If You Ever Visit Seoul, You Might Want To Skip Bean Table Restaurant

A restaurant near Seoul named Bean Table got a surprisingly bad review:

Then came a massive chicken salad dish, given the number of people we had we over ordered. The patrons we brought were split 50/50 on enjoyment for the chicken. We had so much leftovers and were wasting so much food, I asked the waiter to wrap the leftovers. . . . Asking the waiter to wrap this chicken came with a resounding “no”, so again to the kitchen to talk to a manager. Actually ended up talking to a chef, a young man who speaks good English, who also declined our request. We had a six year old and a three year old with us and that was the only food they were eating minus the pungent sauce.

Our driver then proceeded to get angry and went to talk to the chef, Sungmo Lee, and surprisingly Mr. Lee and our driver had a conversation that the whole restaurant could hear despite repeated requests by our driver to discuss outside. As that incident occurred being concerned for my family who flew on average 7,000 miles and were picked up for a total driving commute of two hours to come eat at this restaurant I went to calm both parties down. Things progressed from worse to horrible. I identified myself as a food critic, and Mr. Lee proceeded to take that as a threat and stated, “You don’t know who I am.” . . . . My father, a man in his 70′s, tried to speak reason to him only to be found that we were asked to leave.

At the end of the day, police were called, we weren’t allowed to pay the bill till police arrived even after we stated we wished to leave and skip the remaining courses. Police came and scolded Mr. Lee, telling him that if a customer pays for food then containers should be allowed for the customers to take food home. Keep in mind we are talking about cooked chicken, not fish, or tartar, etc. (Mr. Lee’s argument was that there were no take out containers in the restaurant and remained adamant about the no take out policy when we asked the driver to buy some containers). After the police came they asked us to leave while they dealt with Mr. Lee only to find an employee chasing out bus to pay the bill. No discounts, full price and another time suck of 20-30 minutes and the rest of the meal was safely kept in their fridge due to their “no takeout” policy. . . .

Before all of this nonsense came down my whole Korean family all thought that the restaurant was over rated and there was no single outstanding dish.

Until the Internet, stuff like this was never reported.

 

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