JJamPPong — Restaurant in San Francisco

Updated review 1/17/2025: We came to back to JJamPPong because we had a bad jajang mein (black bean sauce noodles) at another restaurant in Millbrae a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about coming back the entire week to get jajang mein and their famous Korean double fried chicken. That feeling of satisfaction from a good meal is priceless. Redemption from a bad meal to a great one is twice as good. As a revenge meal, we ordered two orders of fried chicken $20 each, crispy garlic shrimp $24, chow fun $20 and of course, jajang mein $16. The food remains excellent. For the Korean fried chicken, get ready for some sticky fingers goodness. I really like the crunchiness as well as the authentic flavors. Their chef(s) concocted this sweet yet mild spicy glaze for the honey chili chicken which is addicting. We never had their salt and pepper fried chicken before and this was quite good. My favorite remains their garlic sauce version.

The surprise standout dish was their beef chow fun. I've must have eaten this dish over a thousand times. Their chef(s)' interpretation added more depth by including chopped onions, scallions, bok choy, choy sum along with bean sprouts. The dish had a good smokey, wok hei flavor with the end tips of the beef, chow fun and onion caramelized. Chow fun could be boring but the chef did a good job with the light seasoning that rivals the best out there.

Service was excellent. Constant water refills, extra napkins because the chicken. Side note, the owner's wife recognized me from my crispy noodles photo that I posted on Yelp when they first opened and gave me and my family an oyster sauce clams dish. That was an unexpected revelation. We were already so full. It is nice to be treated like VIP even though I'm just a regular guy that likes to eat. It is a testament to them being a small local restaurant that recognizes their customers. This genuinely made my week a little bit better. Walking home with a stuffed stomach beyond capacity is delightful. Great job everyone at JJamPPong.

Updated review 7/28/2023: We've been to JJamPPong a few times since my initial review. The food is now more refined. I noticed they no longer have the lunch time specials. Since the restaurant's name is JJamPPong, I wanted to try their jjamppoong (spicy seafood noodles) $18. We usually get their fried chicken dishes and the black bean sauce noodles. Those are hella good. For the jjamppong, the chef put the right amount of spices where it wasn't too hot. I was able to appreciate the seafood, noodles and vegetables in the soup. After eating this, my mouth didn't have a spicy aftertaste. That was a surprise. For the appetizer, I got their pot stickers $10. These didn't look like the ones I saw on other Yelper's photos. They served it with soy sauce on the side. I would have preferred pot sticker sauce (vinegar, ginger, garlic, sugar, sesame oil.) Soy sauce is too salty for this dish. Otherwise, this was a good lunch.

Original review2/25/2022: Today's lunch included shrimp crispy pan-fried Hong Kong style noodles $17 and double fried garlic sauce chicken wings $15. The crispy noodles were delicious and I can recommend this. It tasted like the ones I used to get at the big banquet restaurants in Hong Kong's Kowloon district. Each bite was more captivating than the last. The weird thing was, there's no fancy ingredients other than bok choy, bits of carrots, minced garlic, gravy and shrimp. The secret was the right amount of gravy. Not too much making this dish crispy to...

Finally found the chance to come and try their raw marinated crab!! Ive been here once before they added the crab to their menu and thought the food was good. But I wanted to give a proper review once I saw everyone raving about the raw crab. I came in on a friday night at 8pm and inside was pretty crowded. I was worried they werent going to seat me since they close at 830 but I was seated right away and given hot tea. I ordered the raw crab and seafood jjamppong. The crab came out very quickly and came with a big bowl of rice and a pack of seaweed. They also gave a box of gloves. They also gave us kimchi and pickled radishes. The jjamppong came soon after. The crab was so good!! Not many places serve it in sf and it really did live up to the hype. Putting a lil wrap together with the seaweed and rice made the experience so good. The gloves came in super handy and you definitely need a whole box at your table lol. The seafood jjamppong was also great. It also came with a crab!! And lots of other seafood too like mussels, clams, shrimp. The two dishes were the perfect amount of food for 2 of us. I cant wait to come and...

Recently came here for a friend's birthday. There were a few things that I wanted to try and luckily they were all under the specialties.

The things I would definitely recommend would be the seafood jjamppong, the spicy raw crab, and the fried chicken wings. The jjamppong is nicely spicy with tons of seafood and you also get noodles. The raw crab is definitely something great to try if you've never had it before. It did sell out that night we were there, so if they do have it, i would definitely recommend ordering it. The fried chicken was probably my favorite thing I had that night. So flavorful and fried so well!

With the spicy crab we also got rice and seaweed. We are recommended by one of the staff to put the crab sauce on top of the rice and eat it that way. Definitely a pro tip cuz it was very delicious!

We also got the tangsuyuk (sweet and sour pork) and jajang mein. I wasn't the biggest fan of either but they weren't bad.

Overall a great experience with good food. Staff is friendly and very helpful. There is only street parking but you will most likely find a space pretty easily since there is residential...