Myeongdong Kyoja, a restaurant awarded multiple years with a Bib Gourmand. We came here after having heard raving reviews from friends who came to Korea a few months prior. The food itself can only be described as extremely underwhelming, but the service and efficiency of this establishment was something to marvel at.

We arrived around 7PM on a Monday and was met with a small line of another three or four parties in front of us. Despite the first floor being closed, we were met with nearly zero wait and led up three flights of stairs to the third floor and seated immediately.

We each ordered a order of the dumplings and noodle soup, as well as a side of the soup dumplings. Service was extremely quick with food coming within 10 minutes of ordering.

Now, I'll be first to admit that perhaps I'm just not a fan of this particular style of noodles, but in my opinion, noodles themselves were extremely mediocre, perhaps even bordering on bad. Style of noodles were more of a softer noodles, without really any crunch/resistance (not sure if this is the intended texture or whether our bowl was just overcooked). Broth was also extremely underwhelming, somewhere right in the middle of being clean/refreshing broth and being rich (i.e. a bit bland, but not in a good way). Dumplings were definitely overcooked and basically disintegrated upon touch.

Dumplings we ordered on the side were honestly nothing special, don't actually think they were soupy at all, so might have just been wrapped in a style of a soup dumpling.

Price was actually extremely reasonable, especially compared to some of the other food that we had in Korea. But to give credit where its due, this establishment was definitely optimized to the inch. There was barely any room between each table and was just enough space to not be an uncomfortable squeeze, while not wasting any space at all. Tables were also turning around at breakneck speeds during the half an hour that we were here.

Although not quite my taste, given its extremely reasonable price, I would honestly recommend this restaurant just to see how efficiently they run in person.