Uncle Sim’s

What a great find! Actually, I don’t know that this place is actually unfound. It’s off busy Koreamoku next to the ever so popular Sikdorak so every must’ve gone by it.
It’s very unassuming and the panels of Korean writing all over the walls can be intimidating for non-​adventurous eaters. Frankly it’s was this very aspects that drew me in. I figured if I heard more Korean than English in a Korean restaurant, maybe they know what they’re talking about even though I don’t.
They’re very generous with their sides. But you hardly notice because the portions for the entrees are also large.
Food is flavorful. I got the dok and chewy noodle and I recommend that you share this dish. It has a powerful flavor, and it can get overwhelming for an entire dish.

I ALWAYS come here for the dukkboki and chewy noodles dish… And I’m NEVER disappointed. If I lived closer to this place, I probably would eat here every day. Yes, the food is that good

Soondubu (soft tofu) stew was decent. Nice workers and service. It’s a small hole-​in-​the-​wall so it’s not good for large groups.

What an awesome hole in the wall!!!
This place was exactly what I was craving! I wanted something sweet and spicy and soupy but meaty!
Uncle Sim’s is such a small hole in the wall that if you blink you would completely miss it and it’s completely full of Korean patrons that’s where you know you have come to the real deal especially when they have menus on the wall in full Korean writing and the waiter barely speaks English!
The waiter was so nice and friendly though! He kept coming by and filling up my Kim Chee bowl cause I kept eating it all up! It was homemade and didn’t have food coloring but pickled just right not overly salty and right kick of spicy! The tofu soup had a good medium spiciness and tofu so soft and bits of clams pop in your mouth with shrimp to back it up.
The Kalbi was tender and sweet. The chicken and beef was just the same! The bed of of onion below was all sizzling as it came out was still cooking when it came out so made the onions extra sweet so we dipped the rice in to give it that extra sweetness that I was craving with the spiciness from the soup… man my mouth was in Korean food heaven!
I highly recommend this place! Come by and try it! It’s small so you may miss it but it’s worth it when you find it! Check it out! Loved it!
And we also asked for extra Kim Chee to go. of course… and he gave us some! Love them even more! Yummy!

Very tiny restaurant with about 4 – 5 tables. Walked in around 9:45 PM on a Saturday night and only 2 other tables were occupied. My son & I were a little hesitant about dining there because it didn’t seem as crowded as the place next door. However, we decided that we were too hungry to wait 45 minutes to dine in at Sikdorak.
We ordered the Bo Ssam which we both really liked a lot & ended up finishing the whole order, except for the raw oyster Kim Chee since neither of us are raw oyster fans. We also ordered the ddokbokki which we didn’t eat much of because it was a little too plain compared to what we’re used to in CA. Overall, service was good even though we couldn’t speak Korean and the owners couldn’t speak much English.

A friend and I have been craving budae jjigae ever since we came back from South Korea a few weeks ago. Unilocal to the rescue! After a few keywords and searching, we found this gem of a restaurant on Koreamoku. The restaurant itself is located in Samsung Plaza alongside Café Gangnam and Raging Crab. Parking is free in the lot with validation (I don’t know the prices without validation).
FOREWARNING: It will be extremely difficult for you to dine here if you can’t read or speak Korean. Some of the employees spoke very limited English and it was hard for some of my friends to ask what they wanted because there was an obvious language barrier. Word of advice? Bring a Korean friend (or a friend that can speak Korean) with you.
We ordered the budae jjigae and seafood pancake/​pajeon for our group and I ordered the seafood kalguksu individually.
Budae jjigae is basically a thick Korean soup that contains simple items such as ham/​spam, sausages, onions, chili peppers, green onions, cabbage, instant noodles, tteok (mochi), and cheese. The one complaint I have about the budae jjigae here is that they replaced the ham with luncheon meat… that’s just gross. The price is also $ 35 which is a bit outrageous if you consider the price in Korea. Nonetheless, my craving was filled with the authenticity of the jjigae’s taste.
The kalguksu was a bit disappointing overall in my opinion. The noodles were authentic and handmade, but the soup base was bland and had no flavor. There was also barely any seafood in my «seafood» kalguksu. I unfortunately didn’t taste the pajeon so I have nothing to say there.
What makes this place four stars to me is their service. Water was always brought over to us (sometimes without us asking!) and the side dishes/​banchan were filled to our desire. Whenever we had a question that needed answers, they were nice enough to explain (obviously in Korean) in a polite and consistent manner. We also got free servings of rice as service :) I’ll definitely be back when I crave budae jjigae or authentic Korean food!

