Han Shin Po Cha

My friends told me this place was the ish!
I cant say I agree.
We stumbled in here after a very interesting evening at Karnak. I dont speak Korean and watched as my friend ordered a couple of items in slurred Korean. It was quite amusing because he kept repeating and pointing at our server then at the menu. (haha) that crazy S.O.B.
We got the Army soup (Budae Jjigae) $ 20 and the infamous Soju $ 15. We were sucking down Johnny Walker and Crown rsvp at Karnak but you gotta have Soju when you have Korean food.
To be quite honest I expected it to be more of a stew but it was more of a hearty soup. I wish they gave us more ramen or at least fresh ramen. The one they provided appeared to come from a bag of Nong Shim instant noodles. Ya know the one that sells for $ 1 at the local 7 – 11.
I agree with the other Unilocalers that its SALTY! Thank goodness the soju took care of it. I told our server to stop selling us soju because my friends were just plastered but he didnt listen and our bill racked up. No cool but I just figured he didn’t speak English. I asked him for the address because I needed to call a cab but he just stared at me blankly. Uh…
They allowed smoking indoors? WTF?! Is this normal in LA or in just Ktown? I was choking on some chicks Benson & Hedges but I have to admit she did look sexy smoking those slims. =P
I wouldn’t come back here unless it was a last resort. The bacon wrapped hot dogs sold outside Karnak looked way better than what we had here.

Never been here but BOOOO to HANSHIN for accepting my stolen credit card and charging it… paying for some A-​HOLES meal! That $ 88.09+ tip= $ 103.09 …on Nov. 6 probably around 2 AM or so… that was NOT ME!!!

The food is good, and the price is CHEAP if you order before 9.
cant complain

drink, eat, smoke
has a covered smoking patio, scarce street parking, and valet lot. soju, korean and beers, plenty of appetizers and meals, good portions.

What happened to you, Han Shin??? I know we’re all affected by this bad economy, but how could you have let yourself fallen into the bad cycles of slower business and low quality of food and service resulting even slower-​er business?
Han Shin used to on the rotations of my favorite Ktown Happy Hour spots about a year ago! They have great happy hour specials, 50% off Food + Drinks from 5−8pm. The army stew was flavorful, pork belly with cabbage (bo-​som) was fresh and tasty, and sizzling dishes were satisfying…
WELL, after not been back for a few months… this is what my last trip went like; the place is empty, colorful menus are now a piece of A4 paper with half of the dishes they used to have, stingy portions on those few items left on the menu. They also no longer advertise happy hour special, it doesn’t say on the menu or anywhere in the restaurant. But if you ask about it, they’ll still discount the bill but with a new rule of minimum amount you must order. It saddens me to see this place spells going-​out-​of-​business-​soon all over.
Service was good, it looked like they had just one waiter for the night and he was nice and attentive.
It is so competitive for this type of establishments in Ktown, there are just too many better drinking places to go to.

Came here late on a Thursday evening. I was told it gets crowded but it wasn’t busy that particular night. It was a little dark and dive-​y inside. The menu items were written in Korean and English. Service was OK, although unlike most Korean restaurants this one doesn’t have table buzzers so you have to flag down a waiter if you want something.
We had some beer, soju, dried cuttlefish, and a spicy soup dish called boo dae jji gae (ramen noodles, hot dogs, kimchee, & some other stuff). The food was good although a little salty. However, one of my Korean friends thought the soup wasn’t spicy enough (I thought it was just right).
The main drawback to this place is the cigarette smoke — there’s a lot of it. If it weren’t for all the smoking I’d give this place at least 3 stars.

this place is the usual happy hour spot.
if you didnt know. i LOVE happy hours! lol
usually get the makkoli to drink with side dishes. love the fact that all drinks and food are 50% off.

Han Shin Po Cha is really dark inside and because it’s a wide, open space, it tends to get really loud. My friends and I have to yell at each other in order to have a conversation. Because they don’t have the «slave bells» on the tables, it’s often hard to get the waiter’s attention as they walk by.
I haven’t really tried much of their food which is mostly ahn-​ju but the soon dae and fried chicken were pretty good. The fried chicken comes with fries, kinda like Mario’s! I wouldn’t say their drinks are exactly cheap, a bottle of soju was like $ 12… overpriced…
But overall, my friends and I have had good experiences here and we always have fun!

