Seoul Tofu House

Ok soup. bibimbop would’ve been better.
5-​stars for their hot sauce. It nearly wanted to scream at them for serving it or not locking it up! Be aware of that sauce disguised as go chu Jang. And order bibimbop. Soup had barely anything in it. I took it home and doctored it up.

Not so great customer service, sub par kimchee fried rice. The fried rice comes with ham, is not seasoned very well. Bibimbap was «okay», can’t really Meas bibimbap up so the taste was there since you add the sauce yourself. The upside is the restaurant is bigger than most places on the ave, so you’re not feeling crowded while eating.

A friend of ours recently moved to the UW area. We decided to try something new despite many other familiar restaurants because this store front is inviting and the décor inside is unique. Reminds me of Korean restaurants in Korea. However, My sister and I ordered the tofu and kbbq ribs (#14 combo) and the food was lacking. Although the service was quick, it’s scary how quick it is — not even five minutes after ordering.
Also, when walking in, the cashier is in the back and sits u down but doesn’t let U know you order and pay first so new comers could sit and look like idiots waiting for the waitress.
The food: The soup wasn’t hot enough for the egg for all our orders and the five star soup had no flavor except red chili flakes. The meat was not cooked all the way, really chewy. I was very disappointed with the food. Took away the whole experience from a traditional tofu house. Never will come back here again.

I came in here on a whim and because i had a cold and wanted samgyetang (cornish hen soup w/​ginseng)~
The ambience was good, very spacious and quiet. The cashier seemed to have a bad attitude so dont come here if you are expecting fantastic service. Although i overheard a lady demanding a refund because her bibimbap «was the worst shes ever had» and the cashier quietly complied and gave a refund.
I ate samgyetang and bulgogi and both were very good but the samgyetang was hands down the best ive had. I left feeling super full and would recommend it to friends !

I love this place! It’s only 3 min away from my house. The service is quickly and the food is delicious. There open late which is a good thing :)

We went here with a bunch of coworkers. There was a great long table in the center with room for all of us.
Most of us got hot stone pot Bibimbap which was really good. The veggies were well seasoned and delicious. The tofu was ok. The sides were tasty and fun to try. They have a hot sauce with a label «Ready to Cry?» and it really did make one of my co-​workers tear up.
The lady behind the counter was not incredibly friendly, but the good food made up for it.

Not too bad for decent Korean food on the Ave. There are definitely better Korean places though. The bibimbap is really good here! However, I really like the pickled sides and this place does not have a lot or even quality sides. They have decent prices for each meal. The bibimbap s under 10 $ and they give you a lot. The soups are also really good but comes in a smaller portion than most Korean places.
If you’re not feeling bibimbap, soup and want more of a simple dish. They do offer teriyaki and other selections like chicken katsu. The chicken katsu was horrible, the meat was not even cooked all the way. It was really gross and soggy katsu. They also have chicken fried rice which is pretty decent. Again, I would just stick to the main Korean dishes if you come here.
The place is located on the ave with a lot of seating. They are one of the Korean places that are open late so if you are looking for decent Korean food that is open late this is your place to be! The are also really quick and they do to go orders as well!

Good for the price, the bibimbap in the stone pot was hot, crispy rice, with a delicious egg on top, a nice mix of veggies and I believe I had the tofu option! Would eat again. :)
They were pretty busy when I was there, so we sat at a dirty table and moved the first person’s dishes aside, but they were so busy or they thought those dishes were ours, that they never cleaned it up. Minor complaint.

I had a great lunch here! I ordered the beef BiBimBop! In a stone pot! Yum-​O! It was so good! I ate it all! The girl at counter, who takes your order is Jamie! She is a very nice. She works too hard! But I’m glad for that! Ask for her by name. She will recommend. I’m glad she knows her stuff! I’m not Korean, but I usually get what is common and recommended. I Scored! I will come here as often as I can. The atmosphere was very calm. And I felt like I could eat my way into oblivion. 2 snaps up for this place! And 5 stars! Prices were even keel to others on the Ave. and I left stuffed. All positive for this place.
On another note, they have great tasty kimchi. I love to get some to go! Just to make sure I don’t have withdrawals! Haha! I do mean that though!

Clean nice tidy, good quality and humble staff.
I was opinionated by readying all this negative views and went once there but left quickly without buying anything. 15 minutes later came back to give it a try and I was amazed how everything was so good.
I think there is a misunderstanding between being impolite arrogant and having a language barrier.
Please, be understanding of language barrier and cultural difference and enjoy the meal. Judge by yourself.

