Had to move the food to the middle for sharing, which was fine for me but terrible service made much more terrible as he turned around back and said “Bill pay now”. I heard it clearly but I instinctively asked “what?” And he repeated again “Bill need to pay now”. My whole table was frustrated and I sighed, shook my head and took my card out and handed to him before continue eating.

My friend asked for extra service of raw onions to Server C, as he asked if it was possible to do so, Server C without response just turned and walk away. Did came back with the request after few minutes.

As we were still eating but almost done at 9:21pm. Server C head to the table next to us to clear as customers just left, but suddenly walked to our table to announced “Restaurant is closing now”. I was almost angry and felt it was unnecessary for him to stop his work to come say this at that moment (rather than 9:30pm closing time) and replied “So, I need to go now?”. He stunned for a split second and repeated again “Yes, the restaurant is closing now” ( with the hand gesture of closed in X).

This is terrible and not coming back for this treatment again. Issues either not bothered by the management or hierarchy above leaving the team to run in this manner. I don’t entirely blame the staff even though I considered it really rude but training must be from the management above. Understand that there must always be a reason but this is utterly unacceptable.

Food portion did not decrease but taste is lacking (even though subjective). Price doesn’t justify the food and experience. Felt like we just paying this price for overhead cost of theirs being...

A friend brought me to this place to try their well known Korean chinese food like jjajangmyeon and jjampong. Expectations were high from the start not gonna lie.

Let’s start with the jjajangmyeon. Kudos to the MASSIVE portion size. There’s 2 variants/sizes. Noodles were chewy and decent. However the sauce kind of reminds me of a sweet form of hokkien mee without the heaps of pork lard somehow?!? Which is very surprising for me. I’m not sure whether it was an off day for my tastebuds that day but basically that was what i tasted; the sauce was also super sweet for my liking. Not balanced with savoury or smokey notes which i was kind of expecting for a jjajangmyeon dish. Protein portions in the sauce wasn’t ideal and very little. Made me felt like I was mainly just eating a very expensive big bowl of chewy noodles with sweet black bean onion sauce instead. 2.9/5 for me due to its steep price of RM33 excluding 16% of sst and service charge and lack of meaningful portion of meat/pork/seafood in it.

Jjampong was the more disappointing dish of the two for me. The seafood was frozen for sure and not fresh. This is very apparent especially for shellfish variants. Shrank to almost nothing clam and mussels meat barely any shellfish sweetness or umami whatsoever. Expected when using unfresh frozen shellfish. Squid and octopus were still acceptable and in big pieces. I would suggest adding or swapping out the shellfish to either proper fresher shellfish or prawns instead as prawns when frozen still at least keeps it flavour better than frozen shell, which at least in theory add more seafood-y flavour into the broth. Which segways to the more disappointing part of the dish imo. The broth just tastes like chilli paste seasoned water?!? It’s not tasteless by any means but I was expecting seafood packed flavours and sweetness with korean spice. But it was such an underwhelming broth imo. Which pretty much drags the entire dish further down and made me feel I would have used this kinda price point and local fresher decent seafood noodles instead. 2.4/5 for me as it’s underwhelming and pricey for it’s quality. RM33 excluding the 16% as well.

Overall quite disappointed with the overall experience for myself as it could be the very high expectations from the start and also it being pricey to begin with. Hence resulting in myself thinking it’s totally not worth the price for the quality at all. I might give it another 2nd chance some time in the future to try their other dishes. But it probably be a slim possibility. Imo try it with an open mind and not the overhyped “best korean chinese” in hartamas tagline in mind prior to trying it for the first time. In summary “underwhelming and overpriced even...

Buldojang was an unexpectedly busy restaurant. Do a keep a lookout though because it is easy to miss, the restaurant is upstairs, and the entrance just a little doorway tucked in between 2 other restaurants. As soon as I walk in, noticeably there a few tables occupied by Koreans, so I think that is a good sign. I’ve been seeing others review this place, with some mixed opinions, so I came to try it myself.

This Korean-Chinese restaurant has a few signature dishes but they’re most known for their Jajangmyeon, Jjampong and Tangsuyuk. I can understand why these dishes isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but I thought the taste was pretty authentic.

The noodles were good, springy and smooth. I liked the Jajangmyeon best but wished that there were more meat in it. The tangsuyuk was delicious too, granted the batter can be a little thick to some and the sauce is a little starchy but having seen this in K-dramas, I think they’re supposed to be that way. Fair warning though, the plate of tangsuyuk costs RM45 and the portion of huge! Don’t over order on others if you can’t finish it!

Our meal of Jajangmyeon-Jjampong Mix bowl and tangsuyuk was more than enough for the 2 of us. I’d come back again to try their other dishes!

Update : I ordered a Large bowl to share of just the jajangmyeon on my second visit and found that the noodles were served warm... It was a little disappointing. However this time we ordered the pork and vegetable dumplings too and to our surprise it tastes really good! The pork was well seasoned, juicy, tasty and the dumplings were...