Korean Kitchen Wake Forest — Restaurant in Wake Forest

I’ve been there several times under old management and new management, and although the food is often very good, I probably won’t go back because enough has been disappointing that there there are other choices nearby that are better. We loved the kimchi pancake and the chop chae was good except the beef in it had no flavor. Usually the beef has some marinated flavor but not here. The Galbi tasted excellent but for the price we didn’t get much. I’ll never order dumplings there again because although the picture looks like pan fried dumplings that are fresh or homemade, what you get is deep fried frozen dumplings that taste like they came from the grocery store, actually I’ve had much better from a Korean grocery store cooked at home. For some reason, even with a party of four people they only give enough kimchi and side vegetables for one person, and although they are more than willing to provide more side vegetables when you need them, you have to ask for it and they don’t visit your table enough that you run out and don’t get to enjoy your meal with them. Appetizers don’t mean appetizers to them, we ordered two appetizers and one came with the main dish at the same time, and then in the middle of the meal came the other appetizer, and then the last main dish came much later. I personally really like to eat appetizers first, so I can enjoy them while they are fresh and hot, and the main courses don’t get cold. We asked for extra rice, but they only brought one rice and when I mentioned it, they said, they know, and brought the other three , but in the middle of the meal, so it just doesn’t make any sense how they serve their food and the order they serve it, and we asked for some things that never came as well. They also only brought one soup and it was cold when it got to the table, and although maybe our order only included one free soup It would’ve been nice and would’ve made sense to ask if we wanted to order extra so everyone could have one, We decided not to because of how long it took just to get the rice and the first soup was cold. So I try to separate the service from the food but for the price they’re charging I was hoping for better or at least a showing that they care about their customers eating enjoyment...

Update: July 9, 2025

Their service has gotten a lot better over the past year and their food is fantastic. It tastes like really good Korean home-cooking.

I’m really enjoying their cold buckwheat noodles nowadays.

The ganpoongki sucks every time I try it. It still has too much breading, is soggy, and the sauce is too sweet. I tried the spicy galbi tang for the first time today and I did not like it very much. The original galbi tang is great…but it seemed like the spicy one was just spicy for the sake of it. It didn’t really add anything to the dish.

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We hadn’t come here since we first moved to Wake Forest two years ago. Back then both the food AND service wasn’t that great. Ironically it was summer and the AC was broken…just like today.

We gave this place another try a couple weeks ago, and have eaten here 4 times since then. The food is much better than before. The service is just as slow though. It just feels like the servers do not want to be here at all. There are usually less than 6 tables so I wouldn’t expect food service to take long.

Today I actually watched the kitchen and they sent out one dish every 5-10 minutes. So one table of 3 took 30 minutes to serve. By the time the last person got their food the other two finished eating.

It’s funny how many groups I’ve seen walk out right after walking in…cause the servers see them and proceed to ignore them. They don’t even acknowledge half the customers before the customers just walk back out.

Anyways..onto the food. I actually like the food here. It’s very traditional Korean food which I really enjoy. I hate it when people take liberties with traditional recipes and screw it up. So far we’ve had the Jja Jang Myun, Jjampong, Oh jing uh Bokkeum, a lunch box combo, and ggan poong ki. They were all good except the ggan poong ki. It had way too much breading and barely any meat.

I thought we finally found a decent Korean restaurant in Wake Forest…but I don’t know. The service was so slow today I’m not sure...

What an incredible disappointment. Korean Kitchen was one of our absolute favorites ever since it came to Wake Forest. We were regulars here. But the ownership changed at the beginning of this month and we just tried it again tonight. We knew the the menu had changed but were willing to give the new owners a chance hoping that the quality had not changed. We wasted so much money. Everything we ordered was bland and our absolute favorite item - the wings - are completely different… not big and crispy and delicious like they were previously. They were small and over sauced and soggy. They were the most edible thing we ordered but absolutely no comparison to what we used to get. We also got the beef bulgogi which was almost gray and had very little flavor, very much unlike the bulgogi we used to get here.The Tangsuyuk is a new item that is supposed to be like a sweet and spicy pork but it was chewy and just tastes like bland flavorless fried dough. It actually looks more like funnel cake. If it was supposed to come with a sauce, it didn’t - but it wouldn’t have helped either way. The fried dumplings taste like a bland egg roll, which is not a great replacement for the amazing fried gyoza they used to have. Drenching them in soy sauce helped a little but not enough. There is nothing we ate from this order that we would ever order again and we are SO disappointed. We used to recommend this place to everyone, take out of town family and friends here, and order lunch or dinner at least a couple times a month. I hope the new owners reconsider these changes and go back to some of the amazing recipes that this place used to offer. Otherwise, we will not be back and I doubt anyone else who has eaten here before will either. Actually, even if this had been my first impression of this place, I wouldn’t go back. It’s just worse that we know how good it...