After not having been here for several months, I was very surprised to see that Hanshin has taken a serious dive in everything! Like most people, I don’t go to Korean restaurants/​bars for the service, but there’s a limit to all things and the waiters were past the point of no return in surliness.
Still, all would be forgiven if the food had been any good. Unfortunately, it was as bad as the service. We ordered four or five different dishes and they were all just barely passable. The Tonkatsu entrée was drenched in sauce and was mushy and underfried. The cold snail dish was pretty gross too, although by definition, eating snails is kind of wack unless you gussy it up with a classy French environment and the knowledge that the $ 400 you dropped on dinner is going to get you some skins later on. *nudge nudge, wink wink*
The «star of the show» –if you can call it that– was the Army Soup, but let’s be real: spam, sausage, ramen, kimchi and assorted vegetables in beef stock is nigh impossible to mess up. This place used to be pretty good, especially because (or maybe in spite of) how they used to serve alcohol afterhours.
Stay far, far away.

i love this place!
so chill. sooo nice!!! and the fish cake soup here is by far the best fish cake soup i have EVER eaten… like REALLI!!!
the mood is darkist but cool. thats how i like it…
eveytime i visit LA. this is the restaurant i cant miss!
go give this place a try and u will enjoy it too! :)

Open space. Smoking inside allowed =(so prepare yourself for that.
Awesome happy hour 5−8pm !!! 50% off on almost all dishes.
— Boo dae jji gae: one of the favorite soups to get here! With the kimchee, sausage, and ramyun noodles
— Spicy chicken dish (I forget what it’s called) but comes out sizzling on the black stone grill thing so it’s kept hot for a loooong time
I think most of their food’s recommendable. Service not bad.

Damn… this is one poppin’ hole in the wall in Koreatown. Han Shin… you are so damn amazing! If you are looking for a wonderful place to eat big and sip big, you’ve got to try this place.
I’ve already fallen in love with Korean drinking restaurants. They’ve seriously mastered the art of dining, conversation, and boozing… all in one fantastic night. This place is for the older crowd, and you will be carded upon entry. One piece of advice is that you definitely need someone that knows Korean. The menu is in Korean with small English print next to it, and the workers there speak very little English. Just for ease, bring a Korean friend.
Atmosphere? Dimly lit for that intimate setting. Korean pop music jamming in the back (can you say… Abracadabra?) and a smoke friendly place. Tables seat about 4 – 5 people comfortably, so if you bring a large group, you will most likely be split apart.
They have an incredible happy hour deal from 5PM — 8PM where most of their dishes are half off. Having been to other amazing Korean dive bars, I was skeptical about the amount of food (since other places including izakayas have small portions)… so when my friend insisted it was already a lot, I was… meh. Go big or go home right…
…Damn, it was HELLA food.
To start, they give you a hot soup to sip at (family style of course). We ordered six different dishes, and O.M.G… we did not finish the food. Usually my friends and I kill the food, especially when we are buzzed, but man… they gave us a run for our money. Some of my favorites include (and forgive me for not knowing all of the Korean names):
1. Lettuce wrap with pork, oysters, etc. — It’s make your own Korean taco almost (yea kalbi truck!), and it was very fresh and delicious. The oysters themselves were soo good.
2. Dok Bukki — rice cakes with fish cakes… hella good and chewy.
3. Chicken Wings & Fries — Damn, there were hella good fried chicken wings drenched in a sweet and sour sauce. The fries complimented them very well. Each piece was crispy as hell.
4. Squid & Chicken Gizzard on Stone Pot — Oh man hella chewy pieces of delicious food, with lots of grilled veges to compliment on the side.
Each of these plates were HUGE PORTIONS. Check out my pics for some of the sizes, but best believe I was stuffed before we finished all the food. And now time for the best part… the drinks!
Plenty of hite beer and soju to go around. The soju was great, and they provide you with a lemon squeezer to add some lemon juice to your soju, giving it a kick. My favorite of the night was definitely the blueberry soju! It tasted like juice, and went down smoooooth. And it comes in a sexy, curvy bottle.
Honestly, my friends didn’t finish the food because we ordered so many rounds of beer and soju. We had a rule where if one person at our table finished their cup of beer, everyone else needed to down it. right away. This made for good times… and, yea… not so good times. ;)
Overall a fantastic experience. The servers were very nice and friendly (and if you looked Korean, they’ll speak to you in it), and gave us plenty of water for the drunkards. My only setback is that it doesn’t have a lounge feeling that I enjoy about other bars, but this one is definitely a steal with the amount you pay for food and drinks. (But watch out, it adds up!)
Parking is available in a private lot downstairs. Valet is available as well. I will definitely come back for some more delicious Korean food and soju.

So after going here for a year or so I thought Id update this since they are having some kick ass specials that make it very worthwhile!
1) 50% off all anju before 8pm. Yay! I love their budaejigae. They also have ahn shin budae. So its like the budaejigae but no soup and noodles and its stir fried with steak peices and you get lettuce on the side with honey mustard so you can wrap it. Its delish.
2) They have these coupons to celebrate the Lakers. During a lakers game before 8pm buy 1 bottle (alcohol like soju) and get 2 bottles free! Buy 1 get 2 free. lmao. An alcoholics dream come true! Haha. Or anytime after 8pm its 20% off. But you need the coupon so just ask them for it.
The food is good and service is excellent. Def the people who work there are very attentive and super fast. They get 5 stars from me!

