28/01/10: Dongwon Chamchi Seouldae - Sucks
Category: Food
Posted by: LiteraryHero
It is very difficult for me to mention bad things about food, but I had a bad experience at a restaurant yesterday. Since neither Jisun nor I worked, we decided to have lunch at a tuna restaurant. We weren't getting the unlimited raw tuna for lunch, but were going to try some of their lunch menu. The restaurant we chose was right by my apartment, and we walk buy it regularly, so finally decided to give it a try.
The restaurant is named Dongwon Chamchi (동원 참치). Chamchi means tuna for those of you who aren't familiar with Korean at all. It is a raw tuna restaurant, and they advertise some pretty cheap items on the lunch menu. Their regular menu, however, was on the expensive side. I didn't look at it all that closely, but it ranged from about 50,000w all the way up to 150,000w for various meals. Good thing that we hadn't chosen to go there for dinner, because I can't afford prices like that! Fortunately the lunch menu had things in the 5,000-7,000w range, which is more my budget.
The restaurant itself is in the basement of an old building, which is kind of a turn off, but not that big of a deal. On top of it, the furnishings were old and fairly decrepit, which isn't a big deal if you are ordering a 5,000w meal. However, if you go there paying the 150,000w for the VIP menu, being in a run down old restaurant probably isn't ideal. We ended up sitting in one of the small private rooms on the side and noticed that the walls were completely covered in stains. Not only was everything old, it was also dirty. The walls were stained, and there were cigarette burns all over the floor. Not too classy.
The definitely saw us come in and said '어서 오세요!' (eoseo o-seyo! which means come in directly), but for some reason they didn't bring us a menu for ten minutes. We got the menu, which was when I saw how high priced the place was. This made me decide that I should definitely stick to the lunch menu, so we ordered one chamchi hweh deopbap (참치회덮밥) and one albap (알밥). the Chamchi hweh deopbap is a type of bibimbap (rice mixed with vegetables) that is topped with chunks of raw tuna. Albap is arice that is served in a hot stone bowl with fish eggs (Al means egg) and some other items that get mixed together. Both of these were advertised at 5,000w a piece.
The lady took our orders and then left for another ten minutes. She then returned and asked if we wanted cold water or warm water. By this point, in case you aren't good at math, we had been there twenty minutes and hadn't even gotten water yet. Don't forget, we got there at 1:30pm, so it wasn't even crowded from lunch. We were possibly the only people in there! Finally we get our water and our food, and by this point the waitress is acting like we really put her out with our demands, even though we hadn't demanded anything. Oh, that is untrue, we did ask for utensils, since they weren't brought with the food, and that seemed to be too much of a hassle for her. I guess she just wanted us to eat with our hands. Judging by how dirty and run down the place was, I guess she was not only too lazy to provide good service, but was also too lazy to do any cleaning.
Another problem we had was in the temperature of the room. Since we were sitting on the floor, the ondol (온돌 - a type of floor heating system) was supposed to keep us warm. However, for whatever reason, the side that Jisun was sitting on was cool to the touch, while my side of the table was boiling. I'm not kidding here, I had to sit on four pillows in order to keep my rear end from burning. It was seriously that hot. While this may seem like a petty thing to complain about, coupled with the dirtiness of the restaurant and the poor service, it is worth mentioning.
Now, to be fair, the food was good. There was a decent amount of banchan (반찬 - side dishes), and the chamchi deopbap had quite a large amount of chamchi in it for 5,000w. The albap was also delicious, so those were positive points. Unfortunately, there is delicious food all over this city, and most of them will offer good service with the food, so I would say to avoid Dongwon Chamchi at all costs. Sure, I might have caught them on a bad day, which could explain the poor service, but it doesn't explain the dirty decrepitness of the interior or the scorching floor. It also doesn't explain the last straw which made me write this article.
Since our service was so slow, we ended up getting our food at around 2:00 and finishing at about 2:30. Both of our dishes were supposed to be 5,000w, according to the lunch set. However, when we went to pay, the lady said that the albap was 8,000w, and showed us the price in the menu. So I told her that the menu that is advertising outside says the lunch menu price for albap is 5,000w. She then said that it was 2:30pm and the lunch menu was over. Of course I countered by saying that we had arrived at 1:30, which is typically considered lunch hour (in my experience/opinion, lunch deals tend to be from 11:00-2:00), but she just looked at me and said that no, in fact it was 8,000w.
I did pay, and didn't say anything directly to the lady, but swore I would take my revenge! Unfortunately, the place isn't advertised on Naver, or else I would have bombed it. Instead I have to just write about it on my blog, where the chance that anyone would actually go to that particular restaurant anyway is quite slim.
To wrap it all up, I wouldn't recommend anyone go to Dongwon Chamchi restaurant. The food was good, but the service and decor were all subpar. They also screwed me up on the price I had to pay, which is uncalled for. So, if you are in the Seouldae area and want some good tuna, try someplace else, there are at least five zillion other restaurants nearby. In fact, when I get time later, I will enumerate them for you. Until then, here are the pertinent details of the place to avoid. Dongwon Chamchi is located near Seouldae station. If you go out exit 3 and walk straight for about two hundred meters, you will see the place. It is in the same building as Hulala (Hoolala?) Chicken and right next to an Alpha Stationary store. I won't put a map because I don't want you to go there, so just keep in mind that this is a place to avoid in the Seouldae area.
