Han Joo Chik Naeng Myun & BBQ

I’ve been coming to Han Joo since 1995. It used to be amazing but I’m a bit disappointed now. Their banchan (appetizers) is hit or miss as they seemed to have added MSG and extra sugar.
My boyfriend and I shared Hwe Naengmyun (spicy cold noodle with sashimi), Galbi and Samgyupsal (pork belly). Portions were pretty good as we got one serving for each food and shared them. Food was ok but again, it wasn’t as good as it used to be like in the old days.
I think over the past year or so they have been catering their food towards non Koreans and hence has lost the original taste.
Their service is still great.
I might come back in the future just for the old times sake but eh, we shall see.

I was visiting home (ahh, Queens) and the bf was in tow. He’s a bit of a KBBQ fanatic and experienced the real thing when he lived in Seoul for a year. I decided this was the spot since he’d never had the crystal grill KBBQ experience. We decided to head there after a nice hour-​long massage at Best Spa a few blocks away.
It was either a Friday or Saturday night, but man were we lucky. The restaurant was full except for one table, and since there was no one waiting, we were seated immediately! The service was brisk as with most KBBQ places esp during peak hours, but not unfriendly like some spots. We sat right in front of the register near the kitchen area but it wasn’t a big deal.
Of course, we went with pork belly and kalbi. Everything was fresh and the pork belly was cooked to perfection! It came out so crispy, almost like bacon (yes I know it’s the same cut of meat…) and it even *felt* healthier since lots of the fat dripped away on the angled crystal grill plate. Yes. I know it’s STILL pork belly. Whateves yo, let me live!
They didn’t slack on the banchan either. At one point we were wondering out loud (but not obnoxiously) about if they’d serve any Doenjang Jjigae (sp?) and they brought it out not even 5 minutes later. I surmised they heard me but that was totally not our intention (maybe subconsciously?), so extra props for that. I’m sure if you asked for extras of anything or even requested a specific banchan, they would happily oblige, without attitude that I’ve personally experienced at other places. (Dude, it’s just kimchi…)
I also ordered a naengmyun but with 2 BBQ orders, and tons of banchan, this was clearly a case of eyes bigger than the stomach. It was good and refreshing after all the meats, but I had to give up after 3 bites.
Overall, the bf enjoyed the food and would likely make me bring him back on future visits. Which is fine, since I already miss the pork belly.
4 stars for food, a bonus for attentive service.

Honestly… I was going to give this place 4 stars but the service here was SUPERB and most definitely deserves my 5 stars! Came in as a group of 10 people on a Saturday night around 9:00 PM and there was no wait at all! We ordered two orders of of the LARGE Do Ya Ji, TWO Seafood Pancakes and an extra side of beef slices.
Before I start with reviewing the main dishes we ordered, I want to talk about the complimentary appetizers first. I must say they were a bit lacking compared to other Korean BBQ places and not as traditional? Some items include raw crabs, fish (WAYYYYY to fishy for me), egg soup (this was really good), broccolis & radishes.
LARGE Do Ya Ji — combination of pork belly (green tea, bean paste and garlic). Their portion are huge! Ordered two of these for 10 people and had A LOT left over! The waitress grills everything for you in front of you — everything was served so quick and cooked so quick! This was super tasty too! They actually suggest you wrap the pork belly with radish and dip it in sesame oil with a special sesame powder that comes with it — super unique compared to other places!
Seafood Pancake — pretty good too but nothing really stands out compared to other Korean BBQ places I’ve been to.
Honestly, the best part of this meal was the service here! Most of the waitress here speaks Mandarin and Korean! They were SUPER attentive and gave us everything we need — water, tea. They were quick in cooking and serving the food. I love how they make small conversations with you as well. They offered us FREE sodas throughout the meal AND when we asked for the bill, they gave all of us FREE yogurt drinks! This is by far the restaurant with the FRIENDLIEST waitresses! I seriously have nothing to complain about the service here. I would definitely come back the next time I’m around the area.
P.S my hair did not smell after I left the restaurant — I think it’s because they use a special type of pan to grill our foods!

Korean BBQ uniquely cooked on a crystal plate. The pork belly was delicious and the service was great.

Cooking pork on the crystal plate was very good. I ordered pork conbo #3 and #8. I Loved the conbo #3 but the #8’s meat was kinda tough… I will be back for the #3 pork Combo tho !!

Service is really good here, but the food is even better. Try the green tea pork belly and the duck. Cold noodles are great too. Noodle flavor and thickness is perfect. Seafood pancake is also amazing. I’ve been here many times and I’ve never been disappointed with anything off their menu.

I’m Korean and I have to say it was beyond disappointed. Food was either bland or too salty. My mom and I both were underwhelmed… would have had a better Korean lunch at home. Staff was friendly but there were rude customers… I would NOT go back nor recommend to anyone to go. There was no parking either so overall, a mistake!

My new favorite Korean BBQ place! This place has been on my must list for a while, but it’s so far from where I live. We finally had the chance to come and I was not disappointed!
Service was great and the best part was we were able to communicate in mandarin. Mandarin definitely trumped English. We didn’t have to touch the grill once and the food kept flowing. The only thing not flowing were the refills for our tea.
We order the $ 74.95 combo which was delicious! I loved all the different flavors and I loved the fact that they cook for you. It was pretty neat to watch the meat cook on the glass. We also got the sliced duck and that was delicious as well.
They give you the yogurt drink for dessert so that was a nice surprise.
I had an awesome time and they didn’t rush us. I will be back. One caveat is that I think if we spoke English only, I don’t know if we would have had good service. I feel like this place is the type of place to shun you if you don’t speak Korean… or Mandarin in our case.
Good service or not, the food and experience was great and that alone is worth it.

