Jun Won Restaurant

My current favorite Korean restaurant in LA.
My friend wanted to have lunch with me today and in the usual fashion, I pick the place.
Today was Jun Won’s last day at this location (for the past 20+ years). They are knocking the building down and relocating to 3^rd and Hobart. Reopening scheduled for June 3^rd.
We walked in and we were greeted by several of the servers. The restaurant was maybe half full with a Korean clientele.
Our super friendly server suggested we get her favorite pan-​fried sea trout and clay-​pot stew.
We received our banchan and white rice mixed with beans, then the two pieces of sea trout to share.
The sea trout was comfort food for me. There were two large fish, both butterflied and fried to a crisp. I felt like this was a home-​cooked meal and reminded me of Filipino food.
The service was excellent.
I felt really welcomed here, despite being the only non-​Koreans in the restaurant. I felt like our server was my Auntie and it was her pleasure to delight and feed me.
She asked if we wanted more banchan and rice, and we both said «no.» Not too long after, she came by with a bowl of rice and scooped some into our bowls. In addition, she brought a more tofu cakes for us to eat.
She told me to come back to their new location and she’ll remember our faces. She told me to get the chicken soup with rice which she highly recommended as another one of her favorites.
I’m coming back for sure with a larger group of friends to eat more and share more food off the menu. I’m even down to come back solo.
Jun Won is that good and is my favorite Korean restaurant in Los Angeles right now.

I’ll admit I haven’t been here in years (7 or 8?) and the first time I thought it was just okay since the service was not friendly towards non-​korean and I was served a korean only menu. But times have changed and the owner, Jeff, was the first person to greet us. While we waited we ordered the bul go gi, the cod, seafood pancake and a pan roasted trout which all came out very quickly after we sat down. The kitchen closes at 8:45 even if you try ordering at 8:47 they will say no.
The best dish was either the pan roasted trout of the cod. The cod has more flavor due to all the sauces but the trout was cooked so well. It was crispy and I think only flavored with salt but thats all it needed.
The seafood pancake is good but nothing amazing. The bul-​go-​gi dish is def. a must skip and try something else next time.

Best Soup around! You must try the bulgogi! Happy hour drinks! Hite or OB beer! Shochu to finish! Perfect night out!

Excellent, authentic Korean food. We ordered several dishes and one of my absolute favorite dishes was the fried mackerel! The bones were crispy and small enough to eat and so was the head. The service was very attentive and prompt. We were out-​of-​towners but sure wish our city had a Korean restaurant with this quality food.

This restaurant is kind of hard to find out where it is. But, their foods are soooooooooo good and price is reasonable, worth it! I sometimes stop by on the way back home from my work, but I use RushOrder app to order for a delivery more times. They deliver fast and provide many of promo codes, so I usually have some discount when I order thru RushOrder.
I would like to share one code which is «HUNGRY3» If RushOrder looks at this review, they might be mad cause I am sharing the code with people. lol

In the entire K-​Town, along with Jook Hyang, Jun Won (pasture) offers the best clean foods not doused with MSG chemicals. Aged and fermented fully, the Kimchi and khaktughi, among other banchan (side dishes free of charge), tastes b genuinely quintessentially authentic Korea cuisine matured over millennia.
Don’t be fooled by humble exterior appearances of the establishment; the taste is insuperable. At first, after glancing the menu, my daughter wanted to quickly go to another restaurant. After all, she was not even hungry. I barely persuaded a disgruntled kid.
Once she tasted a side dish after another, she seriously dug in and chow down ordering more and more freebie banchan. She also thoroughly enjoyed main dishes like fermented natto-​like soybean paste casserole, broiled belt fish (she never liked any broiled fish), bulghoghie (marinated beef). She kept munching down food after food, almost literally liked the plates, neatly stacking up those dishes ordering more side dishes. It was hilarious, a feast so clean, so authentic.
1 tip: Ask them go low sodiun, or no sodium. Your command is their wish. (Some reviewers talked about a bit salty as the only foible, absolutely no worries.)

Old school Korean food with great side dishes.
It’s a restaurant that serves authentic Korean good made with quality ingredients.
I notice they change their side dishes (panchan) from time to time.
I recently went and they had perilla leaves… My favorite.
I tried the steam mackerel and the healthy chicken stew with ginseng (sam-​keh-​tang).
It’s not the menu but the server recommended it.
It’s amazing and the best deal in the house. For that price and the quality, it’s a steal.
Not sure how long they will have this, but if they still have it, you gotta try it.
I’ve ordered the sauteed fish and the steamed fish.
I would recommend the steamed fish any day. The sauce/​marinade is soy sauce based with a lot of rich flavor. It’s probably one of the best I’ve had.
I know the cod is highest price item on menu but it’s worth it.
The mackerel was good, but as I was eating it, I kept thinking I should have gotten the cod.
Both the chicken and fish have a lot of bones so be prepared to deal with that.
They have a parking lot in the back so park there. Walk down the stairs and enter the black metal door. Don’t enter on 8^th street… that’s what the noobs do.
*And to all the people that come here and expect Panda Express and orange chicken, this isn’t the place for you.

Birthday lunch treated out by my CFO and executives! I think this is the most authentic Korean restaurant in Ktown! Everything we ordered was bombdotcom. You must try the fried trout! It isn’t on the menu, but it’s Sooo good!
It’s a small restaurant so during lunch and dinner rush be prepared to wait.

I’m somewhat of a regular here. But it’s been about 6 months I’ve eaten here due to my hectic schedule. Ate dinner here tonight. They open at 5:30. Knowing how busy this little hole in the wall place gets on weekends I decided to have an early dinner and showed up at 5:25. Good thing I did since they filled up very quickly.
As usual their home style Korean food are excellent. I highly recommend their spicy mackerel, spicy kimchi pork. Their generous portions and the seasoning of their dishes are spot on. They’re spicy buy not overly so in my opinion. Their selection of side dishes are great as well.

This restaurant has good decent home style Korean food.
We had the spicy cod.
3 piece of cut cod fish with radish is what you will see on the plate.
I did make the cod fish at home and the cod fish it self was pricy fish. $ 25 for the whole fish…
I understand why they charge it so much, but I wouldn’t order it again.
We also ordered salted shrimp with tofu soup (mild clean finish) that we thought it will go great with the spicy cod.
Lastly, Sautéed spicy Octopus was really good!
Overall, ban chan and the food was all good.

Very traditional Korean food but done at a very high level. One of my favorites Korean dishes is bossam. Probably the best place I have had it at a restaurant. Only my mom makes it better.
Looked like a lot of people come here for the monk fish stew. They have a variety of of fish dishes and they all look amazing.
I’ll be coming back. Price is high, quantity is small but you get what you pay for. Service is mediocre but food makes up for it

Jun Won is known for their spicy steamed cod. I thought the price was shockingly expensive at $ 27 for 2 slices of fish and a bunch of radish. The taste of the sauce is quite good but the fish itself didn’t have much of a taste. The best part is actually the radish.
We also tried their spicy stir-​fried squid. The dish is quite good and the portion is much more reasonable for the price. It’s not the best I’ve had though so I wouldn’t come back just for that.
They use barley in their mixed rice that comes with your meal. I find that to be quite unique as most Korean places add beans but I haven’t been to an actual restaurant that added barley yet.
The side dishes are okay. They give you about 6 and they are mostly vegetable except for dry tiny shrimps.
Parking is free in the lot behind the restaurant. You have to enter from the side street.

Bean curd soup, hoorah! Banchan, hoorah! Food, friends, and families, hoorah!
Jun Won is a little joint, unmarked in English in the front. There’s a parking lot in the back, but you may find parking north on Catalina too. I recommend coming in small groups, but if you’re a large party, it may take a while longer to get seated but It’s totally possible to get a table without trouble.
The flavors are spicy and wonderful here. Known well for their fish dishes, but heard the pork belly is point? Reliably delicious menu. Eager to come back with more friends and have more food!

I feel like this restaurant is basically a Korean restaurant speakeasy. If you park in front, like I did, all you see is «Korean restaurant.» Presumably if you read Korean you can tell it is Jun Won but I am not so lucky. Then, the front door is apparently not the normal entrance, so you walk right into the seating area sort of awkwardly. If you go around the back, apparently there are labyrinthine hallways and such, so given my terrible sense of direction I am sort of glad I chose the front door.
But when you find it, if you do, it smells so amazing. Tons of neighborhood folks eating a quick lunch or tasty dinner. Awesome décor. Feels like a well kept secret. A medium size menu makes it immediately clear that what they do best is fish.
The star was the black cod. Get it, for me… even if you don’t normally do cod or fish or anything. The price is totally reasonable for what you’re getting, and the delicious sauce just perfectly highlights the buttery fish without overwhelming it. So spectacular.
We also got the pollack casserole, which was like a spicy soup – the kind I would want to clear my sinuses and that would instantly cure whatever ailment I have. Very good. Seafood pancake was also excellent.
Oh yeah, and did I mention the banchan? All delicious and seasonal.
Altogether, we ordered way too much food. Really, you could go 2 dishes for 3 people and be completely stuffed. And it will be the best kind of stuffed, because even though you are full you will want to keep eating because it’s so good.
Definitely coming back soon!

This is such a delicious Korean restaurant. It’s a little hole in the wall– the best kind, in fact. The owner and staff are really friendly and offered suggestions to some of their most requested dishes. We ordered their fish since it was rated as their best in some LA magazine… not certain if it was Dine LA. Anyway, I’m so happy we tried their spicy oysters and octopus as well-​these two were my favorite! The fish was too bony for my liking and the flavor wasn’t anything I was keen on either. I have to come again soon for a second try at those oysters though. Be forewarned, that’s a cold and raw dish with a little kick, and it’s DELICIOUS!!!
FYI: Parking is awful. We walked for about a block.

Since I first tried this place, I’ve been dreaming about it…
STEAMED MACKEREL
— How have I lived so long without this dish in my life? So flavorful, plenty of fish to share with a small group. Yes, there are a lot of bones to pick, but it’s worth every second for that delicious flavorful flesh.
SPICY PORK AND KIMCHI
— A little more kimchi than pork (unless my friends just got to it first) but super yummy. Served with a side of bean paste and lettuce to wrap it up if you please. The pork is just fatty enough without being too fatty, very flavorful!
BANCHAN (!!!)
— SO GOOD, SO FRESH. It’s unlimited, so feel free to ask for more! We loved the two different types of bean sprouts, sweet beans, and tofu.
NURUNGJI
— This was a nice surprise at the end of our meal! Definitely rounded out a very wholesome, traditional meal.
The owner of this place is so kind, and all of the servers are very attentive. There’s a sizable parking lot behind it; just enter down the stairs and through the back. I will definitely be going back!

Wow is all I can say. I can confidently say that this place may in fact be my favorite traditional korean restaurant. I ordered all my favorite korean dishes and jun won did not disappoint.
I recommend getting the seafood pancake as a starter and then work your way up to getting either a pan fried fish or spicy fish soup. There is plenty of delicious side dishes so don’t worry if you think you didn’t order enough, because you probably did.
Please do yourselves a favor and stop by this local spot in Los angeles. You will not regret it!

Jun Won has now become my favourite restaurant in Koreatown. Here’s why:
#1 The atmosphere and service: Jun Won feels like a family restaurant (and probably is one). There is a pleasant informality to it which I liked a lot. The service is excellent: attentive, friendly, etc.
#2 Amazing food, quality and variety –wise: I got the Steamed Cod because this was my first visit and it is as amazing as commented on in the reviews. The banchans are, however, as rich as the main dish itself. They made me discover tastes that I did not know existed. I imagined rainbows while eating them.
Overall, you get to eat prime quality Korean in a pleasant and informal setting. Such a win! I’m adding a pic of the updated menu for reference.

One of the best and truly authentic Korean food place in LA.
The place is a bit small, you might have to wait, though definitely worth to wait!
We had cooked pork belly with Chinese cabbage and spicy Kimcheesok.
This was sooo good. Pork belly was perfectly cooked!
Kalchi fish stew was the famous dish of Jun Won, we had that also.
Everything’s so tasty and good. The best banchan in Korean restaurant, you get here.
Over the years I ate here all together 3 times, and was happy every time.
The excellent taste was the same. I like that.
Very friendly service also.

Korean food at its best! I recommend the black cod. It’s a bit pricey & comes with 3 pieces but it’s cooked to perfection. So delicious! You can tell everything is made with fresh ingredients. Everything was perfect and not too heavy. Denjangjigae was yummy. you can tell they don’t dunk MSG like all the other Ktown restaurants does.
Again, this is Korean food at its best. Love the nurungjee they serve in the end.