This is a Po Cha, or a Korean drinking place that serves large dishes of food to eat while you drink as much as they can get you to imbibe.
This is the type of place you might see on a current Korean Drama, where a group of people from the corporate office, male and female, go after work, order some group dishes like a Kimchee and Tofu platter ($ 24.95), and drink excessively. Meanwhile, as they get drunk, the staff turns a blind eye to your smoking, in fact, there are ashtrays on every table! (Since every other person in here, 99% being Korean, smoke here. This sort of thing you find only in Korean and Vietnamese bars)
Meanwhile, as the mostly younger 20 or 30s somethings imbibe and eat Kimchi, there emotionsg get looser and hotter, and then the real Korean Drama starts, live and at the table next to you! What entertainment!
The popular drink here is a bottled, unfiltered and slightly carbonated Soju. Slightly sweet, easy to drink. It is served in Corelware-​like white bowls that you might use for a small bowl of cereal. I don’t know the name of the alcohol, but it is perfect for young adults who want to drink alot without really knowing it, and it goes well with a big plate of Kimchi, which is served very spicy, to make you want to drink more!
The décor is modern quonset hut, or industrial funky chic, like a warehouse. Cement floor, rippled tin walls tagged with black ink letters, and flimsy tables with metal tops and built in grill burners and plastic dark colored chairs. Sort of like Anti-​PinkBerry motif.
They do have a large projected screen with TV on it for distraction, but most people are into their own table drama. Loud current pop music is blaring into the room as well, encouraging people to shout across the table more!
They offer a great 4 — 8pm Happy Hour, which is 50% off many plates and booze. And my buddy and I were given 2 coupons each to return and get 20% off after 8pm, or 2 free drinks before. A great deal!
Although after 8pm is when you can watch Live Korean Drama at the table next to you for free entertainment!

The food was good after a night of Karaōke across the way at the Brass Monkey. The menu is in Korean, but the food has a little American twist on it.
Prices were fair and the service was good. I will definitely be going back for more of the food.
Good and Spicy!

It was a Friday evening and I was ready to liven up the weekend after a hard day’s work. Boozing and munching on goods seemed like the perfect way to go. I called up my gal pals to see if there was anything on the agenda tonight. Nada. Zip. Nothing. But thankfully, my friend knew a happy hour joint in the heart of K-​town.
Now, I’m a little wary of the K-​town scene. I’m not a K-​town girl, I don’t dress in trendy clothes and I’m not stick-​thin. In fact, I don’t fit in the scene AT ALL. My scene is more like Silver Lake and Venice. But since I was flanked by my gals, I didn’t feel too awkward about it. We arrived at Han Shin Po Cha and man… I’m glad we did. The happy hour power hour was AWESOME since everything was half off.
Steamed eggs, spicy octopus, fried drumsticks and lots of the green bottled goodness known as soju. The food was average, nothing jaw-​droppingly delicious, but it served the night well. Steamed egg was a bit on the dry side, but still piping hot and good. Spicy octopus was actually really yummy. The drumsticks were… meh. But the real star was obviously soju. The bottles were chilled, almost to an icy consistency. The server handed us a small juicer to pour lemon juice too! This was a killer combination and definitely served us well. Glowing a lovely red, we paid our tabs and went upstairs to shoot some pool. It was a good night.

Han shin pocha. Oh, good memories. I came here often when they first opened, but their service went downhill soon after. After a while, I went around other bars in K-​town, but I’ve recently started to frequent this place again. Open later than a lot of bars. Sure, the servers are kind of absentminded, but at that time of hour I would be too. The food is alright, any drunk person would find it amazing anyway. The soju is sometimes served slushy (my favorite). The major thing I hate about this place, it’s such a melting pot that I always end up running into someone I know, and well it can get awkward. but that’s not han shin pocha’s fault, technically?

I’ve been going here a lot instead of my other places because I was in the mood for something new. It’s big inside, lots of places to sit and lots of space in between the tables. Wait-​staff is quick and friendly, the soju is very cold, and they have a «happy hour,» at 10−12pm, you can get a soju for $ 5.99 but that’s just for 1 :).
Food is of decent quality but don’t expect Iron Chef, maybe Rachael Ray.
Pros:
open late
good service
cons:
none really, you get what you expect.

A simple formula for success at Han Shin:
1) The soju bottles come half frozen. The colder it is, the smoother it goes down.
2) They give you a plastic juicer to make your lemon juice. How convenient.
3) The place actually looks cool but have a dive bar feel.
4) The food is actually good. It’s so much harder to get a hangover when you eat and drink together.
5) A great tasting kim chee jigae brings a smile and successful conclusion to a evening of drinking and snacking with friends.
Warning, the menu is in Korean…

I can’t remember but I think the menu isn’t in English, just Korean. I could be wrong about that though, and there is at least a waiter there who speaks good English. Anyways, like Jason said, there’s a big screen with sports on it, but no volume… this place has a few different brands of soju, and plenty of different kinds of food. I was definitely the only non-​Korean there, but that’s all good. Parking is underground in their garage… enter from Alexandria St.
Wassup with the wet-​soaked peanuts as anju (appetizer/​side dish)? After taking the shell off, I tried one and it was all mushy when I chewed it up. Not my thing… maybe I’m too used to eating dry peanuts at baseball games.
I was amused by the stuff people write on the wall… some of it in Konglish ^^
Also, another cool thing is they have a happy hour from 11 – 1 I think… at night?! Woah.