Chodang Tofu & BBQ - Austin — Restaurant in Austin

UPDATE - horrendous service, tried to give this place a second chance by ordering a hot stone beef bibimbap. It took 30 plus minutes to get my food, other food court restaurants serve food in under 10 minutes. In addition, I watched them place a 15 minute break sign out WHILE there were active customers in line that were there well before the sign was placed. I had this happen to me before and we waited 30 minutes before giving up and going somewhere else. The cherry on top? The bibimbap was not that great, a soggy and oily mess. SKIP THIS PLACE and walk over to Narrow 512.

Ordered the kimchi tofu soup with pork and egg. Also tried the combo bibimbap with seafood tofu soup. Both came with a set of three banchan.

Kimchi tofu soup- Mostly tofu, hardly any kimchi for specifically ordering kimchi jjigae. Soup flavor was rich and packed with umami. Egg turned out perfectly jammy.

Bibimbap- Had a variety of vegetables but most were lacking in seasoning. Good portion. Note- it looks like only the hot stone bibimbap has bulgogi.

Seafood Tofu Soup- Had crab, calms, mussels, and shrimp. Bold flavor with the variety of seafood again heavy on the tofu.

Banchan- Pickled cucumber items were pretty bland only the daikon was truly pickled.

I’ve had better tofu soup and bibimbap but the portions were filling for one and reasonable for the price. Average Korean food offered in the...

Ordered Seafood Kalgoksu, beef bulgogi and seafood pancake

Service: was okay but it took almost an hr to get the order. I checked on the wait and was told I was second in line to get the food next. Well, 5-6 more people picked up their orders before it was our turn. And they missed one of the items so had to wait for another 10mins. I don’t know it was because they wanted to have everything ready before passing out together. If you only order one item it might be faster. But there were others checking on their orders and one wanted refund because it was too long.

Food: bulgogi was just okay, very fatty. Seafood pancake you can barely taste the seafood and it wasn’t cut into slices. Not sure they forgot or they expect you to break it yourself. At least all other restaurants cut into slices for you. Seafood kalgoksu, flavor was good with crab legs shrimps and clam meat (not fresh clams shown on the picture). Broth was very starchy because they cooked noodle directly in it. Noodle over cooked. Very little tofu inside. Overall, we were not impressed and liked the old...

Unfortunately a bit of a dud. Value proposition is low for the combo I got. Took the pic about a third of my way through the meal and this was 30 dollars after tax. Not sure why I expected the spicy pork to be at least double or triple the amount. Maybe for 30 dollars for soup rice and meat, it was a warranted expectation. I could get two full items across most food court stalls at HMart for thirtyish dollars. That would be way more food than this for a few bucks on top.

As for the taste, I opted for the spiciest level on the tofu stew (순두부). Wasn’t particularly spicy until I bit into what seemed like their main source of capsaicin to control the spice levels — tiny red ballish things. These weren’t properly dissolved so the spice levels were uneven throughout the consumption of the dish. Otherwise, it was ok. As for the spicy pork that comes with it for menu item #13, that too was ok.

Not sure if I’d...