화개장터(Hwa Gae Jang Tuh) (HGJT) — Restaurant in Rockville

I don’t usually write reviews especially lengthy ones unless it’s truly impressive, either fantastic or horrendous. Unfortunately, it’s the latter in this case. We tried their food and service last night which turned out to be a disaster . First, Dirty water cup with previous customer’s pink lip stick mark, we informed our waitress. She promptly seized the cup and turned around without even apologizing anything and never bother to returned our glass! Second, waitress has no clue how to serve but clearly knows how to rush you to order food and pay the bill for better table utilization. There was a Korean family came in after us and placed their order minutes after ours, but got their side dishes before us. The waitress even spent her “valuable “ time chatting with them in Korean. Just felt like we were discriminated as we are not Korean? Not to mention she finally showed up at the end with our ticket in hand pointing to the bottom of the bill where the tips were pre-calculated based on percentage and said rudely: “ pick one!” . The suggested tip amounts various from 17-25%. Please don’t insult my intelligence as I can read and I know what percentage I should tip given decent service! As a matter of fact, it truly puzzled me what gives her the confidence to believe her poor service , attitude and communication skills worth at least 17% and more? I dine out on weekly basis and pay 20% tips at least as long as the service is reasonable which is clearly not the case here. Third, the food is such a mediocre at its best compare to authentic Korean food as I have lived in South Korea before and definitely can tell the difference . Honestly , the food courts inside H-mart offers much better quality compared to this restaurant. It’s also unreasonably pricy considering the quantity and quality of the food. The bulgogi was poorly chopped with intertwined slices and small undercooked portion wrapped inside a bulky piece. My little girl almost choked on this which was a scary moment! Additionally, we were sitted on a table with meat grill station originally then got evicted to another one without grilling capacity because two orders of BBQ is required for using the grill table, and we only ordered one. Last but not least, it’s crowded , noisy even as a restaurant. If I have to name a good thing about this place, it would have to be the bus girl who filled our water cups twice where our waitress was nowhere to be found. In short, inferior food, services and dining environment. Definitely one of my few WORST dinning experience so far will NEVER...

Food was good but the service was lacking which made the overall experience not great.

I went with my partner and we ordered 1 shumai as an appetizer, I ordered regular naengmyeon, my partner bibim naengmyeon and we ordered 2 meat entrees for the grill to share.

My partner got his bibim naengmyeon, but I had not gotten my regular naengmyeon so I waited until after they got the meat cooking on the grill before I inquired about it. I asked our waitress where my naengmyeon was and she left to check only to tell me they were sold out. I was a little miffed they did not make the effort to tell me my order was sold out and I had to ask to find out. However, this issue resolved itself as my partner ended up giving me the bibim naengmyeon as it was not to their taste.

At the end of the meal and after we got the bill, we realized we never got the shumai. However our waitress was nowhere to be found and 10 minutes later, she came rushing back with a plate of hastily cooked shumai. It wasn't even separated from its defrosted form. She knew it was forgotten and apologized. That was okay, but we didnt want to eat the shumai anymore and asked for her to take it back and take it off our bill so we could leave.

However, the waitress started to argue with me. It was so odd because the waitress had such a nice tone but was very rude at the same time. She insisted we had to pay for an appetizer they had forgotten about which only arrived until AFTER they gave us the check and we were ready to leave. I was pretty annoyed at this point as the communication from the waitress was pretty bad from the beginning but her arguing with me about the appetizer was just a little too much. I wanted to explain that she was being ridiculous but my partner and I decided to just pay and leave.

Honestly wasn't that bad of an experience until the waitress argued with me about...

The food and atmosphere of this restaurant are good - food is tasty and hot, and the seating is plentiful. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this restaurant to anyone who does not speak Korean fluently, or has someone in their party who does.

My mother and I came in for lunch and ordered a vegetable pancake, grilled pork belly, and doenjang-jiggae (soup). We confirmed with the waitress by pointing at the photo of the soup we wanted. She then verbally confirmed our order.

When our food was ready, we were served by a different waitress than the one we ordered with. She put down our food, and we noticed that the soup she served us was sundubu-jiggae. We told her the mistake, and she said “This is doenjang-jiggae. It’s the same.”

The two soups are, in fact, not the same. The menu elaborates this - the doengjang-jiggae is marketed with potatoes and beef, which are not featured in the sundubu-jiggae. We requested a menu and pointed to the soup we ordered. Again, the waitress said “This is the same thing. You don’t like spicy soup?”

The issue isn’t that we don’t like spicy soup (which we do), the issue was that the wrong soup was brought to us. The waitress then ladled the (incorrect) soup in bowls and proceeded to wait and stare at us until one of us took a bite of the soup.

Our portions were also noticeably smaller than similar items at other tables.

It became obvious that the waitstaff wanted to get food out as quickly as possible to eat their meal together.

I am not in the business of bashing small businesses, however I cannot abide by being treated like I’m stupid. Both my mom and I have eaten Korean food for years and are well versed in typical menu items.

I will not return and do not recommend...