Da Won

I am not going to lie, my most recent experience here means that I probably will not be returning. I’ve been here many times before because my Korean students tell me it’s really good authentic Korean food. I have not been back for about a year and I was very disappointed by my lunch experience yesterday.
I went with my co-​worker during our lunch hour, so we were already in a time crunch. The server did not speak English well, so my co worker pointed to the picture of what she wanted and asked what it was. The server seemed confused, read the descriptions, narrowed it down to 2 possibilities, then finally said it was the sushi combo. (It was not). After I got all my food and she got her soup and salad, we waited for 20 minutes and still no sushi combo. She went to ask and obviously they forgot but using the language barrier, they just told her it was on the way. They brought it out and it was not the picture, but we were out of time to argue so she ate it and we left. They didn’t offer a discount for the wait time or bring us any compensation, which I guess we expected because it is an Asian establishment.
There is so much good Korean food around nowadays, I do not think I will be returning. The side dishes were mediocre, which used to be my favorite reason for coming here. The prices are exorbitant, unless you come during lunch. The lunch specials aren’t too bad. Though friendly, communicating with the servers prove to be difficult. So even though they have a smile on their faces, the chances of you getting what you ordered is ⁵⁰⁄₅₀. If you want to play Russian roulette with your lunch order and take a walk on wild side of lunch, this is the place for you!

I don’t think I’ve ever given a restaurant one star. However, this one deserved it. On a rainy weeknight, Da Won was not busy. There were two servers (male and female). We had to flag down our server for everything, water, menu, etc. Our drink orders were never taken. We didn’t have silverware. We asked for silverware and they only gave us three, which came rolled in a napkin. Our fourth party, my two-​year-​old daughter was apparently too little to warrant neither silverware nor napkin. We had to ask for an eating utensil for her. We also had to flag them down to take our food order. The male server was more worried about cleaning tables than serving us. Apparently, we got there right after the dinner rush hour had left (7:30 p.m.). Our food finally came, 20+ minutes after ordering. My Soon Tofu did not come with rice. I thought it was odd but didn’t say anything.
A party of three arrived 20 minutes after us. Their menus and water were promptly brought out to them as well as there food. That’s when I realized that one of the diners had rice served with their soup. When I asked about my rice, the male server examined our table closely to see whether in fact I didn’t get any rice. SMH (just writing about it now is upsetting me). Really, I’m trying to con you for a bowl of rice. lol.
We ordered the fried squid for appetizer. I advise against ordering this. It was mainly a lot of bland flour paired with equally bland squid.
My fiancé ordered the Bulgogi, which was okay. My daughter ordered the Dduk Gook and expressed that she’s had better. My Soon Tofu was okay too. In short, none of the four dishes were good enough to make up for the lacking service nor to get us to EVER come back for the food.

I hate to say this but the service was unpleasant, verging on unfriendly. I don’t know if the curly-​haired lady who worked our table doesn’t speak English but she never said a word, didn’t answer questions with a voice we could hear, and when we asked if we could get our food without MSG, she turned away and threw the menus down on a different table. Did we make her mad? I don’t know. Soon, several small bowls of food were dropped, but since we’ve never eaten Korean before, and she didn’t answer questions, we had no one to ask about what the dishes were. We tried to get the attention of other servers in the area, but no one stopped.