EDIT: Ok, I might be wrong about the lunch menu times. I just went to a nice Italian place (more on that later) with some coworkers and their lunch menu was from 11:30-1:30. Still, even if the price was right, the place wasn't worthwhile.
The restaurant is named Dongwon Chamchi (동원 참치). Chamchi means tuna for those of you who aren't familiar with Korean at all. It is a raw tuna restaurant, and they advertise some pretty cheap items on the lunch menu. Their regular menu, however, was on the expensive side. I didn't look at it all that closely, but it ranged from about 50,000w all the way up to 150,000w for various meals. Good thing that we hadn't chosen to go there for dinner, because I can't afford prices like that! Fortunately the lunch menu had things in the 5,000-7,000w range, which is more my budget.
The restaurant itself is in the basement of an old building, which is kind of a turn off, but not that big of a deal. On top of it, the furnishings were old and fairly decrepit, which isn't a big deal if you are ordering a 5,000w meal. However, if you go there paying the 150,000w for the VIP menu, being in a run down old restaurant probably isn't ideal. We ended up sitting in one of the small private rooms on the side and noticed that the walls were completely covered in stains. Not only was everything old, it was also dirty. The walls were stained, and there were cigarette burns all over the floor. Not too classy.
The definitely saw us come in and said '어서 오세요!' (eoseo o-seyo! which means come in directly), but for some reason they didn't bring us a menu for ten minutes. We got the menu, which was when I saw how high priced the place was. This made me decide that I should definitely stick to the lunch menu, so we ordered one chamchi hweh deopbap (참치회덮밥) and one albap (알밥). the Chamchi hweh deopbap is a type of bibimbap (rice mixed with vegetables) that is topped with chunks of raw tuna. Albap is arice that is served in a hot stone bowl with fish eggs (Al means egg) and some other items that get mixed together. Both of these were advertised at 5,000w a piece.
The lady took our orders and then left for another ten minutes. She then returned and asked if we wanted cold water or warm water. By this point, in case you aren't good at math, we had been there twenty minutes and hadn't even gotten water yet. Don't forget, we got there at 1:30pm, so it wasn't even crowded from lunch. We were possibly the only people in there! Finally we get our water and our food, and by this point the waitress is acting like we really put her out with our demands, even though we hadn't demanded anything. Oh, that is untrue, we did ask for utensils, since they weren't brought with the food, and that seemed to be too much of a hassle for her. I guess she just wanted us to eat with our hands. Judging by how dirty and run down the place was, I guess she was not only too lazy to provide good service, but was also too lazy to do any cleaning.
Another problem we had was in the temperature of the room. Since we were sitting on the floor, the ondol (온돌 - a type of floor heating system) was supposed to keep us warm. However, for whatever reason, the side that Jisun was sitting on was cool to the touch, while my side of the table was boiling. I'm not kidding here, I had to sit on four pillows in order to keep my rear end from burning. It was seriously that hot. While this may seem like a petty thing to complain about, coupled with the dirtiness of the restaurant and the poor service, it is worth mentioning.
Now, to be fair, the food was good. There was a decent amount of banchan (반찬 - side dishes), and the chamchi deopbap had quite a large amount of chamchi in it for 5,000w. The albap was also delicious, so those were positive points. Unfortunately, there is delicious food all over this city, and most of them will offer good service with the food, so I would say to avoid Dongwon Chamchi at all costs. Sure, I might have caught them on a bad day, which could explain the poor service, but it doesn't explain the dirty decrepitness of the interior or the scorching floor. It also doesn't explain the last straw which made me write this article.
Since our service was so slow, we ended up getting our food at around 2:00 and finishing at about 2:30. Both of our dishes were supposed to be 5,000w, according to the lunch set. However, when we went to pay, the lady said that the albap was 8,000w, and showed us the price in the menu. So I told her that the menu that is advertising outside says the lunch menu price for albap is 5,000w. She then said that it was 2:30pm and the lunch menu was over. Of course I countered by saying that we had arrived at 1:30, which is typically considered lunch hour (in my experience/opinion, lunch deals tend to be from 11:00-2:00), but she just looked at me and said that no, in fact it was 8,000w.
I did pay, and didn't say anything directly to the lady, but swore I would take my revenge! Unfortunately, the place isn't advertised on Naver, or else I would have bombed it. Instead I have to just write about it on my blog, where the chance that anyone would actually go to that particular restaurant anyway is quite slim.
To wrap it all up, I wouldn't recommend anyone go to Dongwon Chamchi restaurant. The food was good, but the service and decor were all subpar. They also screwed me up on the price I had to pay, which is uncalled for. So, if you are in the Seouldae area and want some good tuna, try someplace else, there are at least five zillion other restaurants nearby. In fact, when I get time later, I will enumerate them for you. Until then, here are the pertinent details of the place to avoid. Dongwon Chamchi is located near Seouldae station. If you go out exit 3 and walk straight for about two hundred meters, you will see the place. It is in the same building as Hulala (Hoolala?) Chicken and right next to an Alpha Stationary store. I won't put a map because I don't want you to go there, so just keep in mind that this is a place to avoid in the Seouldae area.
EDIT: Ok, I might be wrong about the lunch menu times. I just went to a nice Italian place (more on that later) with some coworkers and their lunch menu was from 11:30-1:30. Still, even if the price was right, the place wasn't worthwhile.
Max wrote: