Asian Kitchen Korean Cuisine

The 2 star rating is for the service. If you like being frowned upon by ordering additional sides because you like it then this is the place to go. We are not going to ever try their eat-​all-​you-​can korean bbq, because of the service. We would rather get an order in their menu. Plus, they really limit the food that they cook. If you will be served by the Korean wearing eyeglasses prepare yourself to be treated bad.

My wife and I love this place. Great Korean food, obviously. Very authentic. We drive 30 miles to eat here… usually once or twice a month. Definitely recommend!

The best Korean foods I have ever had in the US. The No.64 hot pot, beef bibimbap, and the hot soups are my favorites.

We came here for my BIL’s birthday because of its proximity and we wanted Korean food. I lived in CA for years and Korean was my #1 go-​to food. Naturally, I’ve searched for good spots in STL.
Pros:
options for meat in AYCE
banchan options — there are a LOT!
bulgogi was great
variety in menu
Cons:
no thinly sliced brisket — my fave
slow service
quality of meat seemed to vary
tofu soup too salty
We had a great dinner, but for the value and meat, I’ll drive a little farther out for my favorite in STL (Seoul Garden).

Always delicious Korean food and endless side dishes! If you like it and decide to go regularly then get a stamp card at the counter.

Came with sister for lunch.
The place is small and clean. We ordered seafood pancakes for an appetizer $ 14– and followed with chap chae noodles 13– and soon du bu seafood soup $ 9 for our lunch.
Without knowing how menu works and how much food we ordered, three severs basically helped each other carrying all foods out from the kitchen to our table. So. much of food we couldn’t even imagine.
The seafood pancake was so large almost the same size as 16″ diameter pizza. The dough was so thick, has little pieces of octopus, popcorn shrimp and big stalk of bok choy and green onions. It was not my favorite.
The noodles dish chap chae was made with potato starch noodles, stir fried with zucchini, onions, mushrooms and little pieces of meat it was so little that I couldn’t tell what kind of meat (my guess was either pork or beef). The dish was very oily.
The seafood soup with tofu was spicy and very hot. It was tasty. They also brought out about 30 some dishes of small side dishes for us, they were cold dishes. Several kind of vegetables, they were pickled and fermented. Some were okay but most of them were very bland.
All servers were sweet and quiet. I wish they would have warned me about how much food I would get when I placed the order. Or at least giving me some explanation how the menu works.
I will be back again but not so soon, next time I will be very careful what to order.

The waiters are kind of rude. They made me feel like an idiot. And kimchi pancake was not well done. Bad experience here.

This place is famous for providing the most side dishes among all Korean restaurant in Saint Louis, but the flavor is the worst!!! I recommended this restaurant to all my friends, but feel so regret now! We ordered Kimchi fried rice, lunch box, soups… We have waited for 40 minutes to be served, just water, no side dishes. The kimchi fried rice is greasy and salty. The kimchi is not fresh, and the color is weird. We will not come back again. Very bad experience!

My first time here, and I was surprised by the food. First, the service was really good. The staff is very attentive and there is plenty of staff. Second, the food. It was very good. I tried some new interesting things/​dishes, and to my surprise, I liked them all. Very clean and busy little place. I will be back again.

It’s hard to come by authentic and delicious Korean food in St. Louis. There’s a couple Korean fusion places that are overly hyped and expensive, but Asian Kitchen is usually my go-​to for Korean food.
The best thing about Asian Kitchen is the plethora of banchan they give you! That’s like ~15 side dishes for you and your friends to eat along with your entrees. The whole table is just filled with refillable side dishes and it’s the best thing ever!
I’ve come here a couple times and ordered mainly the dolsat beef bibimbap or the beef soondobu. I haven’t ventured very far from those two items, but maybe I will soon because I actually visited South Korea in the winter and tried a couple new dishes. Or I might try the korean bbq here because I’ve been getting tired of the usual Seoul Garden trips.
Overall, I like the location of Asian Kitchen (right on Olive street with all the other restaurants), the service is good, and I think its pretty reasonable because SO MUCH BANCHAN!

I finally got around to revisiting Asian Kitchen and updating my mediocre review. I actually generated some hate mail from that review. Anyway, they have stepped up their lunch menu since then, and it makes visiting here much more accessible to people who aren’t familiar with Korean food.
I ordered the fried rice with kimchi — not sure what it was called — and it was really good. It tastes nothing like your standard Chinese fried rice, even thought that seems to be all across the board lately too. This dish is much more subtle.
As with my previous visit, they brought out 17 dishes of one-​bite dishes, almost all cold, to accompany my lunch order. This time was different for me, though. I liked all but one of them. I don’t know if they have a different guy in the kitchen or what happened, but my experience was quite the opposite of the last time, when I didn’t like most of them.
So if you’ve never had Korean, this is a good place for your first try. It’s basically all-​you-​can-​eat for $ 8.95 as I can’t imagine anyone eating all of the food they bring out. I had fun and I’ll be back.

This was my first time ever trying Korean food, and I felt average about it. But, I did really love my experience here. Let me explain why.
15 SIDES! Not only do you get to pick a main entrée but your party gets 15 sides (although you don’t get to pick your sides). It was so cool. It was even more fun for me and the people I was with because it was our first experience with Korean food. The food is average and that’s why I didn’t give it 5 stars. The sides are good for the most part but some were not so good. I just wasn’t a fan of some of the spices or the texture.
But, unlike a lot of the other reviews, my service was great. He was very nice and refilled our drinks often and checked on us multiple times. I had no problem with the service, in fact, I really enjoyed him.
Overall, it was a great experience and I do not regret coming here whatsoever. I recommend coming here at least once.

This is probably my family’s favorite Korean restaurant in St Louis, and we’ve been going here for years. When we arrived I was pretty surprised at how full it was. The past few times my family came the restaurant was basically empty besides us and maybe 1 or 2 other parties. I might be imagining it but I think they might have recently gone under some renovations, which might contribute to the reinvigorated clientele.
With a party of five, we were able to successfully destroy 2 orders of appetizers along with each individual entrée. For the appetizers we got the Haemul Pajeon and Goon Mandu. They’re both really good, especially cause I think they make it better than my mom’s. (Shhh… Don’t tell her I said that.) This time around I got the Pork Bulgogi, which was also pretty good. Best thing about this place is that they give you tons of banchan (side dishes). I was smart and sat in the middle, so everything was within grasp.
I’m really glad that the restaurant is doing better than before, but I will say that the service has gone downhill as a result. I’m pretty sure they forgot about one of our appetizers because we had to ask about it 10 minutes after the first one was served. They also forgot about my order because everyone else was served and I was left to picking at the banchan for at least 20 minutes. I didn’t even take a picture of my food cause I immediately dug in once it got to me. With all this going on, it didn’t help that the huge TV we were seated next to was showing a Korean food show. Needless to say I was drooling and hangry af. Still a great place to checkout if you’re looking to fulfill your Korean food cravings.

This was one of the best meals I have had in awhile. I am only disappointed that we did not eat here earlier. Since my wife had to work Christmas evening and we were cooking with family the following day, I decided to take my boys out to dinner. I had read about Asian Kitchen in one of our local food magazines in the past, and after driving by it about a thousand times over the years, finally decided to give it a try.
We ordered the steamed pork dumplings as an appetizer, followed by Beef Bulgogi and fried rice. For the uninitiated, each meal comes with fifteen or more side dishes, ranging from kimchi to seaweed to bok choy to pickled zucchini. The amount of little dishes can seem a bit annoying and overwhelming at first, but once you start eating and trying different combinations, they are all well worth it.
My favorite dish overall was the seaweed covered in a sweet chili sauce. It paired well with the Beef, as did almost everything else.
My only complaint was that the fried rice was a little over-​oily. There was quite a pool of grease on the plate once we were through. Other than that, everything was great.
The service was attentive, fast and courteous, with several different young men seating, taking orders, delivering food and clearing dishes.
It took a while to get here, but we will definitely be back!

I love Korean food, and with not that many options in St Louis, I have found this to be the best in my opinion. It is a casual place and the staff is very friendly. We got seated right away, and since my boyfriend and I prefer not to cook our own meats, we usually just order off the menu and have them cook it for us.
We ordered one beef bulgogi and one pork bulgogi and got them both spicy. While that cooked, they brought out the banchan. They give you around 20 different banchan, and some rice. This is a ton of food for just two people, and the price is very reasonable for the amount of food you get.
We have had the Korean BBQ here before and I can say it is also really good, but we typically only do that when we have more than 2 people with us. We haven’t gotten the hot pots yet, but it looks really good when I see others order them.
They have a TV, but it usually has some Korean programming on it.
Also, after your meal, they give you a yogurt drink which is soo good! Highly recommend this place if you want some real Korean food!

It was good, but not great. The bachan was plentiful. The spicy kimchi beef soup was good. Not a lot of beef or tofu and lots of nappa cabbage. I asked for extra spicy but it wasn’t even spicy much less extra spicy.
My hubby enjoyed the grilled short ribs. He wanted the all you can eat grill, but we were told that we both lhad to get it. Since I wanted something else, he paid the same price but it was just the one plate. It was enough, so whatever.
The shrimp fried rice had plenty of shrimp. It was ok too.
The service was lax. Not sure if it is just an Asian thing. Every asian place seems to have average service, at best. Sometimes I get the impression that they only want «real» Asian patrons. Crack a smile for goodness sake. It’s off putting! The food has to be phenomenal for me to return just because of this! In this case, since I am not from MO I won’t be back. If I did live here, I would try a couple more items before crossing them off the list for good.
The place had constant flow of customers, both dine in and to go. Mostly Korean folks. One of the older patrons kept staring intently at me. She didnt look away when I met her gaze either. Just kept staring. A bit disconcerting. Perhaps because I am «only» half Korean. Get over it woman! This is America not the homeland.

Never come here for dinner!
Slow as tortoise, waiting for 1 hour and get a shit!
Waiters can’t speak English and no respect for costumer!
They even said «it’s none of my business!»
I won’t come here ever!!!

The food is not bad. But their business practice was somewhat strange to me. They don’t sell Bibimbab to the first customer of the day, whoever he/​she may be. They believe a kind of superstition that if they sell Bibimbab to the first customer, they would sell only Bibimbab all day long.

It’s an insane amount of small plates (banchan) that come with even just a lunch dish. It was tons of fun though. Three of us went for lunch, had our entrees, and shared maybe 16 – 20 small sides of banchan. Wouldn’t definitely recommend.

You’re not going to get great décor or any kind of scene at this place, but what you will get is some quality Korean food. I’m not a big fan of kimche, but they brought out a table full of side dishes and different types of kimche for us to try. I am no expert, and not a huge fan, so I can’t comment on that. What I can tell you is I had the beef bulgoki and it was delicious. The bowl was hot, the rice was yummy and the meat was perfectly cooked and seasoned. I’ll have to go back again when I’m back in town.

Apparently at the eyes of Americans it looks like a great Korean food but wrong, this is a some sort of fancy imitation of Korean food, don’t get conceived.
Owners are Korean-​Uzbek, all the side dishs looks good but watch out, there is not real fermented kimchi on the table, they are just red pepper flake mixed with bokchoi.
As Korean really dissapointed.