2.5 stars. Here’s why:
I’ve been here twice before (for lunch and dinner), and I’ve never had service this bad. We came around 7pm on a Saturday night for my birthday dinner, and our experience was quite underwhelming. We ordered one of the «Da Won Specials” – which are written on whiteboards in the entry area, but you don’t get the actual menu for it unless you ask for it… We got the one for 2 – 3 people, and it’s enough to feed 4 with 2 having smaller appetites. It came with your choice of BBQ (galbi), seafood pancake, tempura, your choice of soup (spicy tofu), and mackerel (a fish that tastes like sardines). We also ordered their «sushi rice bowl» because I was craving sushi. We also ordered one pot of hot green tea. They use those packets for green tea not loose leaf, if that matters to you (it does to me).
The last time I came here I really enjoyed their pumpkin banchan. Tonight we didn’t get that at all… just the standard banchan. The food was average. Their tempura included… an onion ring? LOL. Soup was hot and spicy so that was good. Galbi had good flavor. The sushi bowl was below average. do not order. The rice wasn’t even sushi rice. There wasn’t any sauce in it so it’s basically chunks of raw fish on a lot of rice with vegetables. My bad for ordering sushi at a Korean establishment.
Service definitely needs work. I think I had 3 different servers? They kept asking me the same questions too.
«What would you like to drink?»
«Uh. I already ordered that.»
«Okay, tell me again.»
We asked for our teapot to be refilled with hot water and well, we never saw that teapot again through dinner. When I asked for our teapot again, the waiter did come bring it but halfway to the table he said, «Oh, it’s not hot enough.» and brought it back to the kitchen. It never came back, and I am actually not that bothered because the tea tasted close to tap/​dish water… I don’t know why.
We had to remind them to bring things to us: napkins, spoons to eat our soup, an extra bowl, our teapot…
And finally, when we paid, they brought out complimentary oranges. Three slices for four people. My dad went outside for a little bit, but if we had the same server the entire night they would know we have four people.
In conclusion, food is average. Don’t order the sushi bowl. And they need to hire more workers.

The bachan sides were plentiful and good — but it’s not worth reviewing if it’s not ordered although they are complimentary with the Korean dishes.
Kimchi pan jeon (pancake) was fine — but they could take this to another level by adding a complementary sauce for it since there were a limit of how much we could eat this pan jeon before thinking that it was too much of the same. Further complexities are needed.
The beef dol sot bibimbap was lackluster here. The rice did not have enough char (probably because the bowl it’s served in isn’t even stone or cast iron), the egg was put into the bottom and was overcooked (couldn’t mix in the yolk with the rest of the rice), and was skimpy on the meat even though there’s an abundance of vegetables. The rice was also plain white rice, which I thought could have been done better.
The bulgogi was fine — they were sweet, and the meat thin and plenty tenderized (pounded), and served with onions. While they were okay by itself, they made for a better addition to the meat-​deprived bibimbap.
The accompanying miso soup was good even though it was gritty.
I still haven’t figured out what people really order here. Perhaps next time I’ll try the doganitang, the oxtail and beef bone soup, or some other soups since it seems to be what most people are recommending. The doganitang is not listed in the menu but there’s a specials menu that is in the front of the restaurant of the door that I did not see upon walking in and later noticed walking out. The restaurant needs to do a better job of promoting the specials to the sitting patrons.
So really, I think this place is just A-​OK.

Great lunch specials with bento boxes, typical Korean dishes including kimchi jiggae soup. I really liked that they gave the typical Korean side dishes. I haven’t found that to be common at Korean places offering weekday lunch specials, so I enjoy this place a lot for the offering. I ordered the spicy chicken bento. It was a great deal at $ 10 and delicious too!
Will definitely be back — I’m a new fan!

Play by play of my first visit.
Saturday night at 8:45pm. Got greeted quick. Sat in a semi private room and they put up a divider to add to privacy from the other group sitting in there.
Ordered hot tea, while tasty, was closer to «tap water» hot then, «this was just made» hot.
Place was about 40% full. Got our drink order taken and delivered quick then waited 15 min for the server to show up again.
Ahh our server was actually a different person (this changes a few times through the evening)
We ordered 2 bulgogi, 1 kalbi and a small jap chea and some dumplings.
The food runner showed up with lots of goodies and the food was out in less than 10 mon.
So the food:
Bulgogi and Kalbi were served super quick and the plates they were on were not pipping hot. Were they intended for another table? Hmm. Flavor wise, they were average. There was plenty of banchan aka sides which were super tasty.
All in all it was a below average experience, there was only one server that was on it this evening. With the food being what it was, we wont be back and i don’t recommend this spot.