The attitude of the middle aged korean lady is really bad. However we still continue coming because the cold noodle and the kalbi were really good. Its different from all korean place that ive had. However, today we came back… the cold noodle was tasteless. They totally change from korean pear to apple. The soup that used for the noodle was plain and not as thick anymore. The quality has gone down. My boyfriend kalbi half of it were merely bones with little meat on it. Further more with all these… the korean lady still gave us attitude when we asked for extra side dish.
-.-’” we have decided not to come back anymore. It’s so sad. They shouldn’t have change the cold noodles AT ALL. then we would still endure the attitude and come for it.

Not impressed.
The lady working was giving us an attitude when we were trying to decide what to order. There wasn’t even anyone behind us.
The food came out fast but it was super salty.
I don’t think I will be coming back.

I first checked out Seoul Tofu House with a friend the day after its grand opening. My bibimbap stone pot meal sent my heart fluttering and racing for more.
However, when I came back a week later, something had changed. I ordered the bibimbap stone pot again and… the ingredients didn’t taste fresh.
I brought DH with me for my third visit and it was a disaster. Our order took 45 minutes to come out. DH’s soondubu was so lukewarm that his raw egg wouldn’t cook. Our shared meat dish tasted like it had been sitting around for a while. And my bibimbap was… well, I have not been back to this place again.
Two stars in memory of my first visit to Seoul Tofu House the day after its grand opening.

Just walked by and came to continue our Korean fix. Nothing spectacular but the sizes and portions are good. The soft tofu was salty but the stone pot mixed rice was tasty.

With the 2014 – 2015 school year in session, two new tofu houses have opened, including this one. Unfortunately, this place didn’t exactly blow me away.
The set up is confusing. I think this is the first tofu house where I didn’t have a menu handed to me and my order taken at my table. The interior is much bigger than most places and does look decently clean. It’s well lit with Korean pop playing in the background. I took a seat with a friend of mine and we just sat there, waiting. Finally the owner of the place came to us and said «Order up there.» It was with the most unfriendly gesture with demanding demeanor and she didn’t seem welcoming at all.
The menu is on the wall and they have quite a bit of choices. I actually decided to get #26: Samgyetang (Ginseng chicken soup) because I am suffering from a cold. This is the first place I’ve seen around University District that offers samgyetang. It usually takes a bit more work to make so most places don’t offer it. My friend decided to go with the classic bibimbop in the stone pot. You pay right there and then. She pulled a plastic number triangle out but never handed it to me so I assumed that I wasn’t supposed to take it. But then as I was beginning to walk away from my table she goes «Number!» It startled me and I realized it was apparently my fault for not taking the number? Next time, hand it to me please. Furthermore, as we were walking back to our table after ordering, a group of people were beginning to leave after they had finished eating. The woman started to yell «Wait!» and they didn’t hear her and continued to keep walking. In Korean she swore under her breath saying that they didn’t leave a tip. She was definitely grouchy.
You have to get your own utensils, napkins and water/​tea. They have the traditional Korean tea here if you like that.
Our food came along with a small plate of banchan. I think I’ve seen more banchan elsewhere because this was only four side dishes. Some odeng (fish cake slices), bean sprouts, a type of marinated root and kimchi. The kimchi was not that great and it definitely was not fresh. It had no crunch or bite to it. However, I was surprised by the samgyetang. The soup was boiling and there was a lot! It’s quite a big portion size and comes with a bowl of rice on the side. The whole chicken was there and it sat in a nice chicken broth soup along with a ginseng root and chestnuts. The broth was pretty spot on. However, in samgyetang the chicken is usually stuffed with rice and sewn up. All I could see were pieces of rice floating in the broth and no rice within the chicken. Furthermore, the chicken was cut up and not left whole like it normally should be. I felt like they took the «easy way out» in preparing the chicken. It was definitely not the traditional way, but then again, we’re not in Korea. Overall, the chicken was pretty tender and tasted hearty for the sick. Although I didn’t get to try the bibimbap it came out sizzling and did look pretty good.
If you need a to-​go box they are conveniently located with the utensils. There are three sizes which is nice. However, they don’t have the soup to-​go containers there. You will have to hunt a server down and ask for that.
Service is basically non-​existent. They never come to check up on you. The only time you ever see them is when you order your food and when they bring the food to you. I would be fine with this if the woman wasn’t so rude to us in the beginning.
Overall, it seems like your regular average place. The food wasn’t super amazing but I am glad to know that there is a place nearby that sells samgyetang whenever I get sick. It cost around $ 15 but it is a whole chicken and pretty hearty. Hopefully this place can have friendlier service on better days.