Ordered the Spicy Naeng Myun, pork belly grill platter.
Pretty good Naeng Myun, Outstanding thick pork belly grill but the real stars are all the freshly prepared side dishes. Grilled fish, egg soufflé, Several types of kimchee, excellent ban-​chan!
I am going back for sure.

Flavorful Korean Barbecue grilled on a glass plate that is slanted so all the fat slides off, pretty cool. Each item for the KBBQ is about $ 20 and to be honest portion wise is only enough for one person. Was it good, quality KBBQ? Yes it was.
I definitely recommend trying the duck breast and marinated pork belly (we ordered one with and one without green tea and I honestly couldn’t tell the difference, so I can’t really recommend one over the other haha).
After asking for the check, instead of giving you a grimy fortune cookie, you get Yakult, my childhood vice.
Parking here can be a little tough but if you don’t mind walking from the residential area you won’t have any problems.
Plentiful side dishes, friendly, multi-​lingual service.

I’ve been coming here for many years and never disappointed with the service or the quality of food. The wait staff are attentive and friendly, food comes out super fast, and ban chans (side dishes) are delicious. They passed the most important litmus test for all Korean restaurants, the kimchee test. The kimchee they put on the Jade stone along with the meat was good as expected. What I love about this place is their consistency. I always felt most Korean restaurants became inconsistent with quality of food and service after the restaurants picked up business and got busy. I hope this restaurant will continue to stay open and provide the best Korean food consistently.

Like many of the best restaurants out there this place doesn’t look like much from the outside or inside. But then they pull out the crystal grill.
As far as Korean Pork belly goes this place is the best I’ve even been to. Being from Seattle we have a good amount of Korean food but this is a level above.
To top it all off the staff is super nice and attentive.

The meat is grilled at your table over a tilted slab of crystal, which they said was for more even cooking and for fat to run off. Though healthier, I’m not a fan of it because the meat doesn’t get the smokey flavor of using a grill and definitely dries out the meat.
The green tea one doesn’t taste like anything special.

Very good barbecue. We had the pork belly, galbi and the bulgogi. Everything was delicious. Lots of side dishes too.
Overall a good place to come. Service was fast and quick too

This place is amazing. Totally worth the 1.5 hrs on public transit + 20 minute walk from the subway station to eat here. I will be schlepping myself out here more often, despite the 2 hr trip one way.
I think two orders of meat + cold noodles is enough food for four small people. You get enough side dishes to fill you up. The kimchi stir fried in pork belly fat is the best.
Also, service is surprisingly good and the bathrooms are clean.
I came on a Sunday night at 7pm and there was no line.

This place is amazing! I always leave here about to explode because I eat so much pork belly. One of my favorite korean bbq places in Queens. The pork belly is really the best you can get. Service is great and the servers are always on top of things.

Solid place if you’re craving Korean bbq & nengmyun. My gf and I came here hungry after a long road trip from Maine. It was late at night and luckily this place was still open.
We were the last customers to be served, and it seemed they were a bit annoyed that we came in so late, but they seemed to have changed their tune when we ordered a lot of food. We ordered kalbi for 2 (un-​marinated), and we each got our own bowl of mul nengmyun. They provided service of assorted banchan, which included gyeranjjim (steamed egg casserole), and they were even nice to provide us a small bowl of dwenjangjjigae.
The waitress did all the work with the kalbi and even asked us how we wanted it cooked. We told her more on the medium rare side, so it’d be extra tender and not as tough. She complied and cooked it quickly. There was no char to the meat, but it sure was tender.
The mul nengmyun was the bomb. It came with an ice slurry and the gochu (spicy) paste was already part of the mul nengmyun. The only negative was that the ice slurry still didn’t make the nengmyun cold enough. It was still a bit warm. The broth was amazing though. You didn’t need to add any vinegar at all.
Overall a very solid place to go to if you’re craving good bbq and good nengmyun. Just watch out about the clientele… I think we were sitting next to some chinese gang members… These guys were speaking in Chinese and they were tattoo’d up all over place (even on the heads!). Just enjoy your food and don’t look around and you’ll be happy.

I have a new favorite meal for summer.
Naeng myun: Chewy arrowroot noodles served in a cold broth with slices of Korean pears and vegetables. There’s a choice between noodles served in a cold broth or with spicy sauce.
Kimchi mandu: Deliciously warm steamed dumplings contrasting with the cold noodles.
I like that there are many complimentary side dishes and that they serve barley tea instead of tap water.

It’s still very good here, but after recently eating here, I have some comments that changed their rating from 5 stars to 4.
First, their portions have gotten much smaller. Their medium everything pork platter is nearly not as much as it used to be. With 6 girls today, we had to order 2 medium platters… A medium platter would’ve been plenty in the past, but for some reason, we had to order 2 of them. Second, they stopped serving kken neep (korean basil) with the lettuce. Lastly, they don’t serve as many banchans as they used to, tasty ones at that.
I was a little disappointed, but the bill came out to $ 23 per person. To be full from meat at $ 23 — I’ll take that. I’ll continue to go back for their pork belly platter, but man… it’s not like it used to be and that kind of makes me sad.

Even after years and years, between so many new restaurants that have opened in and around flushing, Han Joo remains one of my favorite places for pork belly. I can totally see the staff being a bit dismissive from time to time — especially if they’re busy, but I’ve personally never experienced it or didn’t much care to notice perhaps.
I would say give it a shot. I know a few of my non-​Korean friends didn’t have the best experiences with service tho they loved the food, but their green tea pork belly is some of the best I’ve had.