Korean Village Restaurant

I was craving Korean food (I swear I'm not pregnant again), and my husband suggested taking our son to Koreatown and picking a restaurant. Since he was in a stroller, we were a bit nervous about some of the smaller places, but we knew Korean Village Restaurant was quite large so we decided to take our chances there.

Restaurant: Korean Village Restaurant
Location: Seaton Village
Meal: Dinner
Day: Sunday
Son's Age: 24 weeks

When you enter, there is a wall with photos of celebrities who have been here, including Jackie Chan, Sandra Oh, and Nelly Furtado, so I guess this place is kind of a hot spot. There's a random unused piano in the back of the restaurant, though, and the decor looks a bit dated. This is also so far the only Korean restaurant I've been to that uses disposable wooden chopsticks, which admittedly is easier to use than the thin, flat, metal chopsticks that are usually provided. Not really a plus or a minus, just threw me off a little.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️
Despite the size of the restaurant, we were asked to fold up the stroller and place the car seat on the chair. We were seated at a booth so it was a bit of a tight squeeze, but we managed to get the car seat in.

The washrooms are located in the basement, so definitely not stroller accessible, and there was no change table.

While there is counter space, the only area where you might be able to change a baby is on the edge, which is also a head injury waiting to happen if your baby likes to roll over. 

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Service was fine albeit unmemorable. This is not a place to come to for outstanding service, but food came out relatively quickly. Side note: I did not need to ask for more banchan but I hear that they don't give free refills here, which, if true, is pretty odd. 

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

There were five banchan dishes that were pretty decent - about what you would expect at a Korean restaurant. 

For my meal, I ordered a spicy chicken bibimbap in a stone bowl. 

It came with a side of miso soup. I love bibimbap and this tasted really good, but I'm not sure how authentic it is because I've never seen bibimbap done this way. It was mostly chicken and onions with few other veggies, and also included broccoli. Bibimbap means mix mix rice, and usually there is a lot of different veggies that you mix together with your rice, but in this instance it was mostly pre-mixed. Again, this doesn't make it bad; I actually quite enjoyed it. Just saying that if you are looking for a more traditional bibimbap, this isn't it. My husband ordered the seafood pancake. 

Not bad, although to be fair the last time he had one of these was in Busan so it was jam packed with seafood. In this case, the egg-to-seafood ratio was a little higher than what he would have preferred. Again, not bad, but certainly not the best. 

Overall: ⭐️⭐️½

The food and service are okay, but it's not the most accessible place for a baby. I wouldn't say no to coming here again but it's not a place I would aim to revisit.