Mandu — Restaurant in Washington

When my husband and I first began dating, we were just walking distance away from NYC's K-town. Soon tofu, Bibimbap were our default, go-to, comfort food. Unfortunately, DC just doesn't have any good Korean (or any Asian) restaurant options available. After multiple failed foodie trips to Northern VA for some legit Korean grub weekend after weekend, my husband and I were more than thrilled to learn that Mandu was just walking distance from us and also offered all our Korean cravings!

We were welcomed and impressed by Mandu's clean, bright, modern dining room. My husband went with his go to soon tofu and I went with their brunch platter chicken special. We were served with their side dishes immediately after we placed our orders. All of their side dishes were very tasty and spot on (loved the black beans, chilli cucumber, and marinated eggplants!). I couldn't help but ask for multiple refills (at least I was eating my veggies and not a whole bread basket!).

My husband was impressed by the amount of seafood he received in his soon tofu. Although it was little spicier than what he's used to, he claimed it had just the right amount of heat to it.

I couldn't believe how much food came with my brunch platter. I actually had enough leftover to pack home for another meal. The pancakes were out of the world (piping hot + chewy inside, crispy + crunchy outside) - too bad it only came with two pieces! I would definitely order them separately next time as my appetizer! The chicken - a little overcooked aka dry and overwhelmed by the amount of chili oil - nevertheless still delicious (a little fat doesn't hurt anyone and I need to work on some curve on this body).

Not that I didn't have enough to eat from my brunch platter and side dishes combined, my special also came with dessert! I had the options of sorbet (guava or passionfruit) or gelato (Nutella) - I opted to share the guava with my husband. Served in a small tea cup, the guava sorbet was light yet creamy = simply the perfect sweet ending.

Overall - Our waitress was a trainee and did an amazing in serving us (refilled our side dishes 4 times!). Foods were on point, just a little on the pricier side (more expensive than all the Korean restaurants we had back in NYC - but hey with the limited options in DC, this was a steal!). Mandu has officially become our Korean fix restaurant! Can't wait to return to try the rest...

Everything was great, the food and seating. Our server was very bad, as soon as we got there he told us that we only had an hour and a half and that we better hurry up even though there were more empty tables. Then 20 minutes before our scheduled leave time he started rushing us by offering to take our food to go. He interrupted me multiple times to hurry me out of this restaurant. It's unfortunate that the best Koream food in DC has such poor service. Next time I'll go to Annandale, VA where the best Korean restaurants are and, after this experience i've decided its worth the drive. Then we he brought the food back to-go there was significantly less in the containers than what was in our plates. FYI the average entre price is 32 dollars. Also, I am Hispanic and my friend was too, so I take these kind of actions as discriminatory. This considering that the two tables next to us were not being hurried like us, arriving earlier than our table too! I am against restaurants that have servers that feel that they can make management decisions themselves. I can blatantly see how our table was treated and the one next to us. I of course left a bad tip after that horrible service. Our server was a white male by the way. I can confidently say the food is great, but bad management and bad hirring decisions have left a bad taste in my mouth. I feel bad for the cooks since they did a great job, they just let a very rude person take the food out and...

I came here for lunch on a weekday, and it was about half full when I arrived. I was promptly seated, given a menu, and served water. I got mandu (half shrimp, and half pork + beef) and ddukbokki (rice cakes in red sauce with beef and mushrooms). The mandu came out first, and the skin was chewy and there was a lot of filling. But, there wasn't a lot of flavor, though the dish come with light soy sauce. They were tasty for an appetizer. After a while, I was served a plate of bulgogi, and I told the waitress I ordered ddukbokki, not bulgogi. I apologized, and she said it's okay and went to put in my order. She also gave me the side dishes (potato, broccoli, beans, cucumber, kimchi, and tofu), which were all okay. I've had a lot of Korean food (including in South Korea) and this was the first time I've ever seen beans as a side dish. Anyway, my ddukbokki came out afterward, and it didn't look like a lot of food but it was. There was a LOT of beef but not a lot of rice cake. I actually counted and there were ten pieces of rice cake. For a dish that's rice cakes, I expected there to be more rice cake. There was a decent amount of mushrooms as well. But more rice cake please! All this came out to be around $29 post-tax, which is definitely quite pricey for the amount of food. Service is quite friendly but a bit slow; I asked for broccoli and potato refills and it came out really late (I actually thought the waitress...