Hongdae Pocha — Restaurant in London

I must start this by saying I rarely ever give negative reviews of restaurants; I know it's a tough business, and it's extremely hard to succeed. If you check my history, it's all positive reviews of businesses. This is the only negative one I've ever given in 10 years. My friend and I went here on a day that the Korean Englishman (a set of YouTube stars) were filming a special in the restaurant. We came as a walk in, but they assured us there was space. I came all the way from Birmingham, because I had seen the decor, and my Korean friend suggested it was perfect in terms of decor; the menu also seemed interesting. We ordered 3 dishes and a drink, after 20 minutes, we got the first dish, and drinks, which was fine. What went sideways was we ended up waiting another hour for one of the other dishes. After waiting another 30 minutes, we decided to cancel the last dish. As an apology, they gave us some cheap crackers (we're talking 2 pound crackers). So, we ended up waiting for almost 2 hours for soup we ended up canceling. This was not unique to us mind; an American couple behind us, and a pair of friends who came before us were in the same situation; when we left, they were STILL waiting. I assume either they're still waiting, or they've died of hunger. I gave the restaurant the opportunity to respond to this issue. They stated, in short They're a bar, not a restaurant They have to prioritise bookings in terms of food They got backed up in the kitchen, especially as the YouTubers had purchased the food in advance Apologised for the offense caused- not for the issue itself That reply did not go a long way. Even if it is not a restaurant, and they have to prioritise bookings, there is a frame of what is reasonable and not reasonable. If the food is going to take a long time, then- and this is extremely important- managing expectations is the norm. Simply stating on the day when we walked in "we have a backed up kitchen; it may take some time for some orders" would have gone a long way. Or once it became clear it would be delayed, giving us the option to cancel would have been more than appreciated. We made request on how long it would take to the staff (in Korean, no less), and we were assured a full hour in that it was coming "soon". Instead, we ended up spending 43 pounds for a deeply disappointing experience. My advice to newcomers: maybe come for a drink, but not for anything else. I wish I could comment on the food quality, but I did not have enough variety to judge it. We had plans to purchase a series of foods, but we could not do so. Eat elsewhere. Try Daebak (Vaxhaull), Gogi (near little Venice), or head out...

As a reviewer who has a badge of 50,000 readers on TripAdvisor. I am hereby to review your restaurant regarding to my own experience that I had yesterday.

I personally live in London. I always go for nice restaurants and beautiful cafes and also provide them a review according to their service and product.

3-star of service is for the staff “Yuna” who is outstanding, making my dinner wondeful and also providing the kind-hearted attitude with smiles on her face. I highly appreciated about it.

We spent almost £500 yesterday for only 9 of us which is calculated approximately to £56 per person. Reasonable for the restaurant in Soho, innit?

The most disappointment was another beautiful waitress who has a bad attitude and does not have her service minded at all.

Firstly, there was a table next to us which is available for 6 seats. Its customers almost finished their meal so I asked to get that table. She refused. My 5 friends seated at the first table and also would like to move to the same type of table. Apparently, you did not want to do double job (just to move their dishes and clean the table) but as service people in London, you should do it, dear.

Secondly, asked for “BOTTLES OF WATER”, she ignored me and I asked again. She served me a aluminium jug of tab water. That was nice, darling. I am ok for that without payment for your bottles of water as I asked for 9 of them. 🤍

Thirdly, she took out of my glass of water in front of my face and I still stared at her. Positively, she might have thought that the orange juice glass that I used for water is too big so did not ask and took it away. What a behaviour but I am still ok with beautiful face without smiles.

Lastly, I was about to walk out but my friends said they are regular customers here and Yuna is always very nice to customers. Yesterday was a birthday party. Glad that Yuna responded to customer expectation. We will come back for you, not that other staff who ignored my requests. Luckily, you do not have TripAdvisor or have but I could not find it. I will write longer than this.

In conclusion, food are nice, service is totally disappointing and atmosphere is alright based on Korean...

This is one of the worst dining experiences I’ve ever had. It was poorly managed from the jump. We had a reservation for 10 people on Saturday evening for someone’s birthday and when we arrived there on time we were made to wait outside for 15 minutes. Once we get inside the restaurant the music is blasting as if we’re in a club, we couldn’t hear each other and I had to wear noise cancelling headphones as I was sat next to the speaker. There weren’t enough seats at the table so some of our party had to stand until they brought extra seats. They only gave us 2 menus for a table of 10 and we were told they didn’t have any more. There was a leak in the ceiling and the bucket underneath was full so I was getting splashed by water the whole time. We were pressured to order fast as we would need to leave soon due to other reservations. Once the food arrived, maybe because the music is blasting and the servers can’t hear or because we couldn’t hear them, one of the dishes was mislabelled as squid and my order of chicken gizzard never arrived. After asking the servers multiple times where the chicken gizzard was, we were told that what we thought was squid was actually the chicken gizzard and the squid was in fact the dish that never arrived. One of the people at the party was pescatarian and ate the chicken gizzard thinking it was squid. They offered to bring out either another portion of gizzard or squid but at this point we all had headaches from the blasting music and just wanted to leave. They then proceeded to still charge us for the squid that never arrived and we had to ask to take it off the bill. We also got kicked out of the restaurant early. The soju costs £13 and they only have one type of beer, and a portion of chicken wings costs £28. I can’t reiterate how awful of an experience this was. Loud, disorganised, inflated prices and average food. There are so many other better Korean...