Buk Kyung II

Three hungry people, six large dishes, and one small table overflowing with food and drink. The waitress actually took back our menus to prevent my friend from ordering any more food. With a slight frown on her face, she said simply: "Too much." And that pretty much sums the night up. But if you want the details, read on:

Chamisul
Umm...why didn't I try this sooner? I have always ordered Chum Churum because I'm partial to the name but day-yum, Chamisul is smoooooth. Like Psy.

Seafood Scallion Pancake (Korean-style pancake with scallions and assorted seafood)
I only had one slice because I was too busy stuffing my face with everything else. And being smart, I knew that pancake can fill a tummy up fast so I didn't bother rushing with this dish. I wasn't very impressed with my slice but that may be because it had already cooled down. I think a simple scallion pancake might have been better since I couldn't really taste the seafood anyway. I also wished it was a little more fried; the texture was a bit too soft for me. Pass.

Dolsot Bibimbop (fresh veggies, rice, and chopped beef topped with a fried egg served in a sizzling stone bowl)
This is an all-time favorite dish. I love it when it's served in the stone bowl because being the slow eater that I am, my rice stays hot down to the last yummy spoonful. This one was pretty standard.

Bulgogi (thinly sliced NY strip, marinated and stir-fried with onions, mushrooms, and scallions in special sauce and spices)
Kalbi (beef short ribs marinated in special sauce and grilled; served with lettuce and bean dip)
Both meat dishes were flavorful although the kalbi was a little overcooked for me. And as much as I love making lettuce wraps, I couldn't even bother with it this time because there was so much food to pack away and so little tummy space!

Jabchae (cellophane noodles stir-fried in sesame oil with sliced pork and veggies, tossed in house seasoning)
Eh. Noodles were way overcooked so they were bloated and soft. A gigantic portion though with a generous amount of pork and veggies mixed in.

Ganpoongki (boneless chicken slices, battered and deep-fried, tossed in a sweet & spicy sauce)
The star of the feast. We ordered a small and thank goodness we did because apparently a small actually meant a large in this case. The chicken was fried to a crispy perfection and the sauce was tangy without being too sweet or too spicy. YUM. Granted, we were ravenous and this was the first dish to be brought out so that may have biased all of our taste buds. But we practically licked the plate clean.

Dishes came out in a rather haphazard manner (our pancake appetizer came out after our main dishes) but they came out fairly quickly. Service was friendly and attentive enough - our glasses of water were always full. At the end of our meal, in search of further merriment, one of the waiters kindly drew out directions to the closest noraebang (Jin Karaoke) on a napkin for us. With quiet pride and a sense of heroic achievement in our hearts (we finished everything save for three slices of pancake and some jabchae), we gathered up our full, distended tummies and went off into the night.

This is one of the few Chinese-Korean restaurants in the area. They have a good variety of traditional Korean foods on their menu along with jajjangmyun and tangsuyook that you would find at typical Chinese-Korean restaurants but the prices are a bit higher. There is a good amount of seats inside so I never had to wait for a table. The service is always great and quick as well.

I always get the jajjangmyun which has a great ratio of noodles to sauce. The tangsuyook is also a must get. I prefer to get the sauce on the side so that the breading doesn't get soggy as I eat. The seafood scallion pancake is also an item that I always get. Sometimes it isn't made as crispy as I like and lacks seafood but other times, it can be good so it is an item that varies. I've tried their bibimbap and tofu soup and found both to just be okay. Even though it's served in the hot stone bowl, the rice doesn't get crispy as I like. The spicy rice cakes here are just decent as well.

Overall, it is still a great restaurant to get the Korean food fix in.

With the numerous Korean restaurants in Allston, there is fierce competition for the title of the best Korean food in Allston. Buk Kyung falls in the mid range. The food is decent but it's nothing amazing. The biggest downfall of this restaurant was the multiple fruit flies that kept flying around our dishes which turned into a game of who can catch the most fruit flies at our table. This led to subtracting an extra star.

Food:
Seafood and cheese Ddok Bokghi: at first glance, the dish looked like it was full of sauce and lacking substance, but it is surprisingly large. Not very spicy like you may be used to at other Korean restaurants

Ganjajang: noodles with black bean sauce. The texture of the noodles were great. The sauce was lacking some flavor. Okay dish

Ganpoongyouk: sweet and sour fried pork. Although we ordered only pork, we got a combination of pork, chicken and shrimp. This is good if you eat it all within 5 minutes. After a while, it gets soggy because of the sauce. However, the flavor is good.

When I think of Korean food, I think of spicy foods. None of these dishes were very spicy despite it specifying spicy on the menu.

I just checked my bill the next day and realized they overcharged me for the cheese ddok bokghi. If I was aware last night, I would have asked them.

Also, the tofu stews literally have 3 slivers of meat. The price is cheapish but not for the portion :(

And they rushed us even when no one was waiting at the door and hours before their closing time. Idk...not the best service.

For those of you who don't know, this place is known for it's Korean "chinese" food. It's kind of like their take on american Chinese food (ie: not Chinese at all). Whenever I come here I try to aim for the Jajangmyeon which is a noodle dish topped with a rich black bean/pork sauce that's just delicious (though messy!). The sauce is very savory and rich which goes very well with the noodles.

The next MUST have (assuming you like fried meats anyways) is the Tangsuyuk which is a lightly breaded fried pork slices served with a sweet and savory sauce (make sure to ask for it on the side so it doesn't get the pork soggy!). It's pricey but well worth the money (assuming there's at least 2 of you as the small is pretty large).

