Soonheene & Twozone Chicken — Restaurant in Arcadia

I had stopped by when they had their grand opening in 2021, but didn't get to order since they were out of what I wanted. They were set up as a pick up and to-go spot, and given the very small parking lot to jostle for a spot, I didn't return until my friend suggested catching up at Soonheene for dinner.

They now have several tables for dine in and I was super happy to see that they used bowls and plates for your order if you dine in (though they use disposable utensils when bringing you your order). They also have a self-service area for iced water and iced barley tea and they use metal cups! Yay!

I came on a weekday at 6 pm and there was a lull as there was no wait. As it got closer to 6:30 pm - 7 pm, all the tables filled up! Lots of orders coming in for pick-up though, so if you don't want to wait for a table, order to go.

Since it's my first time here, I got almost everything, haha! The order included:

shrimp mung bean pancake ($14.99) #15 combo of rose tteokbokki and mayak gimbap ($23.99) oden fish cake soup ($9.99) 5 pc wings soy garlic ($8.99) diet coke with Yelp check-in

If not for the Yelp check-in offer, I would've placed the order on their self-service kiosk.

Luckily, since we beat the rush, the food came out at a consistent pace. I had really wanted the mayak gimbap and the fish cake soup but since there was no combo for both, price-wise it made sense to do the combo with the rose tteokbokki. And it is heavenly to get all three! The mayak gimbap comes with a dipping sauce, but it's just as good if not better to dip it in the tteokbokki. If you don't want the usual spice of regular tteokbokki, the rose tteokbokki has been my go-to instead as it has the hint of spice without the usual burn. Soonheene's tteokbokki had very generous amounts of fish cake and sausage suporting the rice cakes, so it's my favorite iteration of this dish thus far. The oden fish cake soup came with three skewers of fish cake and fish cake tofu in a bowl of hot yummy soup and that was pretty solid.

I've never had anything like the mung bean pancake and it was good to have a protein in it for additional texture and flavor. It's best eaten when hot and crisp, otherwise, it's a bit dense the next day. The soy garlic wings were crisp and hot and full of flavor.

Obviously, the order was enough for two people to get a variety of options, but that did leave no room for some sides nor dessert. Maybe some gimmari and...

Never would I ever imagine seeing a restaurant in the SGV, excluding Rowland Heights area, to be serving authentic Korean street food. It brings back so many memories of traveling to Korea and walking to random streets and seeing numerous vendors selling the exact same dishes they serve here at Soon Hee Ga. While I've never been or even heard of the OG location at the Korean Street Market in Seoul, friends have told me it's legit good. Every dish we ordered was great and filled the two of us up. My favorite was their sweet rice drink, since I haven't had that in years. There used to be a Korean restaurant in the CVS/Aldi plaza down the street back in the early 2000s that served that drink as a dessert. If I'm not mistaken, they used to occupy what is now Half & Half or the Fork Over Pork shop. Since they've closed, there hasn't been a Korean restaurant that served it as a dessert (for free too!). Soon Hee Ga does a fantastic job making this rice drink and I can literally drink it all day long during the summer months. Everything else we ordered complimented well with the spicy rice cake sauce too, unless you can't handle spicy dishes. Give this place a shot if you're local because it'll save you time going to Ktown for the...

Got the combo with the tteokboki, odeng fishcake, and mayak kimbap (30.99). Also got the mungbean pancake (9.99). There was no wait to order when I went since I went for an early dinner, and the food was ready in about 15 minutes. The service was pretty good since the employee saw me waiting outside and brought my order to me, which was very kind of them to. As for the taste of the food, the tteokboki was a bit spicy was acceptable (even though I normally can't handle spice). The rice cake was nice and chewy. The fish cake was alright, nothing special. The mungbean pancake didn't have a special taste, just tasted like a fried pancake. There were only 4 slices but they were thick so didn't feel too small. The kimbap was my favorite of the three- it was nice and bite sized but also nothing really special about its taste. Overall, this was a decent meal but pretty pricey for the portions you get. Worth trying though if you're into korean...