Hoosier Seoulmate Korean Restaurant — Restaurant in Bloomington

It's been about two years since I have suffered a truly appalling dining experience. My streak of good fortune has now ended, as Hoosier Seoulmate Korean Restaurant left a terrible taste in my mouth literally and figuratively.

While vacationing in Brown County, my wife and I noticed this new restaurant, noted the (so far) favorable reviews, and elected to give it a go.

The interior is generic and austere, but I don't mind that. We were seated quickly upon arrival. I swapped out my chair because there was gooey residue on the seat. These things happen.

We ordered dumplings as an appetizer. They were overcooked, homogenous, and bland... but they were passable.

For our entrees, I ordered the Beef Bulgogi and my wife ordered the Spicy Marinated Raw Crab. Up to this point, I felt like we were en route to an uneventful 2.5 star experience. How naive I was!

Our plates arrived. A note: from this point on, our server never independently circled back to check on us - I had to flag her down for every little thing.

My wife's dish was a pile of little crab legs, as we expected. Nothing seemed amiss. About two minutes into eating my own food, I noticed that my wife wasn't eating hers. "I'm not sure how to open these," she said. "I'm guessing they forgot to bring me crackers to open up the crab legs."

I picked up one of the legs and - sure enough - it was not possible to open the legs up by hand, or even with aid of a fork. We enjoy crab regularly, so it seemed obvious to me that yes - surely they just forgot the crackers.

Our server walked past several times, but she neither glanced at us nor heard me tactfully calling out, "Excuse me, miss." After observing this repeatedly, the hostess at the entrance kindly walked over to attend to us.

Sheepishly, she explained that the restaurant "does not own any crab crackers." "Oh, ok." I said gently. "Do you have any tips on opening these shells?" I asked.

I am not joking when I tell you that she very sincerely gestured toward and suggested that we should borrow the communal scissors at the front desk to open our crab legs. Gross!

I was mortified, but I politely masked my dismay. "No thank you," I said.

Minutes later, I finally succeeded in flagging down our server. I good-naturedly expressed that we were at an impasse with the crab legs and that we literally did not have a method available to eat them. "Hmmmm..." she said. Our server excused herself for what seemed like a strategic huddle with her superiors. Upon returning, she awkwardly asserted "You're not supposed to eat the crab meat. You just suck the juice out."

To be clear: this is one of the most expensive entrees on the menu, and there isn't a lot of "juice" involved. There is so little liquid, in fact, that the crab legs are served to you on a rather flat plate. (See photo)

"This is a $20 dinner," I remarked incredulously. "And you're not supposed to eat anything? There can't be more than 1/4 cup of liquid in those legs."

Our server shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, yeah. It's um... all about the spices," she replied.

"Huh." I said. "That's certainly not what we had in mind. I don't mean to be difficult but my wife is really disappointed with this entree. Would you be able to replace it with something else?"

"Ok. How about I bring her what you have?" she suggested, indicating my Beef Bulgogi.

Her proposal seemed a bit presumptuous... but also satisfactory. "Thank you, that would be great."

Ten minutes later, she produced my wife's replacement entree. The dish is supposed to include rice and sides. Our server mentioned that she did not include these "because she already provided them alongside the earlier crab dish." That's quite unprofessional, I thought, but I let it roll off. The restaurant replaced the entree and I can work with that.

My review is too long for Google, so I must summarize: they ended up insisting that I pay for all three entrees. The server was unfathomably rude and argumentative.

Unsanitary, rude, and dishonest. This...

While we arrived on sight and were seated quickly - we should have taken heed of The fact that police officers were very very very close in the same ally where restaurant is situated . That should’ve been enough to tip us off that maybe the experience we were entering was not quite what we thought.

I would give us a solid 0.5 stars and I’m a solid foodie —- just look at my body and you can tell I love a good quality food experience.

Not much on the menu looked appealing other than rice. I decided to go with the Korean short ribs, hoping that the price would be worth the order. I’m not certain but in my world, short ribs are tender and luscious but that’s not what arrived on my plate.

After vigorously chewing on some chunks of meat, I was invited to reached over to my husband‘s plate and ended up eating a split meal that he kindly offered …why I guiltily felt bad for ordering an item that was more than what we typically would pay for.

We ventured to this restaurant because a fellow coworker had attended one time and stated that the food was good. Yeah, I am sadly disappointed that this was not the case for us . We could’ve spent that money at Aldi‘s purchasing the items we needed and throwing it in a pressure cooker to make it more delicious meal and less amount of time.

But I digress … because it’s the night of the Krampus and we wanted to try something new.

This was “just sad”. Avoid this place - save your money and listen to your mom about cooking...

This place is, to put it simply, AMAZING. Easily in my top 3 restaurants I've ever eaten at.

This is only my second time going, I discovered it literally the day before I moved out of Bloomington and have been thinking about it for 6 months, and today finally got to go back.

Food heaven. We ordered wayyy more than we could possibly eat in one sitting because we didn't want to miss anything.

My boyfriend got the pork Bibimbap, I got the traditional Jjigae which came with a side of rice and it was so good, mildly spicy, and came in a little pot that stayed hot the entire meal.

We also got the Kimchi Bulgogi fries, which is our favorite thing on the menu. If you go and get nothing else, you will still leave happy.

We also got one Bul-dog and one spicy chicken bul-dog, which are pretty small so acted like a side.

I look forward to eating here again in the future.

Atmosphere I give 3/5 stars, just because there's not a lot of lighting inside, and it would be nice to have a bit more. But I would never base a recommendation on just that, the food is good enough I would eat it no matter what the inside looked like, it's truly a hidden gem of...