MUGUNGHWA Korean Restaurant — Restaurant in El Cerrito

The staff was very disrespectful to my family and I on several occasions. Towards the end of our meal, I tried to get the waitresses attention, but she would just glare at me. After a couple times of trying to call her over she paused while I asked for a to go box, but instead of acknowledging me, she glared at me, said nothing and walked away. I was respectful and said excuse me, so I see no reason why she acted this way. We had to ask a different waitress for a to go box and for the check.

We decided to pay with cash and we left our check at the corner of the table. Several waitresses passed by our table a handful of times and glanced at us, but never picked it up. They even decided to pick up the check of a table close to us while they ignored is. We had to stand up and go to the register to pay for our meal unlike all the other guests.

It felt as if they were judging us and acting as if the $100 bill we set down was not real. A worker at the register kept testing the bill and looked embarrassed when she realized it was not fake.

They also acted very strange during our meal by purposely hitting my family members hand with the side dishes, and shoving the plates to us very roughly. Which is not only inconsiderate and rude, but dangerous because we could have been burned since the food comes in a very hot plate.

It is truly disgusting to treat your customers this way. It was a very hostile environment and it made me feel like they were treating my family this way because we were the only family in the restaurant speaking Spanish. Which is unfortunate if they judge all Spanish speaking people like this considering the majority of their cooking staff are Latinos who play Spanish music while they are working.

Not only were they rude to our faces, but we could hear them whispering, laughing, and gossiping throughout this whole situation. It was weird and immature behavior that should not be allowed.

Instead of letting us go about our day, they purposely had us waiting for them to collect our check for an unnecessary amount of time. This was very upsetting to me as I have been to this restaurant several times, and I considered it to be one of my favorites. I do not see myself ever coming back here after being treated so poorly. The waitresses were looking at us as if we were beneath them and I would never want to give money to an establishment that allows...

On Dec 22 I had dinner with a friend at this restaurant. The food was excellent. Later that night we both fell very ill with what was clearly food poisoning. We suffered severe gastrointestinal pain, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. We wrote a letter to the restaurant to alert management. We then discovered multiple reviews online from the same period with similar complaints as ours. We added to these as we had disappointingly not received a response to our letter. The restaurant owner responded to the other reviews with cookie cutter defensive comments including one which alluded to the possibility that people were taking advantage and another saying that no contamination source had been found. Some 10 different reviews described the food poisoning they had suffered. Then one five star apologetic review appeared from someone whose last review was 10 years ago, to say a member of their group had been sick and used the bathroom and therefore must be the source of the contamination. The food poisoning occurred over a period of a few days putting this theory to rest. Not having been contacted by the restaurant after our letter we called and spoke to the owner. She said they’d been in the business for many years and the health department had come and found nothing, and gave a tepid apology. All in all a very inept handling of a major health incident that could have led to...

I don’t usually give bad reviews, but this time, I feel compelled to share my experience.

My boyfriend and I were excited to try the food here, especially since I love Korean fried chicken. We ordered a pancake, bibimbap, and fried chicken. However, we were shocked to find jagged pieces of glass in our green onion pancakes, which is a serious safety issue.

We immediately informed the waitress, who apologized and said they would remove the charge for the dish. We were shocked. Unfortunately, we forgot to take photos of the glass. She then went to the kitchen to speak with the chefs. When she returned, she claimed there were no glass items in the kitchen and that they had no idea how it happened.

What was even more concerning, however, was that no one from management or ownership took responsibility or reached out to personally apologize. We later learned that the owner was actually there that night, yet no one from the management team made the effort to follow up with us.

As someone who used to work at a restaurant, I know that good managers and owners always take responsibility when things go wrong and make sure customers feel valued. The lack of follow-up made the situation feel even more impersonal, and it was a missed opportunity for the restaurant to show accountability and genuine concern for our well-being...