Stayed at the Pagoda & we tried a different Korean restaurant every evening.
Uncle Sim’s was our absolute favorite because it was just so authentic. Definitely a little hole in the wall & I totally loved that about it!
Best kimchi around & the best priced kalbi!
The staff was super friendly, too, & the food came out fast.

This is inside Samsung Plaza, right next to Cajun Crab. I liked this place, the food was great, service was very friendly. I seriously felt as if I was on vacation in Korea eating here, like I was in a local neighborhood eatery.
We ordered the broiled mackerel and Kalbi, both were very good and fresh. We got generous sides of kim chee, sweet potatoes, bean sprouts, seafood salad and chive pancakes. As well as our own little picture of water. The menu wasn’t as intimidating as I thought it’d be from other Unilocal reviews, but there was some special kine menus on the walls with only Korean, so I’m thinking those were the really special variety awarded only to those who could understand it.
Overall, I’ll come back here. I liked having the traditional Korean food «experience» with the little side dishes being laid out for you but with a café and quick service feel. No formalities, just good food and unpretentious friendly service at a good price.

Thanks to my dear friends for pulling me out of my Americanized-​Korean fast food world, and brought me to a place that was just as inexpensive and fast but definitely more tasty and authentic!
I loved the warm and friendly atmosphere, cleanliness AND multigrain rice offered! We were a hungry party, and started off with meat jun and mandoo for appetizers. The Mandoo were large, crispy on the outside and tasty and tender on the inside. These went great with the delicious banchan.
I came here specifically for the bibimbap in the hot stone pot — I was not disappointed! I love it when the rice gets all crispy from being cooked on the hot stone and loading the bowl up with kochujang! You will definitely sweat your way through dinner with the heat from the spicy kimchee!
BYOB, and despite lines for the ayce a couple of doors down in the same plaza (Samsung) Uncle Sim’s thankfully had no wait. This place is a hidden treasure!

Needed a quick place to eat before my eyelash extension appointment and ran into this hole in the wall place. Hardly anything in there is written in English. The menu had some pictures and the name of the dish in English so that helped. They were so sweet. I had the soft tofu stew. YUM!!! I’m glad I found this place. Pretty reasonable prices… Their menu list isn’t that big but they got the good basic Korean stuff. :) so glad I found this place… Now I know where to eat before my eyelash appointment upstairs haha

My friend and I wanted an affordable place to eat so we decided to give Uncle Sim’s a try. We went for an early dinner and it was a good thing because we were able to park in the lot. When we were leaving the parking attendant was waving cars away because there were no stalls left. The lot is rather tiny… lucky we were in my little Kia!
Uncle Sim’s is a cute little restaurant. We were the only ones there at first but it quickly filled up and we were glad we came early.
The portions were huge. We both were able to take home some leftovers. We ordered the seafood pancake, spicy pork and squid, and mandoo.
It felt like being in someone’s home and they were cooking in their kitchen. The smells were great and the food was tasty.
All the signage on the walls were written in Korean but they had nice pictures and brief english descriptions.

After trying this hole in the wall several times, ordering different dishes, this is one of my favorite restaurants to go to. If you eat here, make sure you eat with an empty stomach because they give big portions, and it’s so flavorful that you’ll want to eat it all, especially with their panchans:
Seafood Pancake — 5 stars — one of the best korean pancakes I’ve eaten that’s not too oily and very fresh with a lot of seafood and green onion in it. The pancake is so loaded that I was ready to burst, especially sharing the soup and eating the pan chan.
Fish soup — 4 stars — the taste is really good, as flavorful as the soon du that I’ve tried, loaded with lots of garnishes and fish, however, a 4 star because the fish has small bones that I hate picking through, but that’s a personal pet peeve that I have with any fish dish I eat. However, gotta have it spicy or the flavor isn’t as good.
Service 5 stars — friendly and personable as usual even if some of them don’t speak english.

Soft tofu stew () was super good!
The restaurant is very small with outside menu written only in Hangul characters, so you might feel reluctant to go in at first, but people working there are very nice and friendly.
Somebody mentioned about the smell of this restaurant. They use lots of seafood there, so of course it smells like fish.

First heard of Uncle Sims is through my Korean co-​worker. She talked highly about this places food and even brought back a menu for us.
We went on a Friday for lunch. It was not busy. It is a small family style restaurant. I like it. Food is really fresh as you can see them cooking in the kitchen after you order. We ordered Kalbi, Tofu soup, Seafood Pancake. Tofu soup is really good. Actually much better than Chodang, which i used to go often.
Heard their noodles dishes are really good too. will definitely go try. :)

ordered the bulgogi plate (10.95 $) and the poke bowl (10.95 $). the food came with the standard side dishes and soup.
it was nice that the had brown rice upon request. portion size was normal, but the seasoning on all their food was very light.

