Anju — Restaurant in Washington

Our meal started off with a pair of appetizers - Hwe & fried chicken. The chicken was highly recommended by the waiter as a house specialty.

We were quite curious how they would prepare the Hwe (Korean for sashimi), with the listed veggies. Boy were we disappointed when we were delivered the generic tuna tartare in a ring mold. A far cry from any Korean sashimi preparation I've ever seen.

We then confronted the fried chicken, which I would describe as too sweet, undercooked and over sauced. Korean fried chicken is an institution - one which Americans have been fortunate to delve into with the likes of the Chi Mc (Burke is my fav) and Bonchon chains in NoVA. This was neither.

At this point, we also ordered some makkoli (750ml Korean rice wine) to go with our meal. It was, inexplicably served in a tea pot. For makkoli, this is problematic - you have to shake the makkoli to get the sediment into the makkoli. Difficult when it is in a teapot. You also can't tell how much is left, it was odd, and took quite a bit of space on the small table.

Having finished the appetizers, we were presented with our banchan (traditional small plates which accompany a meal), which you, dear reader are expected to order and pay for separately - an unexpected twist. In Korean cuisine, these are a mark of pride - restaurants compete to present the best, most varied and highest quality banchan included as part of the meal. We ordered a pickled cucumber, kimchi, seaweed salad and chayote pickle. They were pretty good, but the kimchi was a little too sour and lacked umami - we speculate it was made with too little fish sauce. Kimchi preference can be very individual, but this was certainly off.

The main entries, a ssam board and dak jjim. The dak jjim was well made, and fairly authentic. The sauce tasted possibly store bought, but one of our diners certainly enjoyed it and wants to learn to make it.

The ssam board was nice, and when asked we were provided with extra perilla. There could have been a wider selection on the board, but this was pretty good and the beef was well cooked.

Our waiter was attentive and the food service was prompt.

If you are looking for a hip DC night spot to take a date - this place has the atmosphere for sure. If you are looking for good Korean food, just go...

Usually eating out in DC is a family battle on where to go because my husband typically feels like the prices are high for the quality, while I don’t mind paying a little more for good food in a cozy spot. Anju has typically been a place that makes us both happy because it’s usually a home run for flavourful food at a decent price, nice atmosphere, and great service. Tonight, I felt my husband’s pain because apart from the great service, good lotus root panchan and decent mandu, the food was a bit of a dumpster fire and it cost us nearly $200 (with two glasses of wine and a lemonade). The Brussels sprouts were not caramelized or even just crispy - they were overdone and bitter with no seasoning or interest in the cheese which fell flat and contributed nothing but grease. The Bibimbap which is usually a staple order for us was also weirdly bitter, the gochujang wasn’t great, and the best tasting thing in the bowl was the fried egg - not a good sign. Honestly I have had better at a run of the mill chain store which is shocking because Anju’s Bibimbap is usually soooo good. The worst, however, was the Ori Jjajangmyeon. The duck was not seasoned, and the noodles, gosh, I can’t actually remember the last time I had something that was so cloying. There was no acid or bright points in the dish and it seemed that the sauce had been reduced to such a degree that it had taken on a molasses consistency, flavour, and bitterness. It was then heavily added to the noodles that were so coated you couldn’t taste them (or the mushrooms that were under cooked, or the zucchini that was over cooked, the Napa cabbage was barely there). Usually out of respect for the kitchen I take the food home, especially when there is half left, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat another bite. Anju, I know your game is better than this and I pray the kitchen just had an off night near the holidays, but so sadly after tonight’s experience we won’t be back...

Incredibly underwhelming. Read so many reviews and we were really excited and the actually food was really meh.

TL;DR - underwhelming, some dishes were unappetizing, did not enjoy any of the food apart from the chicken. The kimchi was awful and ruined the soup entirely. Service is great and space and atmosphere is good.

First the good; the chikin was pretty good, a traditional double fried Korean fried chicken with a good drench of sauce for flavor. The texture was good and the meat was juicy.

But everything else was.. just meh or unappetizing. First of all.. where in the world do you charge for Korean side dishes? It's just not in the culture at all and immediately off putting to have that be a thing. And second of all the kimchi was not good, having to have paid for it just added insult to injury. The kimchi didn't taste acidic at all, it felt like it wasn't pickled/fermented and it was SALTY. Like really salty why are you adding salt to kimchi out here. We also got the lotus root which wasn't bad, it was caramelized and soft which was surprising but had good flavors.

The dolsot bibim bap was fine. It honestly felt they just put fried rice into a dolsot. The bottom of the rice wasn't crispy at all like it traditionally should be, and we weren't even provided gochujang to mix in with the rice.

The kimchi jigae was pretty unappetizing. We barely even touched it and the restaurant was great with the service and noticed and took it off our bill. The flavor was a bit offensive honestly, probably because the same kimchi that was used for the side dish was also used in the soup.

The Palace Ddukbokgi wasn't bad! It was different from traditional tteokbokki in that the sauce was a sweet soy type but there were less than 15 rice cakes total in the whole thing. The texture of the rice cakes were pretty chewy and the sauce was...