Another good dish (especially for the colder days) is Jambong which is a seafood noodle soup which has a very rich fish broth that's slightly spicy (but not overwhelming). Overall these 3 dishes make the trifecta for an excellent meal!

The Banchan (side dishes) are okay but nothing special here.

If you want to have better luck at finding parking, try the lot behind Blanchards (make sure you don't park NEXT to Blanchards because they WILL tow you (100% guaranteed!).

Beware of onions. The japchae had more onions than it did noodles, and it was really watery. If you're looking to get japchae get it from Bonchon next door. I loved the ganpoongyyouk! I like crunchy textures and the sauce was great, but I recommend eating it right away as it will lose its texture.

Overall service was okay. Neither a great or terrible experience. We were the only people in the restaurant on a Tuesday afternoon and the food took about 20 minutes.

Its worst tang soo yook ever had .
How can they serve this quality of food? Not gonna come here again

Welcome to flavor town! Korean spots in Allston are so common, I feel like every block has 2-3 restaurants and my friend specifically recommended Buk Kyung II if I wanted the real deal. This place offers aromatic stew, seafood, meat and noodle dishes in a casual-but-intimate atmosphere. There wasn't a dish I've tried here I haven't loved.

Tofu Kimchi Jeyook- One of many great Korean dishes which consist of pan-fried kimchi, rice cake and sliced pork in spicy red pepper sauce with blocks of tofu and served with a side of rice. Obsess! I'm craving it right now.
Jambong- Talk about spicy, my mouth was on fire slurping on these noodles, squid, mussel, shrimp, and veggies in this red-hot spicy soup. A perfect warm bowl for the winter.
Samsun Ganjajang- This stir-fried seafood, onions, zucchini, pork in black bean sauce and noodles was so flavorful, it truly made all the other ganjajang tastes bland to me.

Overall Service: Excellent from beginning to end. Lovely people and they kept filling up my water because some of their dishes were spicy but I kept on trucking until the very end. No doggy bag required, the food was that good.

My friend and I were in the mood for Korean food so we decided to come here last Monday. We arrived around 1:30 PM and there were plenty of seating options available (people started trickling in about half an hour later, however). I enjoyed the atmosphere of the restaurant- it was relaxing, spacious, and plenty of natural sunlight poured through the windows. The only downside was the occasional fly buzzing around. Once we were seated, we realized our table was slightly wobbly on one side. It didn't ruin the experience, but we just had to be cautious about the amount of pressure we put on it. In terms of the service, it was a bit lacking, admittedly, even before the rush of customers. We had to flag down our waitress before we could get the menus/make our orders!

The food, however, was amazing, piping hot, and fresh. We had the Dok Bokghi appetizer to start, which is a rice cake dish soaked in a spicy sauce with scattered scallions, vegetables, and fishcakes. It was pretty spicy for me, but it was super enjoyable and brimming with flavor (they also have a cheese!!! version of this dish for an additional $1- and that is enough to bring me back here for another visit). I had the Kimchi Bokumbop dish as an entree and my friend had the Bibimbop. The rice had a generous helping of kimchi in it but it wasn't as spicy as the Dok Bokghi, that's for sure! I loved that they added a lot of scallions in the dish because it really helped enhance the overall flavor. The serving portions were very filling- I had to pack the rest of my rice to go because I was so full.

I'd definitely consider coming back here again because of how flavorful everything was! Plus, how could anyone say no to large serving sizes with reasonable prices?!

TLDR:
We found live cockroaches crawling out of the menu and waited 42 minutes for our food. Sadly would not recommend coming back.

I came out of recommendation with a group of friends only to be utterly disappointed. We all ordered jajangmyeon and some korean fried chicken, hoping to satisfy our cravings. The ban chan came out in 4 small dishes. Unfortunately, it looked like 2 out of the 4 (pickled radish and kim chi) came straight out of H mart.

This is where it started to go downhill unfortunately. Several of us received our Jajangmyeon in probably 10 minutes or so, but the rest of the party didn't. Even though we asked multiple times when the rest of our party's food would come out, their only response is "we are on it." It took us 42 minutes (we timed it because it was taking too long) for the rest of the party to get their food, when we were long finished. See the attached photo for timed proof of the wait.

It is incredibly awkward when the rest of your party is waiting but you are already finished with your meal. Don't really know how to explain this but unacceptable.

The restaurant hit an all time low when we found a LIVE cockroach in the menu. Honestly, we all became super queezy and wanted to throw up because of this. And yes we wanted to show you a photo of this so you never have to deal with this sanitary issue again. After asking to talk with a manager about this issue, the wait staff told me there was no manager on duty. Don't know if I should report this to the: https://www.boston.gov/departments/inspectional-services/health-division#complaints

Because of this sanitary issue.

Walked by this place like a million times. Peeked in every time to see if the place is busy and it never was. So never really got the guts to try until last night. I was coming down with a cold and wanted something soupy. Nothing beats having my favorite kimchi jigae. Probably not the best choice for my body to fight against cold and flu viruses. But I'm sick so I get what I want! :D

You probably won't believe me but this place has the best kimchi jigae in town! Well, to me it is. I thought the soup was full of flavors and hot enough to cure my cold. Bf also ordered the jajangmyun and I got to try it for the first time. I thought it was a little bland. But bf loved it and finished it in 10 minutes. Animal.

I'm sad this place has such a low rating. Staff were attentive and very friendly. Will come back for their kimchi jigae and try new thangss.