Bonchon Midlothian — Restaurant in Virginia

Long story short; Just go to the West Broad location.

We've eaten at this location before but decided to give it a second chance. First impression was that the place was entirely empty at 11:30 AM on a Sunday. The one on West Broad always has customers. Not exactly a great sign, but whatever. It was Super Bowl Sunday so we chalked it up to that.

We sat ourselves and noticed the partition separating the tables was disgusting. Finger prints and smudges everywhere. On top of that, they had just taped up flyers for "Super Bowl III" (??? Is it 1969?) and no one noticed how gross the partitions were. A little weird. What else is that dirty? But not a dealbreaker.

We order our drinks and food, no sweet tea is available at that time. Water will do. In my opinion, the takoyaki is the best app (plus I looove takoyaki). It came out room temperature, almost cold. Takoyaki is supposed to come out blazing, molten hot. We decided to think positively, "Maybe they got complaints about it being too hot and let it sit for a little while?" But why not just tell the table that their food is really really hot? The takoyaki were good, just disappointing.

Next, fries came out. At least those were perfect (def recommend those). Then wings came out. I had asked for no sauce on mine (Korean fried chicken is about being crispy, not necessarily the sauce). I realized a little late that sometimes Korean fried chicken needs salt (none on the tables) so we waited for the waiter to come by. It took awhile and my boyfriend had to go find him but we got the salt. I was expecting a salt grinder or a little pinch bowl. But I was given ... a little snowman salt shaker...?

......

.... Moving on.... I have no clue what happened to the radish (we love radish bonchon!). It's like it was just soaked in water, a tiny bit of vinegar and absolutely no salt or sugar. It didn't have any flavor at all. I suppose all the salt they had was being conserved in this tiny snowman.

Lastly, we paid and asked to split the bill in half and pay with cards. We got our individual bills and noticed the tip guide at the bottom of the bill wasn't cut in half. Had we not been paying attention, we would've tipped 40% on a lackluster meal. I'm not sure if they're aware their bills aren't cutting the tip% in half for split checks but it definitely comes across a little shady.

So if you're looking for sauced chicken wings (but only TWO kinds of sauce...) and fries, this place is pretty good. But there are dozens of American wing places nearby that do it a little better. Why advertise being an Asian themed wing place when all the Asian dishes are awful?

Their name is Bonchon, which literally means "Korean side dish" and they screwed up our Korean side dish.

You might eat here and think, "Wow, Bonchon as a whole sucks" BUT the one on West Broad knocks everything on their menu out of the park. There's a HUGE difference between the quality of that location and this one. The West Broad location's food is great and the staff is attentive and friendly.

So basically, nothing huge went wrong here but a lot of weird/disappointing small things happened. Definitely won't be coming back. I'd rather drive an extra 30 minutes for good Korean chicken or just go...

Placed an online order for curbside but because there weren't any parking space in front of the store I called in to let them know I had to park right behind.... After waiting and waiting I went inside 10 minutes after the scheduled time and was informed by staff that "They can't bring it out to the back parking lot." Well, read other reviews here then you will realize they don't bring out the food to curbside in general. Unfortunately we haven't even addressed the food part yet.

For food itself. I can confidently say this is disgraceful to be called Korean Fried Chicken. Meat itself was not even seasoned inside where you would need salt to dip the meat if you are eating it alone (typically Korean chicken gets marinated for at least 15~20 minutes in salt/pepper/milk before applying batter to fry). Then add to this insult the sauce is extremely salty to point where it tastes like you are eating a concentrated soy sauce. Only resemblance it had was the fact that the batter was crispy even when chicken was cooled down.

Pickled radish is a very basic and classic side dish for Korean Fried Chicken consist of White vinegar, sugar, salt, and water. The "Pickled Radish" I got from them was just sliced up radish that was submerged in water. I could not taste any hint of vinegar, nor taste any additional seasoning. It would have been better for me to get a fresh raw radish and eat that instead.

How do you screw up a fried rice? There were bunch of lumps that weren't even fried, and I had bunch of hard grains that weren't even cooked through as if rice was not simmered long enough.

As a Korean immigrant I occasionally crave Korean Fried Chicken but.... I'll just drive down to Williamsburg or NOVA rather than...

If zero was a rating for the experience I received today that would be it. I ordered 2 items Chicken (Soy and Garlic fried rice) and Bulgogi Bibimbap. The manager too my order while she was on the phone with her children (OMG!) After waiting over 20 minutes, I noticed once I received my order I only received 1 set up utensils and no napkins. (Had to ask). Sigh! What was so difficult about that? Let that go. After checking my order in my vehicle, I had to go back inside because they gave me a double order of Bibimap instead! Now I'm Getting triggered. So, Once I explained what happened, the young lady that was running the bar area to a gentleman (Who received his order before me but arrived after me to place an inside order.) I couldn't believe it! Thereafter, the young lady took the bag from me and took it to the back. Evidently the manager( Who must have been assisting with preparing orders, must have asked the young lady assisting me to print the receipt for evaluation (OMG). SINCE I have been inconvenienced again while they prepared my rice order, I asked to speak to the manager and she came out the back (Still on the phone preoccupied with her kids) and walked right past me). She turned around and then told me that the other order of Bibimbap was thrown away. Being from a customer service background, I have never experienced this type of unprofessionalism. The young lady that was mining the customer at the bar area was also eating a meal at the counter and put her wet fingers on my bag. (Unsanitary). I was so irritated that I couldn't say anything more. Nothing offered for my inconvenience. It's about the principle not the money! HORRIBLE JUST...