Kuku Korean Cuisine Forest Hills — Restaurant in New York

Food: 5/10 Service: 2/10 (due to the server) Atmosphere/Vibe: 7/10

We had fish, japchae, and beef bulgogi—two of my favorite Korean dishes. I've tried the best japchae and beef bulgogi, so this was a hard choice. It was not bad though. I only tried the japchae and bulgogi among our orders. The japchae was a little salty, but I still liked it. The bulgogi, for some reason, lacked that certain kick. The side dishes or appetizers were not the best, but I still liked them. They were lacking something savory? Although I didn't try two of the side dishes, I think we had five if I remember correctly.

Next, I am normally a very patient person and generous when I tip in a restaurant. However, when a server is rude and annoying, that's a different story. This person should be given another orientation and taught how to have good customer service skills. When I asked if I could go to the restroom after ordering, what I really wanted was for them to show me where it was, since it was my first time at the restaurant. Maybe there was a miscommunication, but that doesn't give you the right to be rude. I got a sarcastic response, “of course!” with an annoying and sarcastic face. I have never experienced this kind of gesture from a server in my entire life. I tried to maintain my composure and let it pass. However, I told myself, “just wait until we finish this food and leave.” Even though I had this experience and I was not so happy about it, I decided to still give them a tip. 3/10 for the service—I would’ve given it a zero, but because of the effort in serving us, I decided to give a 3.

Lastly, I like the interior of the restaurant, but my annoying experience with the server ruined the good vibe of this place.

I am still considering if I should come back here for the other food I want to try on their menu, but I am completely pissed with that lady server. It does reflect the passion (or lack thereof) this person has for her job. I always practice empathy because of my job, but I'm only human. I won't tolerate rudeness, especially when I showed nothing but politeness.

Additional info—my friend and I were the first two customers as they opened their restaurant on...

I originally found this place looking for a new Korean place to eat that was closer to home and had great ratings. Sadly I had a horrible experience when it came to my order. My girlfriend and I had ordered our meals at the same time and when her food was brought out I had noted that it was strange that our food was gonna come out at different times. Nearly 30 minutes go by with absolutely no word on my order so I had asked the waitress if there was an update on my food and that it had been so long that my girlfriends food had gotten cold. She then went and looked at the receipt saw the issue and went to see the issue in the kitchen and she then came back to our table apologized for the wait. We then decided to take our order to go instead as I have to pay for parking in the area and this was taking too long. We took our food and paid for it without checking the bag since they had so long to get it right. We did not tip seeing as we had waited so long and in the end basically got take out. I was going to leave it at that and forget about leaving a review because mistakes happen. But when I got home I had taken the food out to eat and saw that everything from my girlfriends portion was there, cold, but there. When I took out my order though I noticed that they forgot my portion of rice and that the size of my container was noticeably smaller and when I had opened it I saw there was barely any pork inside and while I ate I made sure to take note of how much pork I had and I counted 6 Pieces of thin pork. In the end I found this unacceptable and decided to leave a review.

Attached are photos showing the missing portion of rice (also a soup is missing from the photo but it is just on the side its not actually missing) and in the other photo shows the size difference between the two portions (which costed the same).

The food was very good though but awful mistake on the kitchens part, also I had never been somewhere when a mistake is made and you get LESS food when they attempt to...

TLDR; 6~7/10. Great, but nothing to write home about. I've been wanting to come here for a couple of months, & I came today on my own for dinner. I'm glad I tried it out, but honestly if you have the time, I recommend going to Ktown in midtown Manhattan or Flushing here in Queens. There are establishments in both neighborhoods that offer tastier korean food, some restaurants have "date night" vibes, all for better prices in my opinion.

The most unique things on the menu in my opinion are the kimchi fries (I didn't try it tho), some of the (alcoholic) cocktails, & some of the lemonades. I had the blueberry lemonade, it was delicious, the puree certainly makes a difference! That being said, I'm not sure it was worth $9 it felt more like a 7. The aforementioned items were also pricey, especially for Queens.

The place is clean throughout (including the bathroom with the cool mirror) & an upscale yet simple vibe. The service is friendly & attentive, however nothing notably stellar nor unique. I had the beef japchae, it was tasty & quite filling! But it wasn't "mmm! Wow!" in my opinion, it was more like a 6.5/10. I was surprised to see how most if not all of the dishes on the menu are $20+. While I'm aware Korean restaurants tend to be pricey to begin with, I'm also aware that restaurants of any cuisine are usually if not always more expensive in Manhattan, as even shopping at CVS is more expensive in Manhattan lol. Thus, the prices were a bit unexpected to me, the Korean restaurants I've been to usually had at least 2 dishes starting around $15.50. For the lemonade & the beef japchae, the bill was about $35, not including tip.

Oh! One cute thing I noticed was that there was a succession of 4 Jungkook songs (Dreamers, Euphoria, Begin, & I think Left And Right or Too Much) back to back. This was a plus to my experience as an ARMY, & it's adorable to think that the restaurant's bias is...