Gubok Mandu — Restaurant in Seoul

DO NOT GO. The worst experience everrrrrrrr.

I don’t understand why this restaurant is so overrated.

From the moment we sat down and tried to place our order, the staff showed clear hostility. When we took a moment to decide on our order, a staff member stood behind us with their arms crossed, glaring at us impatiently. Even after taking our order, they continued to give us unpleasant looks as they walked away. This kind of behavior is simply unacceptable.

The service was terrible — dishes and menus were practically thrown onto the table. To make matters worse, we found a hair in the dumplings — not just a hair, it was fried. When we complained, they just brought us another set of dumplings without a proper apology.

What I want to highlight is the lack of friendliness from the staff, as well as the fact that, despite having received a Michelin recognition, this restaurant fails to deliver both in terms of service and taste.

The cleanliness was subpar, and both the food and service were at the lowest level.

I strongly suggest finding a better restaurant nearby to enhance your travel experience. To be honest, you’d be better off steaming...

There are 4 options of dumplings and are reasonably priced. All are pretty good - thin skinned with flavorful fillings. The one with the prawn filling has a very distinct flavor of prawn, almost overpowering for my liking. The dumplings don't taste like the typical Korean shops dumplings, so thumbs up. It's a relatively small shop with limited sitting and staff, so be prepared to wait. Don't bear any expectations of warm ambience and you will not be disappointed. It's simply no frills with a rather straight faced store 🙄 store manager. I would have highly recommended this store if not for witnessing what the store manager did towards the end of my meal. He used the cloth for wiping tables to wipe the floor. Not only did he not wash it immediately after use, he continued to use it to wipe other tables with the same cloth after that. If that's the way they operate the store, I am also concerned with other areas of store operations. Not likely to revisit but you can decide if that's something you can...

I am surprised at the amount of high reviews for this place as I personally found it nothing special (keep in mind I am comparing with authentic chinese dumplings) . The owner is extremely kind which makes me feel bad while writing this. My friend in the army brought me here saying this Michelin star dumpling place was best in Seoul. This place screams chinese-korean fusion with it's over use of green onions and might suit the Korean palette more.The ingredients were very fresh and all the dishes were quite afforadable, hence I am basing my review off of that. Just go in knowing that it won't taste like what you are use to (if I had to recommend I think the shrimp/kimich dumpling tasted best while the xian long bao tasted the worst). There is only 4 types of dumpling (All of which I tried) so the ordering process should be...