Dan Sung Sa Restaurant — Restaurant in Oakland

I've had Dan Sung Sa several times before and last night, I have to say, this was THE place to go to if you do not want to go bar hopping yet want to get your drink on. It's located on Telegraph, not too far away from Downtown Oakland so this is also a great place to pregame. Came here to hang out with friends and celebrate and we started off with strawberry soju.

In the review guidelines it states one shouldn't use profanity in the reviews so I would like to point out if this restriction wasn't implemented I would throw in some words; freaking fantastic would have to do for now. You couldn't even taste the soju because the strawberry was the perfect sweetness. The green apple soju was aiight. We got 3 pitchers of the soju, which came out to be $40 a pitcher each. We also ordered four bottles of beer, didn't know how much each bottle cost.

The food we ordered was two orders of spicy chicken wings, corn cheese, two orders of chicken gizzards,two orders of kimchi fried rice, and noodles. Everything was stick-to-your-ribs delicious and flavorful. The chicken gizzards was unexpected, it tasted great, but when we ordered it a second time it tasted differently. The noodles came with rice cakes and those were chewy and spice and oh-so wonderful. The spicy chicken wings is one of their most popular items which no doubt holds that spot; crispy, sticky, and bursting with layers of flavor. The corn cheese complimented the chicken, and the kimchi added another dimension to the meal. The melding of the soju and food was like a ballet dance in a dark alleyway; beauty in a "shady" place.

The total cost of food and drinks came to about a little over $300 between 8 people. It can get expensive if you did the math. The way I see it , you have a really solid dinner and drinks all conveniently in one place where there is seating for big groups and it's not overly crowded. A big plus, it's has a wonderful relax atmosphere to enjoy each others' company. For Oakland's nightlife this place has to be in the books, if not it's totally in mine.

NOTE: Street...

Overall: 4.4/5 (dine in)

We went to Dan Sung Sa in LA and it was pretty different. The LA location's main menu was yakitori which I don't believe the Oakland location has. This location had much cooler vibes and great throwback music too. We came around 10 PM and got the long middle table so we had plenty of space. The service wasn't that great though, and they brought out the wrong item.

Cass Fresh Cold Brew Beer XL ($14): Oh my goodness. When this came out, I was shocked by the massive sive of this beer. It was the equivalent to a 2 L soda bottle! I don't like beer either but this one wasn't bad since it had a bit of the coffee taste. It's a great chase for soju as well.

Spicy Rice Cake With Ramen ($19): This is one of the best spicy rice cake I had. They usually taste the same but this one stood out. I think the sauce is what was different. The flavors were just really good. The rice cake & ramen were the perfect texture. This was probably my favorite dish of the meal.

Korean Short Ribs ($33): Solid short ribs. Great portion, meat to fat ratio, & quality. This was a close second to the spicy rice cake with ramen.

Regular Fish Cake Soup With Jinro is Back Soju ($22): This was under the "Double Feature" section of the menu in which each food item is paired with a drink but there's a limit of 1 per table. You can choose regular or spicy for the fish cake soup. For the drink, you can choose 1 bottle of soju or beer. We got the Jinro is Back soju which is pretty strong. The fish cake soup was okay. I wasn't a huge fan and didn't think it was worth it but my friend loves it.

Garlic & Soy Chicken Wings ($24): This looked good on paper but it was not that great. The marinade was off but I like the toppings and sides that...

We ordered short ribs, pork belly, and bulgogi. They only came with 4 little banchan:

kimchi (subpar) some kind of jelly strips (bland) cucumber (decent) radish (good)

No refills on the banchan and only 1 small bowl of rice for the whole table. The meat took forever to come out and was a bit dry.

Corn cheese was way too sweet, not your typical savory kbbq corn cheese. Tasted like they mixed it with a lot of sugar and no real cheese.

Portions for the meat and sides were small for 4 people and a bit expensive for the price. Maybe if the food came out at the same time, it would have been better. We were there for 3 hours waiting on all of our food and still left hungry.

Wouldn’t recommend to go on a weekend night as it was packed, loud, and service was extremely slow. Find an unlimited kbbq spot if you want to eat Korean meat and traditional sides for a better price.

Korean fried chicken (soy garlic) was actually not bad, crispy and decent flavor, but the chicken was literally missing in the middle of some of the pieces when they brought it to us so I’m not sure what happened there.

Garlic fries were thin and dry, definitely smelled like garlic but you couldn’t taste it on the fries at all, which...