Huge fan of Korean food and had problems finding a place. I was in the area and found this place had good feedback so tried it out.
Clean establishment, not run down. Outside a little rough and a bit hard to see the sign while driving, wait staff was very nice and pleasant. Good size menu and respectable prices.
Ordered the lunch plate with beef. It came with the full side dish amount, Buchan, I think it’s called. Wow, lot of food. Meat was good but came out as if it was boiled. Did taste good. Lunch was $ 10 plus a soda, $ 12 and change after tax. Great price.
I was full after and felt good. Ate too much of the kimchi stuff but enjoyed it. Definitely recommend this place. Best priced lots of food Lunch I have experienced.

This was my first real Korean dining experience. I really want to come back here! I was so pleasantly surprised by the quantity and quality of the food. There were so many new tastes I discovered that night. The service was good for us and checked on us often, the food came out quickly and it was awesome. They spread out this huge thing of little side dishes for you and trying each of them is a lot of fun.

A tiny restaurant on Olive Blvd a little tucked away behind a tree. Crowds of Korean-​speaking customers evidence food authenticity and service warm and charming. Barbecue dishes seemed to be the most popular but rice and noodle dishes (like dolsot) are still a highlight, as are a number of richly flavored stews.
We wanted to watch the grill so we ordered one Assortment of Korean BBQ, but the barbecue dishes weren’t cooked at the table (probably due to space?) and were served on three sizzling plates. They didn’t really manage to harness the charred flavor and smoky aroma, and the ingredients were careless cooked and the meat was dry and squid chewy. The onion bed beneath the barbecue was fresh and crunchy though.
Unlike some other Korean BBQ restaurant, which is always filled with hopeful diners queuing to get a table, this place is not always as busy as it could be, which is kind of the atmosphere I look forward to. And I love the yogurt drink after the meal.
Food: ³⁄₅; Others: ⁵⁄₅. Overall ⁴⁄₅.

We come here lunch regularly. Tonight is Mother’s Day and we plan to make our dinner memorable. We had no idea that the foods can be that bad. Totally dissatisfied.
Sweet & our pork came out soaky drenched with gooey white sweet sauce. The octopus came out unchewable no even edible. Told the waiter about it, & he replied that’s how it is. We didn’t even eat it. Beef bibimbap came with a few thin string of beef. Korean bulgogi tasted like rubber. This is the first time we came here for dinner. What a mistake. Tonight I have experienced the worst Korean I have ever had. And I knew the service is bad too and still decided to come and try their dinner. The octopus is Kindda untouched, and they still charged me. Anyway, I still tipped them generously in a good way saying goodbye. We will not be back.

To be upfront, the service and wait-​time deserves 2 – 3 stars. This place does get really busy and the service isn’t the friendliest. Remember people, Asian hole in the wall places won’t kiss your butt. But, you come here for the food and this place has some of the best Korean BBQ in the area.
I would have never came here if it wasn’t for Unilocal.
Pros:
1)The largest serving of Ban Chan (Small dishes that come with the BBQ)
2)The sample 3 person BBQ (short ribs, beef, chicken, pork, seafood) is good for 4 – 5 people. My fav. was the beef bulgogi and I wasn’t a fan of the octopus. BTW, ask them to cook it for you at the table vs. in the back.
3)Chap Jae is delish
4)KImchi Pancake was ridiculously good and that dipping sauce! YUM
Cons:
1)Service and wait time (1 hour for a table of 4 on a weekend or more)
2)Bibimbop was underwhelming compared to the other food
This place is also pretty diverse in the clientele too. I loved it and I know I will be back when I’m craving BBQ. This place is a must1

