Gangnam Station — Restaurant in City of Ithaca

I had high hopes for this place because of its four stars rating. I was craving for Korean style Chinese food. The staff appeared to be Chinese, not Korean. They also have extreme limited English, which made it difficult to order. I ordered three basic dishes for a Korean style Chinese restaurant: fried dumplings, chajangmyun and champon.

The dumplings were obviously not home made. They were frozen packaged dumplings. To make matters worse, they burnt the dumplings, making the skin dark and crunchy and dry.

Chajangmyun was also not home made. It was also from a package. I know it well because I have had that package chajangmyun before. Fine for $5 package food. Not fine as an $8 dish at a restaurant.

Champon was unremarkable and bland spicy soup with noodle from the same package chajangmyun that I had just tried. And they added broccoli into the soup. What champon place does that? Not authentic at all. For nearly $13, I expect much better.

The service was fair but the cook kept loudly shouting Korean-Chinese mixed swear words at the waiter throughout the dinner, ruining further an already unpleasant dining experience. Between multiple "mother----cker" and other choice Korean swear words, I just felt sorry for the waiter.

Avoid this place...

Tried it out today. The service is great. They do a good job scanning the room and are ready to help if you need anything (utensils, more side dishes, ordering). However, the food (tofu soup 순두부, ohsam bulgogi 오삼불고기, gamjatang 감자탕, tangsooyook 탕수육 & side dishes 반찬) are bland and frankly tastes bad 😔 The ddolsotbibimbab 돌솥비빔밥 tastes pretty decent though, so that is my recommendation if you decide to visit. The restaurant itself is small so if you are a group of 5+ it will be crowded to sit together. This is just for your information and did not affect my rating. The atmosphere was ok. They have popular songs on at an appropriate volume so that you can hear each other and can drown out the other tables. The tables and utensils were clean when we arrived. I just wish the food was good at a place that serves food that comes with a price. Would I recommend to a friend? No. Maybe I will give it another try in a few months to see if the food improves. If any improvements are seen I will update this review. Thank you for your attention to...

What a gem! The service was fast and the atmosphere was quite cozy. The Hot Stone Pot Bibimbap was amazing, as well as the Jajangmyeon. The Spicy garlic fried chicken was crispy and flavorful. The portions were very filling, and we felt very welcomed. The staff members were attentive. The server at the restaurant was very kind and stopped to talk about Ithaca and the colleges nearby.

We loved the assortment of Korean/Chinese fusion dishes! It felt very homey. It was just what we needed. Will visit next time we stop by!...