Busan Gukbap (부산국밥) — Restaurant in Fort Lee

Expected much, left a bit disappointed by one of the two dishes. YMMV -Worthy spot to try again.

Stopped by for a quick lunch - definitely a no-frills, your neighborhood lady cooking up home-style soup type place. Don't expect atmosphere or best service - come for affordable, hearty, authentic home-style Korean soups!

They have very limited menu - most are soups as the name suggests (Gukbap literally means soup-rice, as in, Koreans dunk rice into the soup and eat as a one-pot meal), with a few shareable dishes.

Kimchi dwaeji(pork) stew (2/5, Main) I ordered this classic to see how good they are even though I can cook a mean one at home... and I was pretty disappointed. While it was seasoned, it clearly lacked that main layer of flavor. It's the Korean black magik taste of pungent garlic spicy, sweet, umami & savory flavor that's birthed when kimchi and pork goes to honeymoon on a hot sizzling pan. As a result, it just had high-note seasoning and elsewhere was just empty in the flavor spectrum. Even the quantity of pork was sadly outnumbered by overwhelming amount of ... kimchi. You're supposed to hit about a 60-40 ratio between cabbage and pork.. or at least 70-30. This was more like 95-5.

Yangji sullungtang (Beef brisket ox bone soup) (5/5, Main) Wife ordered this and initially it's really bland. But that's because you're supposed to adjust the seasoning with the provided salt & pepper. She had to put copious shakes of salt to make it decent, but once there, the soup had great depth and hearty flavor - none of that fake powdery taste. Also, they're very generous with slices of beef brisket which was tasty. Definitely can be a one-pot meal for most ppl. Eat it with the kimchi and ggakdugi (radish kimchi)) provided for you. Wife took pity on me and donated slabs of brisket to bring up protein level of my meal. Definitely better value than the sullungtang from the other fancier joint down the Main St. whose name should remain mystery...

Overall, I can see why this place would be popping for lunch takeout... and I may have just hit the wrong timing when the soup stock wasn't developed. I'll definitely come for sullungtang as that seems more ready around the clock with time for broth to really develop. Owners are warm and this spot definitely fills a void in Fort Lee Korean food scene, so very happy they're here - go check it...

Food was great! drove 4 hours to try this place. But service was horrible. Kind of expected it to be not to great but whatever. We decide to pay tip 18 % even if it was horrible because it seemed like they where short staffed, and we also know what that feels like. After we packed up our food to go, we said goodbye to the owner, and went and sat in our car and waited to leave. Immediately after we got in our car. The owner came rushing outside towards us. We had thought maybe we forgot something. When we opened the window she asked us what we had written as the total, when I responded 105 in korean she immediately started to yell things at us in korean like "this isn't right" "you cannot do this" "you are horrible". When she finally had to stop yelling to breathe I asked her what was the matter, and she said how can we pay tip 6$ on a 100$ bill.. She then showed me the bill again and I told her we had tipped 17$ and the bill was 88$. She took then looked at the bill again and apologized once in English and left to go back inside.

She was so rude and said so many hurtful things, even IF we had only tipped 6$ that choice is up to the customer and she cannot harass them for the decision. Could have been a simple misunderstanding but the language she used was so harsh. It was such an upset to a great meal we had...

Live bug was in the paperbag.. called the restaurant and the customer service was ridiculously arrogant. The lady owner reacted as it was nothing. I brought the whole food back to the restaurant but the owner did not throw that food away, rather put those food in the back to be served to next customer. They initially offered a partial refund with replacing the whole food I ordered but once I returned the whole food, they just re-make the food without partial refund which they offered. I asked back about the partial refund but they just said sorry as it was nothing and ignored my comment. I can’t believe this restaurant is one of the popular place in Fort Lee, NJ. Pleade do not order food from this place unless you want to be friends with roach.

Edited: 9/10/2024 The taste of the food is not questionable, however, the woman server’s (assuming she is the owner) attitude is unacceptable. This is not the first time. When I came back to return the food and she saw the live bug in the paper bag, she did not apologize for such incident but said “oh, this is a big issue.” The restaurant’s reputation would be much better...