Words cannot describe how much I love Korean food. Meals are really a showstopper to the senses: from sizzling hot to cold, super spicy to calming, and tangy to textural. The more I eat of it, the more I have grown to appreciate all of these contrasts found in one meal.
My friend and I walked out of a Touhill performance starving. After some discussion and some Unilocal perusal, we thought we’d might like to try Asian Kitchen. It’s been on my list for quite some time, and she had never heard of it. It’s on the north side of Olive. It does have a tree blocking most of its awning, and the parking lot is next to it.
We walked in right before the evening rush… and it did get packed while we were there. There were maybe five or six waitstaff, and they were all running around.
We ordered goon mandu as a starter. The mandu is how it should be; the sauce is not as spicy as it looks, which is perfectly fine. I think we got seven pieces instead of the written eight because we had one left over. But we really didn’t have time to dwell on that because the bulgogi dolsot bibimbap, mine with beef and hers with chicken, came out sizzling and snapping with all of the banchan glory that has been touted on Unilocal.
The bulgogi dolsot bibimbap is a comfort food that everyone should try at least once. I like the dolsot version (with the stone bowl that makes a hardened rice crust), but honestly, I think I like the regular bibimbap verson better because the regular version includes an egg that you can mix. Usually that egg is runny, but then cooks when you mix it in with the food because it is so hot. It really does add great flavor to the bibimbap and I sorely missed it in the dolsot version. The bulgogi is good, but it really is only a few slices of meat, a lot less than what I had expected.
The banchan is expected to be eaten with the meal and provides contrasting and additional flavors. And what banchan! With all those dishes, Asian Kitchen does some heavy dishwashing! Some highlights included the musaengchae (long white julienned radish), miyeok muchim (seaweed with sweet vinegar and salt), kkadugi (cubed radish kimchi), gosari namul (fern shoots), gogumasun namul (sweet potato shoots), doraji namul (bellflower roots), and the odeng jorim (fish cake). The pajeon (scallion pancake) and the cheongpomuk muchim (mung bean jelly cake) were excellent in cooling off the spiciness and hotness.
We enjoyed those small Yakult probiotic dessert shots for dessert.
Prices are within reason and actually pretty good for the amount and variety of banchan you get. They have lunch specials from Tuesday thru Friday 11 – 2:30, which include cheaper meals and banchan. Occasionally their Facebook page with promote free samples of their dishes over a day. And they apparently have a special All you can eat Korean BBQ for $ 19.99, which includes the banchan. Yum! I’ll be back for sure.

Relative to the other Korean restaurants in town (excluding Seoul Taco because it’s more fusion), it would be 4 stars. It’s probably the best option in STL. Among other Korean restaurants that I’ve tried in the U.S., it’s pretty average.
Lots of banchan options, attentive servers, and a clean, open restaurant.
I wasn’t in the mood for all-​you-​can-​eat meat, but the portions are gigantic for a typical entrée order.
We tried the:
BiBimbap with bulgogi beef– it was not only enough to share between two people, but it was quite tasty.
Soondubu Jigae– tofu soup with seafood, appropriately spicy, but skimpy on the seafood
I love Korean food, so I’ll be back soon enough.

Come here and come hungry. This authentic Asian restaurant promises nothing but the most genuine and tasty Korean food, including bibimbap, bulgogi, and hot pot (and of course, kimchi on everything).
The feeling upon walking in here is that of a cozy, no-​frills restaurant where the focus is on the food. The walls feature pictures of patrons, various seasonal decorations and local ad posters, and a TV with Korean news. Laminate-​topped tables at the booths offer plenty of surface space, which you’ll need for the banchan – the dozen or more side dishes that come with all entrees at this place. Small bites of omelet, seaweed, pancake, pickled fruits and veggies, steamed greens, sweet, sour, salty, spicy… it’s all encompassed in the banchan. Half the fun was going through and trying each of the tiny dishes to figure out a) what it was and b) if I liked it.
The banchan accompanied orders of japchae and seafood bibimbap. I have no idea why the japchae is called an «appetizer» — it was definitely an entrée-​sized mound of noodles, veggies, and beef. And soooo good. The seafood bibimbap had this unique super smoky flavor– seriously, like marinated-​in-​liquid-​smoke-​strong, but it was good as well, although I’d probably opt for something milder next time. As previously mentioned, there was a ton of food, so we ended up taking portions of both dishes with us for later.
Overall, good service, ample seating, and more than enough tasty food. I’ll come back.