TJ's Korean Restaurant — Restaurant in Christchurch

We dined in expecting to have a delicious Korean meal. Unfortunately, this wasn’t quite the case.

Service: The older lady that served us was friendly and attentive.

Atmosphere: Place looked slightly run down and dingy. Chairs were uncomfortable and blinds were drawn down giving it a dingy feel and appearance. The cups, bowls and plates were all plastic - not something for health reasons we’d prefer to eat hot food from.

Food: We eat a lot of Korean food and have visited numerous Korean restaurants that have served very fresh and delicious food, and some that have been a big disappointment. Unfortunately, the food here was terrible. The spicy squid had no vegetables, was chewy and bland. The beef ribs tasted & smelled old and were extremely tough and chewy. In fact, the lady serving gave us a pair of scissors at the table in order to be able to cut the beef off the ribs (that says it all). The soft tofu soup was spicy but lacked depth of flavour, and had only two tiny mussels in it. The final main, the bul-go-gi was the only redeeming dish. The taste was satisfactory but not nothing to get excited about.

We walked away very disappointed and won’t be returning or ever recommending this place. They couldn’t even provide us with a receipt at the end night for what was a very overly-priced...

We were polite and friendly but:

Service: a bit weird. Get the vibe that they might treat different customers differently, and we certainly weren't the favoured customers.

Banchan/side dishes: initial 6 free ones but any refill costs $1 each. (Note: normally refills are free).

Still on the topic of banchan, the Kimchi was a bit disappointing. It looked like it had not fermented and the taste confirmed its looks. Unimpressed, but only because isn't Kimchi the food mascot of Korea? And this place was run by legit Koreans.

Main dishes: had the spicy pork and the pork stew. Both came with rice. They were both not bad. The pork in the stew was not exactly tender but at least it had a potato in it. The dishes were $19 each, which is quite reasonable.

Rice: apparently to order an extra rice you had to order an extra main dish? Confused and...

OMG, I’m not kidding. Haven’t finished my meal yet but I have to go here give them this review immediately. My wife and I love Korean food and we have tried so many Korean restaurant across NZ but this one is truly insane. We tried Bulgogi and Spicy squid which are our favourites and but these at TJ’s are the best we have had in Nz. The vibe and decoration are really simple and not kind of fancy restaurant but because of that it made us feel comfortable in a special way that hardly find anywhere else here in Christchurch. I can be selfish not writing this review and keep this place for myself but I think they deserve to know how great they are and want other people know too. The two front of house guys are really polite and caring. If I can give them 6 stars then they totally...