Summary

The vibe here is pretty cool if you’re into old school jazz environments. The walls have a load of records and lots of old music devices. It does get a little noisy, and sometimes people eat really slow to create a wait. It’s not too different than other typical Korean bar/chicken joints where they have lots of alcohol and Korean bar foods.

The drinks were ok. Started off with a passionfruit lemonade. There are some bubbles, so it doesn’t taste oversweetened compared to normal lemonade. The pineapple soju reminded me of small cans of Dole pineapple juice with some liquor and pineapple chunks in it. They serve the pineapple soju in a carafe.

The potato twister was kind of unmemorable. I’m not sure what I was expecting here. The fried dumplings definitely were more preferred. I’d probably get another order of fried dumplings or something else over the potato twister next time.

Usually when I eat Korean style fried chicken, I always like to eat pickled radish with it because it cools my tongue temporarily much better than drinking liquids. The fried chicken when it came out were pretty good. For whatever reason, there seems to be some consistency in spice. Some pieces are spicier than others in the “hot” samples. In the mild, the chicken was borderline on the bland side, which isn’t bad at all. If it were seasoned a little more, I’m sure I’d be thirsty as hell.

My golden comparison for Korean style fried chicken has always been Kyochon in LA. I feel this place was adequate, but with the myriad of other Korean fried chicken places to go to in NYC, it’s OK if you pass on this.

Final Verdict

It’s good Korean fried chicken joint with a cool atmosphere. Not quite up to LA standards, but much better than Bon Chon in NYC, but probably not better than Kyochon.

Yelp Jabs

I would say this place is 3.5 stars. I think the ambiance is great but the food was good but not particularly noteworthy. I also felt there was a disconnect for me like I did not really get how the jazz or vintage music vibe was incorporated into the food? So I just felt there was somehow a disconnect between the food and the ambiance.

Probably because this elitist can’t open their minds to fried chicken and jazz at the same time. In actuality, the vibe is perfectly acceptable. Koreans love fried chicken, and they love Jazz as well. Why not have both in the same place? What kind of person would think the vibe has to be incorporated into the food?

Honestly if they paid attention to their water that tastes like lemon + pesticide chemicals of the toilet water they can be a 4.3/5 restaurant. However I don’t think they understand how bad their tap water can ruin the experience of the food they serve. I have a sophisticated tastebud and this was not satisfactory for my experience.

Sophisticated tastebud. I don’t think I would trust any review coming from a “sophisticated tastebud” that lives in Jersey City. Looking at some of this Yelper’s other reviews, you know they don’t have a sophisticated tastebud when they made an effort to review BJ’s Brewhouse.