Cho Dang Tofu — Restaurant in Bellevue

The usual Korean-Chinese restaurant we go to nearby has a long wait time, so we searched for Korean food on Google and saw this place. We were able to get parking literally at the door and saw their "Okay" food safety ratings, and we've actually gotten skeptical about seeing this ratings as some places actually turn out bad or not "okay" at all. But after dining in, food was actually good. The atmosphere was simple but had a Japanese feel to it (for me, at least). The servers were nice and attentive. We ordered the Beef Tofu Soup, Bulgogi, and Green Onion Pancake. It came with 4 Banchan and fried fish. Everything came out quick, piping hot and delicious. The only downside i could say was the rice in the stone pot and the sauce for the pancake. The rice was too hot to eat right away, and if you wait too long to cool it down, the rice burned at the bottom of the stone pot. It was only after we're already done eating, and we saw 4 Korean men at the table next to us poured water at their rice and knew that was the trick so the rice didn't stick. lol, i guess we learned something new today. 😁 and the sauce for the pancake was a little bland for my taste. i wish it had a little more kick to it, but nonetheless, the food was still delicious. will come back to try the Budae...

This is a relatively new Korean restaurant specializing in tofu soups, though they also have stone pot rice dishes. The space is on the southern side of Safeway, near Applebee's, further away from the other Asian restaurants in the larger complex.

During our visit, they kept the customers in one main area and still had another area available for seating. Service was attentive, and we had multiple refills of tea and banchan. The meal started with a small whole fried fish, which was surprisingly tasty, though you'll have to work with some small bones. Banchan included individual serving platters with potato salad, cucumber, bean sprouts, and cabbage kimchi. The servings are small but actively refilled often.

I enjoyed my medium spice kimchi pork tofu soup. I believe you can pay extra for an egg to crack into the soup, unlike my old Koreatown place where it was included. Rice came in a small hot stone bowl, and I got tea for the remnants. The flavors were good, and I'll definitely want to try other dishes. Other dishes have been quite tasty as well.

The restaurant was exclusively full of Korean guests when we arrived, but more mixed groups...

Been going to their federal way location for the past four years until recent move to the east side. When I heard they opened a location in Bellevue I was elated. Unfortunately they missed the mark with this location. The taste was great but the quality and value that made the original location wasn’t there. My pork tofu soup had disappointing amount of pork and another person in my party complained about the lack of seafood in their seafood tofu soup. They also charged me $1 for a egg which is a first for me for any Korean restaurant. This was especially disappointing because prices were a lot higher than what I remember. ($25 for soup+bbq combo precovid, now $35). They’re also giving very small portion of side dishes and then you have to wait for them to come around to get them refilled. Over the course of my meal I had to get my side dishes refilled four times which got kind of old. Maybe they’re trying to keep costs down because it’s a new restaurant?

TDLR - food was great, value and dining experience needs a...