Char'd — Restaurant in Milwaukee

This is a cute quiet restaurant. When you first walk in there's a full bar (it was so cold I forgot to take pictures 😩 please forgive me). You walk up a few steps into the dining area. I love the atmosphere. It's not too bright, so it's easy on the eyes. The decoration on the walls are very nice as well.

We sat down in a corner towards the right. That area was pretty much empty.. It soon got crowded but that was okay. Seems like a popular restaurant. It was mine and my coworkers first time there. A cute waitress by the name of Fiona helped us. Fiona seemed really nice. She took her orders and soon left. I can tell that she wasn't very familiar with the Korean dishes, but that's okay.

Our dishes came relatively quick. The food was pretty amazing. My friend ordered the pork belly. And Fiona brought out some traditional side dishes to go with the pork belly. The side dishes were red leaf lettuce and a couple of sauces. One sauce in particular is called Samjha in Korean. Fiona said it was called Sam. Perhaps that's what they call it here at Char'd. No biggie. Maybe they do things differently. Nevertheless, it was tasty.

Soon after that's when we realize that either Fiona was very busy or she just wasn't very attentive. I would have gave the restaurant a five stars but we could barely get a Fiona. If the hostess didn't come to refill the waters then we would have gone thirsty. I asked Fiona in the beginning if they had Korean tea, and she responded yes. I asked her if it's oloong tea or another type of Korean tea. She didn't seem to know, but did say it was Korean. I ordered it. When it came I found out that it was just green tea 😐. I would have never ordered it if I had known it was green tea.

All in all I give the restaurant a four stars. Perhaps after a while Fiona will get up to par. It was even hard to get our checks to pay at the end. We ended up getting two separate checks and we were charged the wrong items. It's okay to forget. After she dropped off the checks. Checks. She said if the items were wrong she would change it. But she left so quickly that I wasn't even able to utter a word. She did that all night. It was a little annoying. Because we felt like we were not important. Now the other waitresses came to their tables like four to five times. But they cater to their own table so it was hard to even mudder a word to them as well.

I ordered the soft tofu soup, a side of kimchi and my friend ordered the pork belly and all the dishes were delicious. Delicious. The soft tofu soup had calamari, zucchini, mushrooms, onions amongst other small vegetables.

I highly recommend this restaurant. Please check...

We've been to Char'd several times and have always enjoyed the food and atmosphere. However, it seems that things have started to go downhill. We ordered the leeky chicken and KFC wings as our appetizers. The leeky chicken was delicious. The KFC wings are normally one of our favorite appetizers and we've had them many times, but what we were served on this occasion didn't look right. Normally this dish consists of six wings of about the same size with a mixture of flats and drumettes. What came to our table was two chicken legs (way bigger) and two of the saddest and smallest flats we've ever seen, which had also been French cut so we weren't getting that much meat, for a total of FOUR. We asked for our server, Daphne, to come over because the food wasn't acceptable. She acted like we were crazy and it was normal, but we've been there enough that we know it's not. Don't lie to your customers! She finally told us they had a different supplier. That's still only 4 wings for $15 when the menu says 6, and they're not actually wings. Chicken legs are a different cut than wings. We only ate the KFC wings because Daphne wouldn't let us send them back, and only discounted them. I very politely told her we'd like the check and the wings were unacceptable. It took her forever to get the check... You could tell she just didn't want to deal with any kind of confrontation and wasn't willing to fix anything for us. We weren't mean or rude or yelling, she just didn't want to fix it. Train Daphne better so she knows what tools she has to fix things for your customers when something like this happens, and don't skimp your customers and try to tell them it's the same thing! If you need to start selling chicken legs instead or reduce the number, then change it on the menu or sell by weight instead. This was a very disappointing experience after having been there so many times in the past, and it will be a very long time before we are back (if at all). I'm not giving my money to a business who tries to lie to my face when...

Finally got to try this place after hearing raves from others and I absolutely LOVED it!! Inside of the restaurant is just gorgeous, with cool lightings and pops of greens throughout. The nice decor definitely put me in a good mood to start.

Now on to the food, my family got bunch of plates to share among. I liked how they were coming out paced, so that we could thoroughly enjoy each dish one by one. The wings were definitely a crowd pleaser, and so was the kimchi poutine. We got the galbi and pork ssam, the kimchi fried rice and black bean noodle for our mains. Everything was presented beautifully and they all tasted SO good!! Yes, I thought the price was not on a cheap side at first, but i mean not all Asian restaurants have to be cheap. Char’d delivers some high quality food in an elegant space. I thought the price matched their food and service.

I’ve been to many Korean restaurants when I was in NY, so I know what a typical one is like. This place does not resemble any of those eateries. Char’d seems to be more on high-end, with reasonable prices, and you can tell by their menu, that they are not about serving traditional Korean classics. Their menu instead experiments with Korean culinary techniques and recipes to create something original. They intentionally puts their own spin into traditional Korean dishes, and I think they are doing a pretty good job with it. I am excited to see this type of modern cuisine added to the food scene in Milwaukee. This means you don’t need to like Korean food to like this place. Just try if you like to eat creative, tasty food!

Oh, and don’t expect free side dishes here. There’s no need to. Since when did it become a rule to serve freebies at restaurants?? Sure it can be a plus factor, but should...