Soon tubu, pork… ok. Did not come to the table boiling so you can add the egg.
More banchan options than other places.
The squid n bulgogi n basis was good

Oh man, I hate doing this to a Korean restaurant but this place was bad. If I could give it a zero I would.
1. Pan Chan was not fresh. Potato, cucumber, and seaweed salads were old and we did not touch them after the 1^st taste.
2. The Bo Ssam was practically inedible. The meat came out oily and crispy/​burnt almost as if it was left-​over microwaved Sam Gyup sal which was already grilled. No oysters in the kimchi and the cabbage was wet (like puddles of water in the curves of the cabbage wet-​I sopped up water from them with napkins wet). I have NEVER seen Bo Ssam like that.
3. We had to call out YOGIO? a few times and no timely response. 1 other lone customer entered and stood awkwardly, ungreeted, until he too had to yell out, «Yogio???» Hello? Anyone here???
4. This is the last reason and the kicker:
The Ajumah waiting on us kept speaking in broken English to us when we clearly ordered in Korean. My neice (who moved here from Korea 6 months ago) was very confused WHY this woman was talking in severe broken English to us when we were clearly speaking Korean with one another and to her. (**And NOT that speaking ESL is a problem or reason to dis anyone– but it was the fact that we are Korean customers going to a KOREAN restaurant where we are ordering in KOREAN and she unnecessarily made us feel awkward).
Desiring to get to the bottom of this sociologic conundrum, I couldn’t resist inquiring, «Are you… Japanese? «to which she replied, «No… [weird pause]…I am Korean», and my agitated neice and I glanced at each other… uh, well, uh… uh…uh…why aren’t you speaking in Korean?
Her whimsical reply was, «Oh, I didn’t know you girls were Korean.»
Yeah, whatever. We left shaking our heads, never to set foot there again.

Located in a not-​so-​busy shopping area, Da Won was pretty easy to find once you turn into the parking lot. There are two Da Won associated restaurants which are separated by a wall and the door that you want to go to is the furthest right. The restaurant is on the smaller side and I don’t recall anyone cooking their own BBQ like you see at other Korean restaurants. That was totally okay with me ’cause I wasn’t in the mood to smell like BBQ.
Our waiter/​ress were definitely nicer than I’m used to compared to other Korean places. The menu was simple enough with a good amount of variety of food. We ordered chicken bulgogi and this spicy buckwheat noodle plus they offered us several different side dishes. The chicken bulgogi was pretty good! It was spicy but not too spicy to the point I can’t eat anymore. There was plenty of meat on the plate that we ended up with leftovers for the next day. I also enjoyed the buckwheat noodle which was the right spicy and the cold veggies in there were good. The amount of sauce was little overwhelming and would be perfect if that was cut down a bit.
Overall, my friend and I had a fun time here and we left full and sleepy. The price wasn’t too bad either!

I have high standards for Korean food and Dawon meets them very well. I come here all the time for their beef tofu soup, which is probably my favorite kind of Korean food. It tastes great and the portion is enough as well. Their side dishes are a wide variety and are pretty good as well.

AMAZING! You have to go here!
It was recommended to me by a Korean girl that I work with because she thought it was the best Korean restaurant in Dallas. I agree with her. Not only is the food amazing, the service is impeccable. They are SO nice and accommodating. I asked for a small adjustment to my kimchi jjigae (kimchi soup) today and she said «We don’t usually make it that way but we can definitely add that for you. No problem» and they did! It was SO good!
Today I got 5 side dishes (banchan), a HUGE bowl of kimchi jjigae, and a big bowl of rice for less than $ 10. Their dwagee bulgogi and kalbi are awesome too.
I have been for dinner too and you get a lot of food and they keep the banchan coming. That’s the best part.
Try anything on the menu, you won’t be disappointed!

Some of the food was really pretty good (the bulgogi and kalbi) but the rest was less than average. The sides were just okay and forget about getting refills. They gave us enough kimchi for each of the three of us to get one bite and so I signaled the waitress for a refiill and she indicated that she saw me and would be with us in a moment, she never came back to the table after delivering the food. Never checked on us at all. No refills on sides or water. Finally went to the cashier to pay just as she was apparently bringing the check.