Vegenarang — Restaurant in Busan

I read about this place on Happy Cow during my recent trip to Korea. Enjoying what I read, I travelled the city to have two fantastic experiences here; My first time at Vegenarang, I enjoyed the mixed mushroom stir fry with rice, as I was a little hurried and hadn’t seen the cutlet on the menu. I had, after all, arrived just before they close for afternoon break. I had arrived unbeknown at 14:10, but they just told me it’s ok but that next time last orders are 14:00 (they close for a break between 3-5pm). Regardless of my arrival time, I still felt most welcome and received a service that matched the rest of the restaurant (simply fantastic). Nevertheless, the quality of the dish was beyond any other mushroom stir fry I have had. You can really recognise the care and attention that goes into not only the presentation but also ingredients within the dish. For example, they don’t just use any mushrooms... they use a variety of specialty mushrooms each with their own depth, texture and flavour.

On my second visit, I had the very generously sized black bean cutlet with rice, greens and a little side sauce. It was absolutely, unbelievably amazing. A big fan of Katsu / tonkatsu curries, it’s one thing I miss a lot no longer eating meat. But any cravings I had, were incredibly satisfied and so much more from this dish. The sauce didn’t taste like a katsu style sauce though, it’s more of a nutty taste. Delicious though, extremely delicious. This meal alone gets 5 stars, let alone the equally great customer service received again.

As for the atmosphere and price... The atmosphere is very peaceful, quiet and meditative with an elegant, high end dining feel. It can be quite romantic for couples, and also nice for groups of friends, or even solo travellers. With views from the surrounding windows looking out onto the water and towards the bridge, it helps create a very beautiful scene. This is because it’s on the 9th floor, but there is a lift which makes it fairly accessible. Despite it being a bit of a hidden gem, not so obvious from the outside, it’s easy to find using a maps app like Naver or Maps.me. They have WiFi too so if you want a working lunch, it is possible. There are not too many tables (perhaps six or seven tables, two of which are encouraged to be for larger groups only) though which can be a problem if it’s busy. I think you can make a reservation online though.

The key to the cost.. It’s a little pricey for the budget traveller (it’s more aimed at mid range / tourist / wealthy local), but you’re paying for high quality ingredients and big portions (easy to share between two if you don’t eat much). It is also cruelty free, environmentally friendly, vegan, healthy food. Of my experiences in Korea, good vegan food is sporadically located. But at Vegenurang you can guarantee an...

What started out soo well ended soo poorly.

Rarely I bother going to the effort to rate a restaurant unless the experience is particularly memorable... this certainly was but not in a positive way.

When my girlfriend and I arrived we were surprised the place was soo busy, we were greeted promptly and ushered to a table that was only half set, 1 cup and 1 pair of chopsticks.

We then waited, and waited, and waited, while the staff attended to others and at some points one staff member just stood around. They were busy as noted but NEVER is busy an excuse to forget about your customers. Several tables left and the floor staff member started to clean the table but then perhaps due to an altercation with another member in the back just left the place.... we waited some more.

Finally she returned and started to wash dishes in the kitchen, visible from our table, at this point we were pretty annoyed as we hadn't even viewed the menu let alone ordered food and this was 30 minutes in. My girlfriend asked for the menu and the girl in the kitchen washing dishes handed it to her without a sorry or even a subtle realisation that we'd been waiting for 30 mins.

Finally we ordered with another lady who seemed to be doing all the work but was certainly not meant to be on the floor. She returned to the kitchen and our food finally turned up 1 hour 15 mins after having arrived...

At the time the food was placed on the time the same lady said to us "It has been soo busy, please let me know if there is anything I can get you". I thought this was a redeeming point and was happy, we ate and partway through I wanted to ask for some water and a kimchi topup and some rice for a dish that definately needed extra rice however EVERY SINGLE TIME the lady walked past she almost TRIED to ignore us, I simply could not get her attention!

So alas we finished our meal without water, rice or any extra kimchi. At the end the lady totalled the bill and we paid begrudgingly and left.

The food was good, but not SOO good that the service didn't absolutely ruin our experience. It is absolutely so damn important to provide great service and from what we experienced this place has a long way to go.

If you are visiting for the first time take note of whether it is busy, if it is just straight up leave. If it isn't busy and you decide to give it a shot I hope you have a good experience.

Service is everything and there are plenty of Vegan options in Busan that provide a WAY better experience than this one.

Also a side note should the restaurant owners view this, if you had apologised or offered a free pot of tea ALL would be forgiven. It is not hard or expensive to treat your customers well but if you fail to then don't be surprised when you get...

Worst experience in Korea! Where do I even start?! We were seated right near the front of the restaurant where the servers would walk past us every time they walked out of the kitchen, yet it took 30 minutes to get a menu and that's only because I HAD TO GO AND GRAB ONE FROM THE KITCHEN MYSELF! Did not even get an apology from the server that saw me doing this! The server that was suppose to be assigned to our table looked over at us and walked out for a break of some kind. When she returned, she was on an iPhone for maybe 20 minutes. She then stood around the front counter literally not doing a thing. We were finally served by a lady who I believe was supposed to be working in the kitchen but instead was serving every table in the restaurant by herself. She apologized for the wait and told us if there was anything we needed to just ask her, which was wonderful until we tried to get her attention several times after our meal arrived for some more water and she looked away every time. I had to go up to her and tap her on the shoulder to ask for things we needed but if I asked for two things, she would only bring us one of them and forget the other. We didn't get a menu for the first 30 minutes, it took us about 15 minutes to get someone's attention to order, the food took about 30-40 minutes to come out and then we felt as though we were rushed out (the staff were cleaning all around us) because by this time it was almost closing time. I am not difficult to please and I like to think I'm very reasonable. I get it... It was busy and they were understaffed but that's no excuse to not offer the best service you can. All it would've taken to turn our whole experience around was a genuine apology for the wait or even a rough estimate of how long the food would be (if it was more than 30 minutes), a free pot of tea, a snack while we wait or a small discount on our bill for this awful dining experience. Even one of those things would have earned them 4 or 5 stars because the food was good, but not good enough to waste our whole night waiting in the restaurant with bad service. If you go here and it's even remotely busy, PROCEED WITH CAUTION! There are plenty of other awesome vegan restaurants nearby or a short train ride away with better food and better service. Don't waste your time...