Angry korean lady ran out of rice and veggies at 6:30PM so we were hunting for a korean place to eat. Sikdorak was too busy… oh my…
We decided to try Uncle Sim’s since it’s so close to Sikdorak. Almost everything is written in Korean but at least the menu has English. whew. If that’s an indication, this is pretty authentic.
The sides was excellent, the kim chee is the best of the bunch, the right amount of garlic, hot peppers, green onions, etc.
My wife had the soft tofu stew and it was awesome but needed a tad more salt, but the flavor was very good. They give generous portions of seafood, including clams, shrimp, etc. I had the seafood noodles, and the noodles was truly handmade. Broth was very flavorful, one thing that was different is that it included potatoes. We shared the seafood pancake, it was crispy and had very generous seafood, scallops, shrimp, squid etc. The sauce that accompanied this was complimentary.
The other tables ordered different dishes and looks and smells simply delicious. Can’t wait till we come back to try more. Portions are right sized and prices reasonable. Service is friendly although they speak very little English.
Highly recommended!

Wow, I found a new Korean restaurant to frequent! I am so excited to go back already. We walked by and saw a bunch of Korean Koreans eating in there, so you know that it must be good. We sat down and started eyeing our neighbor’s food to see what we should order. We got the Ginseng Chicken soup ($ 14) and the Bibimbap in hot stone pot ($ 11). It was heavenly!!! The chicken was stuffed with sticky rice and the broth was excellent. My one-​year old daughter enjoyed the chicken very much, since it was juicy and tender.
The service was friendly. I will be back to try out the other dishes!
Oh, it’s BYOB!

Rating: ⁴⁄₅
Date visited: 3÷16÷2012
Food: ⁴⁄₅
Service: ⁵⁄₅
Atmosphere: ⁴⁄₅
Price: ⁴⁄₅
Parking: ³⁄₅
This place is more that just comfort food… it’s Korean Soul Food. How do I describe this place? Original, intimate and just damn good. BYOB.
Food:
They server classic Korean cuisine and original ones. What does that mean? You just need to give it a try.
Service:
Great personal service.
Atmosphere:
Intimate. A very small shop that can seat about 15 people.
Price:
Affordable.
Parking:
Street and private validated lot, but it can be difficult at times.

Uncle Sim’s is located in the Samsung Plaza on Keeaumoku Street next to the boutique Peaches N Cream. Free validated parking is available in the Samsung Plaza lot, but there are also more than several metered parking stalls lining Keeaumoku.
I first wandered upon this store while waiting for Peaches N Cream to open. It was already 11am (scheduled PNC opening time), but they still weren’t open… Anyway, Grandpa and I were hungry and curious, so we decided to take a peek inside Uncle Sim’s. Upon entering, we noticed this sour and almost rancid stench. It smelt like a mixture between nasty gym socks and natto… But we were hungry and sat down anyway. LOL
I could tell this place really catered towards «true» Koreans — not the watered down local ones such as myself — bc the hand-​written signs, food captions, and everything else on the wall were written in Korean. Even the menu! Everything was in Korean except the short English captions describing each menu item.
We got down to business and ordered. Grandpa had the Teriyaki Chicken Plate and I had the Hot Stone Pot Bi Bim Bap.
TERIYAKI CHICKEN PLATE —
— The teriyaki chicken came out sizzling on a hot plate with white onions and a side bowl of rice. Grandpa is Japanese, so he’s used to the typical heavy and saucy Japanese style teriyaki… not the light Korean kind. He liked the flavor, but didn’t love it; I seemed to enjoy it more than he did. I appreciated the combination of the mild and light «teriyaki» marinade with the slightly salted seasoning. I think this is something the bf would really enjoy, as he’s into the simple salty-​type seasoning.
BI BIM BAP —
— My Bi Bim Bap looked like the usual stone pot kind with the usual ingredients… BUT the pot was actually really hot! :) I love it when the rice gets crispy! And it crisped up perfectly. I recommend this Bi Bim Bap for any and all Bi Bim Bap lovers.
BTW — the Kim Chee here is tasty. I dig the sour kind, which is what they had, so yay.
The total came out to $ 21.95 including tax, so pretty reasonable. I’d definitely eat here again for the price… But bc of the stench, take out might be a better option. Sure I won’t get the awesome crispy rice for my Bi Bim Bap, but I’d be able to eat in the comfort of my stench-​free home.
Unilocal 365 — #230/​365