Gung Chae Korean Healthy Kitchen - Centennial — Restaurant in Las Vegas

How disappointing.

As a Korean, I was pleased to see a Korean joint opening here right by my yoga studio. Take this review with a grain of salt because this location just opened yesterday, and while I wanted to give some grace, the experience kept getting worse.

Let’s go over how it went from bad to worse.

(1) Upon walking in, nobody even greets you. It’s your second day of business. If you can’t even get that right — don’t bother.

(2) The price of some of the menu items seem exorbitantly high but perhaps, I thought, the product itself would prove worthwhile in amount or taste.

(3) It’s not a vast menu and this is not some shop that opened its first location. This is the second location. How is it that the person taking your order at the register cannot understand SHORT RIB DOSHIRAK ($25) — that is on your menu?? Repeated twice and then he wants me to give him the # on the menu. That’s just an utter lack of training. More management’s fault than this guy. Then he fails to understand “spicy pork bibimbap,” ($15.50) so I give him the menu #. I order these two items and a $14 (!!) “gung chae kimbap.”

(4) They go ahead preparing the food with four people mulling about preparing this doshirak (bento). +1 point for beautiful packaging and exquisite attention to someting that doesn’t matter compared to some of this other stuff.

(5) About 15 minutes passes and I’m offered a large bag by another employee claiming it’s my order. As I mentioned, I’m Korean… I know what doshirak looks like and I can see the kimbap, but I see no evidence of my bibimbap. I ask if it’s in here and she stares at the attached receipt pondering if it is. She clearly doesn’t know what the bibimbap looks like so she can’t peer into the bag to verify that it is not. Then, she takes back the bag and three of them stand there peering at the receipt, like the bibimbap would somehow magically appear. A Korean woman comes by, appears to confirm it is indeed missing, then begins preparing it.

The thing is — anyone non-Korean or an Uber driver would have walked out with this takeout order completely unaware that one entire entree was missing, assuming it’s in one of these [great] containers. I’d have driven home 15 minutes and one of us would be without food.

(6) They finally fulfill the whole order and the same girl hands me back the bag. There’s not a “sorry about that” or even a “thank you.” I’m handed the bag like they didn’t essentially just try to rip me off or didn’t just make a mistake. SERIOUSLY, WHO IS TRAINING THIS STAFF???

(7) OK. Above all else, I’m about the food. All else is forgivable if the food is worth the near $60 I paid for this experience, right? It’s their second day opened so I can overlook it all, right?

Except it’s nothing exceptional.

They sell their kimchi and radish kimchi — both are average, at best. I may be biased because I make my own kimchi but this kimchi is not worth purchasing.

The short rib doshirak is unimpressive. It’s shabby quality of LA galbi, with puny amounts of meat on the bones, and an even dinkier number of ribs.

The soybean stew it came with is acceptable, or at least much better than the ribs. The banchan is unremarkable.

The bibimbap — what kind of bibimbap doesn’t come with an egg? But okay - I fried my own at home and put it on top. But putting that aside, it is a huge amount of white rice with improperly portioned toppings. The spicy pork consisted of literally a tiny amount that fit into the small middle cup, but more importantly — it’s a completely tasteless spicy pork.

And the $15 kimbap? 🤦🏻‍♀️ Compared to this, which barely had one sliver of ribs in it, the short rib doshirak turned out to be a good buy.

The photo also shows purple rice in their marketing shots but nothing of the sort was offered to me.

I intended to come try the naengmyun (cold noodles) and tofu soup, but I won’t be back. Seriously, if you can’t hire people who will at least say hello, never mind apologize when they get the order wrong, I’m not sure if you are meant to stay...

Today my family and I had a poor experience at this location. The first issue was the service and attitude of the workers, the girl who took our order (and put on our sauces) was looking at us judgmentally (with like a stank face) she wasn’t friendly, her name was Alyssa A, we went on 7/23/23 at 3:01 pm. The other girl, Emmalei was not much nicer. My corndog was pretty underdone, cheese wasn’t cooked, it was also very doughy. The dough was white. when my boyfriend took the corndog to them and showed them, they said it was supposed to be a mochi texture, but then he pointed out the uncooked cheese, they said they would make another, neither of them would look at him either, i decided to not have another and just leave, which upset the girl (emmalei, i think) because we all felt uncomfortable. I’ve been going to cruncheese for quite a while, before the centennial and decatur locations, i used to go to the shang hai plaza location, I never had an issue like this before. that corndog tasted bad and made me feel sick to eat. I wish I could have taken a picture before my boyfriend handed it off to them. I’m really only posting this to get in touch with the owner, i’d rather not have to put a review like this for a place that my family has always enjoyed. but this experience was unfair and very...

3 ⭐️Gung Chae Korean Healthy Kitchen

Tried Gung Chae for lunch today and overall, it was a decent experience. The presentation was clean and organized, with everything served in a well-arranged bento-style tray. The kimchi tofu soup was definitely the highlight—flavorful, comforting, and well-balanced. All the side dishes were fresh and tasted great, and the rice was just okay.

However, the bulgogi was a bit of a letdown. I prefer it soft and moist, but this version was on the drier side and slightly overcooked, which took away from the overall enjoyment.

The biggest issue for me was the pricing. Including the drink and a $4 tip, the total came out to around $34 for one person. While the portion was slightly larger than a typical bento, I still felt it didn’t justify the price. Coming from Hawaii, I’m used to higher food costs, but even at places like Pearl’s Korean BBQ back home, I’d get more generous portions and meat variety for less.

For me, this felt more like a special occasion or “once-in-a-while” kind of spot rather than a place I’d return to regularly. The food was good in parts, but the value just wasn’t there for the...