Sorak Garden Restaurant — Restaurant in Annandale

I actually want to give this place 0 stars because there was nothing done correctly but I will dedicate the 1 star to the very sweet and hard-working busboys. Although they were mistreated by the grumpy waitresses, they did their job well. First off, we walked in for the lunch buffet an hour before it ended and there was almost no food left and nothing new being brought out. We ate what we could and waited to see if food would be brought out but it was not. So we told the waitress and she said that she is not responsible and told my mom to go talk with the people in the back (wait, what?). She did not offer to help us nor did she offer to bring out other dishes to compensate. They brought out one dish (dukkbokki) but it was watery and underprepared. My mom went to talk to the manager but the manager stood on the phone without acknowledging her for 5 minutes. She let the manager know what the problem was but the manager continued to pick up calls and nothing was solved. So our group decided to leave. As we walked out, we stopped by to let them know about our experience so that they could fix it in the future. As we were talking, the manager continued to pick up phone calls. At this point, I stepped in and said that she needs to listen. My mom told her what happened and the manager did not have the courtesy to keep eye contact with her. She was barely concerned that we were upset with the service and treatment at her restaurant. My dad asked her to focus on what my mom was saying. As my mom finished talking, the manager would constantly interrupt her with “I’m sorry” in Korean. She did not have the manners to fully hear my mom out. She did not ask what she could do to help alleviate the situation. She did not offer to give us food or to compensate for our unsatisfied hunger. She blamed the kitchen staff and told us she would give us a “discount.” At this point, I was angry at the mistreatment of not just my mom, but of customers at a restaurant. I told my mom to just pay and leave because it wasn’t worth it. Please don’t go to this restaurant. The food isn’t even good. I don’t want you to have a bad experience at a Korean restaurant when there are so many good ones...

With visiting family in town came a request for Korean food. Even tho we live very near Mt. Vernon, we knew the best Korean food is found at Sorak Garden. We also knew from experience that the vast majority of diners are people of Korean heritage and we took that as a positive, tho completely silent, vote for being a location for authentic and flavorful Korean food! Our Korean-American guest & honorée pointed out one of the differences between a Korean restaurant and others: while their tradition is to include numerous small side dishes, the wait staff does not identify their contents. It is always best to take a small bite first, just in case the dish is too spicy for some. We enjoy the terrific variety of flavors & textures, & think that everything enhances the experience of eating together. One guest ordered the beef ribs & that dish proved to be the tastiest, most aromatic and most incredibly tender meat of the evening. We were so glad she shared! Two of us chose the dish where one cooks their portion of beef at the table and wraps it inside lettuce leaves. This Bulgogi dish is so novel & such a tasty dish to introduce to first-time diners, but we have loved it for many years. We are very grateful to the community that supports Sorak Garden as an institution in Fairfax County, and to all the other ethnic restaurants that abound around us. When we moved away for a period of years, it was the variety of ethnic restaurants that we missed the most & found that upon our return, we could easily resume our ethnic dining adventures. We recommend that you visit Sorak Garden. It is an epicurean adventure for our palates & hope you will also find a lot to...

I really want to give a better rating, but that wouldn't be fair to the other restaurants I reviewed.

Heard a few good things about its lunch buffet, but I came here for dinner and let's just say there are a lot of better places. I think one of the advantage it has over other Korean restaurant is that this place is a lot more spacious. Other than that, I'm not really sure what else I can praise on it. My boyfriend and I ordered a seafood pancake, a bibimbap and a rice bowl with sashimi (don't recall the proper name). The server barely spoke English (not that I have a problem with it, but) and he just wrote down the line items we pointed at on the menu and nodded at everything. My friends ordered a few things, and a relatively expensive dish of pork belly.

My seafood pancake and bibimbap arrived, and on the other table, the server was grilling my friend's 4 strips of pork belly (considering a $16 dish, that's $4 per strip!!) and he said it doesn't taste any better than pork belly at other restaurants. I was waiting for a while for my sashimi rice bowl and I finally asked the waiter if they are still working on it, and he came back saying something which I interpreted as they no longer serve sushi for the rest of the day, and I was pretty upset because he nodded at me when I ordered (so I assume he took my order, right?) and made me waited 20 minutes to tell me they cannot...