박명도 봉평 메밀막국수 — Restaurant in Seoul

Visited this restaurant because I happened to be in the vicinity and was looking for a restaurant with a relatively good Google rating.

Overall the food was okay, but definitely not anything that was exceptional or that warrants a repeated visit. More importantly, I was put off by the way the food was being prepared and served, which I will come to last.

Our party ordered the spicy buckwheat noodles and dumpling soup. The sauce for the buckwheat noodles was pleasant but did not stand out. A typical portion size for 1 person's serving costed ₩11,000. For the dumpling soup, the dumplings (9 pieces) had a very usual, run-of-the-mill taste, and the soup was perilla soup, with the entire dish costing ₩10,000. I would say that the dish is reasonably priced. 2 types pf kimchi--water and spicy Napa cabbage kimchi (fresh salad type)--were provided as sides. These weren't fantastic; they were merely an accompaniment for the main dish, to be eaten if you must have some kimchi of some sort to go with your meal.

Restaurant does not have much of an environment to rave about. It has an old and dated interior so it is no surprise that turnover is very fast -- customers eat and leave quickly.

I witnessed a chef using her bare hands to grab seasoned kimchi from a box and top it onto 2 bowls of buckwheat noodles that were being prepared for customers. She then just barely rinsed her hands very briefly (literally just under the water for a single second) and went on to do other chores. I cannot help but wonder if she washed her hands cleanly before putting them into the kimchi box, not to mention the other food that she would be handling after that. So much for food safety! After the 2 bowls were placed at the counter to be served, the server whipped up a small little piece of tissue from a carton box underneath the counter and wiped the edges of the bowl to get it ready to be served. She then tossed the tissue back into the box after wiping the bowls. My guess is that she will reuse it to clean other bowls. These revelations collectively make me question the food safety of the staff. With that, I am not going to put myself at any food safety risk by returning. I wouldn't recommend...

This is a local favorite that I would not have found on my own if I didn’t have a friend that lived in the neighborhood.

I came thinking their specialty is the kimchi stew but turns out this place is known for buckwheat noodles. So we got the kimchi soup and dry buckwheat noodles to share.

I had high expectations for the kimchi stew since this seems to be a restaurant only locals frequent, but the it was too sweet and not sour enough. The buckwheat noodles on the other hand stole the show, I’m not even usually a fan of noodles but it was so flavorful and fragrant. We should’ve opted for different flavors of the noodles rather than the stew.

Will...

My travel to Korea was amazing ended up with awesome dinner having traditonal Korean buckwheat noodle and Kimchi soup! Ingredients are so fresh, healthy, but so delicious (mild and yummy). You should visit here, and the staff are...