Kangnam Pocha — Restaurant in London

I’d attended the premises of this restaurant on 11-11-2023. This was after watching the Paul Choudhry comedy show, at Top Secret Comedy Club.

It’s just an extra 1/2 min(s) walk from the venue.

You still would have to wait for a little bit, to which I had to do for about 20/30 mins. This was in the rain. If people are queuing up in the rain. Then the food must be good, right!?

I was greeted and told to go downstairs for my table. I was fortunate to be given a whole table that serves 4 all to myself. Which had suited me perfectly.

So a few things I need to highlight. The decor / appearance of this restaurant is showing its age. It’s not maintained well at the moment. When coming out from downstairs. The tables are very compact together, which causes people to leave the premises by squeezing between other diners. This is a health and safety risk, and also not to risk in jeopardising your clothing being contaminated when walking by other diners food, etc.

Their toilet is in a disrepair state and requires major repair; please refer to the picture. I find it unacceptable that tiles are dropping off and leaning against my trainers / jeans.

The water being served is what I feel is rustic and poorly inexcusable fillers. It has limescale and this is totally unacceptable. I would advise to get bottle water or use your own water bottle if you carrying one with you.

I’d ordered the following:

Seafood Pancake - this is using prawns and squid. This was nice but I would have liked more spring onions and a little more seasoning. Neither dense nor soggy.

Korean Fried Chicken (50/50) - I had ordered this with Soy Garlic sauce and Snow Cheese - this is powered cheese and I sadly was left disappointed. I think this should be with grilled cheese like that offer with their other dishes.

Chicken Bibimap - sadly disappointed with the flavour, tone and texture of their version. When compared to other Korean restaurants I’d visited. Vegetables were fresh.

Chicken Mandu Dumpings - I don’t know if these are in-house made or what I think is from a frozen packet. This is a new item they offer as an appetiser.

Corn & Cheese - this was very nice, the corn was very sweet and the cheese was perfect. However, I felt the ratio of melted cheese to corn was lacking. If ordering, make sure to tell them you want extra melted cheese.

Nearest underground stations is Covent Garden or a little further will be Holborn. This being on the Piccadilly line.

There are hotels nearby, one of them being a Travel Lodge.

No public transport buses come through these roads.

As for parking. I believe you may park after a certain time for it to be free in the evening. However, during the day may cost dearly and be more difficult.

The food was nice, the service I felt was a little rushed. The appearance of the restaurant needs some maintenance, as it gives a sense of being poorly maintained and perhaps giving the idea of the food being...

So, I've been to Kangnam Pocha before but this time I didn't have a good experience.

I'm aware that there was a queue outside and so I waited for 30 minutes in the queue before the opening time.

When the door opened, a male waiter asked me how many people, when he learnt that I was a party of two and that my friend hadn't arrived yet, he let other people go into the restaurant before me (it is about 4C outside). So, the upstairs tables were fully taken. Then, he gave me a table downstairs, which could've hosted 4 people.

I got barely any signal downstairs to communicate with my friend (there's no WiFi in the restaurant).

Then, he kept asking me when my friend would arrive. I explained that I can order for her and then when she arrives the food will be arriving too.

I mentioned that my friend and I will be finishing at the latest 2pm. I thought 2 hours for food and conversation is reasonable in restaurants. He jokingly laughed as if he was horrified at the idea that my table won't be finishing our food until 2pm.

I told him that my friend will be arriving at 12.30 and I can order at 12.15. But, no one came to take my food order. (The waitress was nice and took my drink order.)

Around 12.30, the male waiter came again. This time, he even took a picture of the queue outside to show me there were other people waiting to come to the restaurant. It was condescending.

He complained that I wasn't ordering. I retorted that no one has come to take my order. He said that when HE asked for my order I only ordered tea. I answered, it was the waitress who helped me order tea, and then no one came to take the food order. Then, he finally took my food order.

The thing is, if he had said that I had to wait outside and wait until my friend joined me, I would understand the policy.

But, when he let other people go in before me, he didn't say this, then he gave me a table that could fit 4 people, which could have hosted more customers and earned them more revenue.

So, the way I see this, there were two ways: 1. he could give me a 2 person table upstairs 2. or he could ask me to wait for my friend and when she joins me, we can go in without rejoining the queue.

What is more, if they think people dining for 2 hours is too long, they should put it on a poster and show it in their window.

They should put their queuing policy on the poster as well, e.g. all members of the party need to be present upon entering or the next group will enter first.

Here are some helpful suggestions.

P.S. my friend who I invited was Korean and she was shocked...

We had dolsot bibimbap, dakgalbi fried rice and the original KFC. The food was quite authentic in general but the bibimbap was quite mushy which was not the best for our preference.

However, the service to us personally could he further improved. To start off, the sofa that we were sitting on has bits of crumbs left of them which wasn’t properly cleaned. After ordering, we waited roughly 30 minutes for our orders to arrive only to be told by the staff that the manager forgot to confirm the order on the tablet he was using when asked. The waiter who served us later did mention that we could choose any drinks which would be on the house, but we did not pick any because the fact that our order took so long to come had already started to ruin our mood. The food did arrive rather efficiently after the complaint (roughly 10 minutes) which was commendable. We were also glad that the restaurant took the service charge off our bill when making our payment. However, the infuriating part was when we asked to pay cash as there is a 10% discount on cash payments and was told that the discount has already been given on the service charge as they nulled it and we wouldn’t be eligible for the discount anymore. Another staff who explained about the “manager” situation just now then came over and said that they cannot give more discount due to the settings on the computer. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the explanation because the service charge was nulled as an apology of what happened earlier, and if I paid cash, and can’t get the 10% discount as promised, I’m literally still paying for the service which had been disappointing from the start - there was no apology to begin with. What’s more, the manager never once appeared after the incident happened, no apology from him at all whatsoever. The food was definitely not bad and reasonable, I’m just not sure if I’m a big fan of the service and how the situation...