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| - We've been patiently waiting for Bonchon to open, especially since we haven't had Korean fried chicken since we moved away from Hawaii 8 years ago. We're happy we waited. Bonchon is very easy to find on the east side of Broadview Road in Seven Hills just south of Pleasant Valley Road. This is the first week they are open, and they are serving a limited menu at the moment with expectation of serving everything next week. Our family of five arrived at about 7:45 pm and waited only about five minutes for a table. The dining room is fairly spacious and there were many staff on hand.
Our waitress was named Rachel and she did a good job of introducing herself and the new restaurant and it's offerings, We ordered a bowl of edamame to start and also ordered chicken wings and drums, fried rice with seafood, pork dumplings, chicken katsu, and bibimbap with bulgogi. Also a side of the fermented radishes.
Our drinks came out quickly as did the edamame. The only real eyebrow we raised during the meal was at the small bowl of plainly salted boiled edamame. Having lived in a place where these are ubiquitous paying two dollars for a bag of frozen edamame in the supermarket is jarring; paying almost $7 for 1/3 of that amount is almost a shock to the system. They were tasty, though.
Our food came out fairly quickly and it was all delicious. The Korean fried chicken was perfect, hot and crispy outside, steamy and juicy inside with a soy garlic sauce and very very good. The fermented radishes were a perfect side, a cold crispy vegetable with a sweet and sour pickling that was refreshing and palate cleansing. The pot stickers came with the same soy-garlic sauce, very well executed and delicious. The fried rice was similarly delicious, it came with options of plain, with bulgogi, and seafood. We tried the seafood option and it was excellent.
My oldest daughter ordered chicken katsu. She tried to order it without the mayonnaise sauce but we were told there were no deviations allowed from the order description in the menu. (The menu states "In order to maintain the taste and quality of our product, our sauces are not available on the side"). That feels a little "very" to me; if you are an "on the side" person you may want to keep that in mind. Nonetheless, she enjoyed the dish; I suspect she would have enjoyed it more with tonkatsu sauce on the side like we used to get at Zippy's in Hawaii.
I ordered the bibimbap. It was served in a very hot stoneware bowl, a nice traditional touch that allows for the rice on the bottom to be cooked to a delicious crispy layer, a delicacy known as nurungji (Burnt Rice)...it really makes the dish special and authentic. The bibimbap was made with fresh seasonal vegetables, in this case there were asparagus, spinach, carrot and squash as well as a yellow pickled daikon. With additional bulgogi and the standard egg cracked into the center this dish was delicious, well executed and filling. If you order this be aware the bowl and the food are very hot; the food was actually a little difficult to eat when brought to table because of the temperature; for sure touching the bowl would cause minor burns to bare skin.
Including drinks, the above dishes plus tip of about 18% came to just less than $100 for a family of five. Moderately expensive but to us worth it for the memories of eating these same foods across the ocean. Good to very good service in a busy place, lots of TVs showing sports and the cooking channel, good food and portions. Bonchon Seven Hills has a Facebook page, Bonchon has a website (and many locations in the US and abroad) and can be reached at 216-236-6969 to place carry out orders. The address is 7581 Broadview Road in Seven Hills. Bonchon is open 11 am to 11 pm Sunday - Thursday and 11 am to 2:30 am Friday and Saturday.
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