Lemme get the shit outta the way. The service here is laughable. Like, I actually wanted to laugh in the middle of the whole thing like «is this really happening to me? well, I guess they’re not as bad as Thai Tom…» You know things are bad when you makin dat comparison, b.
If ya look at dey menu, got hella pictures, no descriptions. Alright… I asked the middle aged looking cashier about some dishes, and she got this attitude like «stupid, are you really asking me? you look Korean (nah holmes). how do you not know about deze dishes???»
and she talk to me like her thot process b like «ima describe to you what’s in the dish the best i can by looking at the pictures, just like you did. but i don’t actually know anything. but hey, i think this is the best way to approach things because i’m not sure if anyone else knows.» Girl, you look Korean! how do you not know about deze dishes???
Exhibit 1:
Me: Hey, what’s on the Korean Cold Noodle? I can’t tell from the picture.
Cashier: There are some noodles, and some vegetables on top.
Girl, were you born in a car wash?
when my friend ordah, cashier was about to take her ordah and then her phone rang! then she say «hold on a sec… *walks toward back room, ackin a foo*.» bout a couple minutes til she come back, no sorries or anything, ready to take our order like she shoulda been two minutes ago.
Lady, I’m surprised you ain’t wearin a chef hat cuz you act like yo mind is da king shit of fuck mountain. You got more issues than Maxim.
Food arrived. I got the Bulgoki Hotpot, which included a side of rice.
My face sauna arrived just the way I like it, inedible for 5 – 10 minutes. Once it cooled down, it was damn tasty, with some large pieces of beef and solid veggies thrown in the mix. Broth was solid, in a good way. As far as the food, I ain’t mad but it ain’t gon tell people about it either.
The service though… dey needa pull dey head outta dey asses. But I guess eating ass is mainstream. Fuck this shit.
Strong 2 outta 5

Service, cleanliness, friendliness, and décor all met the standard of the university district’s stringent expectations. Which ain’t that high.
I ordered the spicy sausage soup, or as I’ve deduced, is actually called Army Base soup. Thank you, Maangchi.
The banchan was meh-​nominal, the rice tasted old, and the soup? Although tasty, salty as phở… cccckk.
Glad for the ramen noodle, tofu, and rice cake in the soup, and for steamed rice on the side to mellow out the spam, linguica, and spicy sausage in the (mostly kimchi juice) flavorful broth.
Plenty of tea and water to dilute the concentrated solution.
Not likely to return, but, hey, it is what it is where it is. Deal.

I was super excited to try out a new Korean place on the Ave, but unfortunately it wasn’t anything to rave about. I was sad when I realized that this was the other location of the Seoul Tofu House in the International District which I was not a fan of.
The BF had the hot stone bibimbap and I had the spicy pork BBQ & beef tofu soup combo. Typically, the hot stone should be hot enough to crisp the rice at the very bottom of the bowl, but here it just barely did by the time that my BF was finishing his meal. He said it tasted fine, but bibimbap is pretty hard to mess up. The spicy pork BBQ was a generous portion and was pretty yummy.
Onto the most disappointing part… the tofu soup. Yikes. My heart sank a bit when I did not see my soup boiling. I was getting concerned because it took FOREVER for my raw egg to cook in the soup since it wasn’t hot enough… I’ve honestly never had that happen before. It was also a little bland, which was a complete shocker since a Korean restaurant specializing in tofu soup should at least have the seasoning right. Oh, and the side dishes were all very salty.

Four stars is a bit generous, but I’m going to round up.
I’ve been to Seoul Tofu House twice, and tried the bibimbap ($ 6 grand opening deal) and the spicy pork bulgogi ($ 12.95 — I think one of the other bulgogis is available in the $ 6 special). The food was all very standard Seattle Korean, which is to say it scratched my bibimbap itch, but I wouldn’t particularly care if it closed. Both orders were for takeout. I appreciated the fact that they packed some banchan for me; not all Korean places do that for takeout. They also packed a generous amount of rice, and hot or greasy items were packed in aluminum foil or cupcake liners to avoid soaking through the flimsy paper takeout boxes. These small touches are good ways for a restaurant to distinguish itself when the food is basically interchangeable with a couple dozen other places.
My one annoyance with this place was that my first bibimbap takeout order involved a half hour wait; I’d have appreciated a little warning. But since that was like the second or third day of business, I’m going to put it down to opening night chaos, and not deduct stars for that. For my bulgogi order a few days later, I was warned of a 10 minute wait, and the food was ready when I came back at that time.
So basically, as long as the grand opening specials are on, this is definitely the place to get your U District Korean fix. At full price, I could take it or leave it.
Besides the usual Korean staples, they’ve got a few Japanese items (teriyaki, omurice, ramen), and for some reason a bunch of Chinese dishes.

New place on the ave! Nice and convenient for people living above 45^th and a variety of dishes to choose from. Ordered kimchi soondoobu and enjoyed it. Also got the dukbokki which could have been spicier for me but wasn’t too bad. Will come back again next time the craving for tofu soup strikes.