Assa

Pretty standard Korean food, quite decent, Although not outstanding, can’t really go wrong either. Generally I enjoy dining here.

Before Korean became a «trend», there was Assa, serving up robust, spicy bowls of hotpot and noodles to London’s diaspora of Koreans in central London.
To be fair, it’s probably a good thing that the genre has evolved from its humble roots here and at Seoul Bakery (R.I.P). However, when it comes to the important business of eating and socialising, Assa delivers. This is a place you go with people you already like.
The kimchi pork is lovely and generous, and as you’d expect, standards like japchae and chap tang bab are served with aplomb. You know an East Asian place is perfect when they get the rice to the ideal, slightly sticky consistency without losing its composition. Service is friendly and efficient, and yes, it is like having your dinner in someone’s front room. But as London institutions go, Assa deserves to be mentioned with the best of them.

Wow, have to say I was surprised by how good the food was here! We ordered the kimchi, radish, spicy Korean fried chicken, pork belly, japchae, and beef hotpot. My favorite was the definitely the fried chicken and noodles, and if it was like in America or Korea (where these things are free) I would get unlimited radish!
Be aware that they moved to a new location, and they don’t take reservations so there’s most likely a wait.

Very good food and good service. Highly recommend. Long queue but quickly get a table for 4 on Saturday night.

Assa isn’t much to look at (it’s like eating in someone’s rundown living room) but it’s cosy and the food is delicious. I have never not got the beef and kimchi hotpot (eat with rice), and I also love the sweet potato noodle stir fry, the seafood pancake and the spicy pork belly.
Assa is the ideal place to go if the cold and dark of winter have penetrated down to your soul and you need something to warm you up.
Don’t expect the staff to be overly friendly or attentive, but at the same time do feel comfortable being direct and saying exactly what you want. Service is very quick.
Expect to queue later in the evenings, and if you sit downstairs, take note of the amazing K-​pop music videos that don’t match the songs playing through the speakers. Good fun.

I wanted to give it 1.5 stars to be honest. I had the spicy soft tofu pot, and it was not very spicy at all. I’ve eaten my hair share of spicy soft tofu, and there was nothing impressive about theirs. My sister had rice with marinated stir fry beef, although filling, the beef was marinated with too much sugar in my opinion. The WORST part is when I when to the toilet, going down the stairs I see the butcher cutting meat in a dark corridor, the onion bag was left sitting on the dirty floor, the walls around the stairs look moldy, and the toilet makes me gag, literally. Although the food did not make me sick this time, I don’t think I’ll return to the restaurant anymore due to sanitary issues.

I have been here many many times since a very long time ago. The food here has never failed to impress me. I think ASSA does a very good job in the traditional Korean street food dishes. My favourite has always been the pancakes, beef rice in stone pot, rice cakes in chillli sauce, kimchi soup and Korean glass noodles.
They also give u complimentary Korean tea as well as seasonsed beans srpouts and seaweed– typical Korean appetizers, which I think is white generous, considering Most Korean restaurants charge.
However, I am not a big fan of their Korean BBQ. The meat was not so fresh and the restaurant does not provide a proper bbq stove. Instead, u get a portable gas cooker and to me, the meat will never taste the same if its not cooked under the right fire. So I do not recommend barbecue there.
The service is a hit or miss. There are times like today when I was greeted with smiles and courtesy, but there are also times when staff are very rude and literally refuse to let you in despite opening hours.
This place is especially popular amongest university students so u can get decent food at a decent price!

It’s hard to know what to say. I’d prefer to give it 3.5 stars but there is no such option on the Unilocal app. The food wasn’t as spicy as it could have been, but they did have the seaweed squares that I like quite a bit.

The lunch special spicy stir fried chicken was amazing. Some of the best Korean food I have had. And the price was very reasonable.

Heaven in a hotpot! The hotpot definitely outshines the rest they have on the menu. The broth is so thick and rich in flavors. It doesn’t taste too spicy even though it looks so, but you can also taste sweetness. The pot has everything from marinated sliced beef, tofu, onion, kimchi and a selection of vegetables. They also have pork, seafood and kimchi hotpot.
The seafood pancake was alright. It doesn’t come in small portion so it’s good for a shared starter. I thought the dipping sauce wasn’t so good. It’s just a plain soy sauce without additional spices.
My favorite menus in Korean restaurant are japchae or vegetable fried glass noodles and BBQ ribs. Both were well served in Assa but the BBQ portion is small so you may want to order more if you consider eating just it.
Additional kimchi side is £2.50 and they give seaweed pickle and bean sprouts for free with free flow cold ginseng tea.
The place is rather small and can get very busy during lunch or dinner time. You will see a queue in front of this place but make sure you don’t enter the other Assa next door (Japanese).

Craving for some good Korean food in the rainy weather. This place is authentic with a lot of things on menu. We went for hotpot and ribs. they were both good but ribs were quite thin. We were seat in the basement in a Karaōke room. ha!

Not bad. I had the mixed (prawn/​veg) tempura and the chirashi bowl, for a total of about 25 pound. The tempura was quite good, but the chirashi was so-​so, with an uninspiring assortment of rather thin fish over rice that was a little on the warm side. Also, the service was somewhat indifferent.

Seafood pancake is awesome! Nice little restaurant to go to with friends. If you sit in the main part of the restaurant, you can see the chefs cooking but this means you smell of the food afterwards.
Been here a few times when I have had visitors and they have all enjoyed the meals.

I stumbled upon this place with a friend as we were looking for somewhere to eat before a show.
This place is not much to look at from the front, and i was concerned about the quality of food, but as i peered into the windows the place had quite a few people eating in there. So thats a good sign.
The service was fast and friendly. And the meals were well sized, delicious and reasonably priced. We went around 6.30pm and by the time we left the place was packed. Its obviously a hit with the locals.
I will definitely be coming back here.

Used to frequent this in my first 2 years at UCL but somehow completely forgot it existed till I walked past yesterday. Fortunately, it’s as good as I remember.
Atmosphere:
Not much to look at or shout about. Small but not overly cramped though you may have to share tables if you get seated on one of the larger ones. Korean flag painted on the ceiling which is kind of cool.
Food:
They have a lunch special where you get a main and «2 free sides» (seaweed and beansprouts). Wrt the sides, you get a sharing portion. Roughly 1 portion per 2 – 3 people. It’s «free» because you get served it once you sit down regardless, the difference being that you need to pay for it at dinner.
Anyway, yesterday we ordered the
rice with stir-​fried spicy marinated beef (bulgogi), rice with stif-​fried spicy pork, rice with vegetable in stone bowl with beef, bbq spicy pork belly and kimchi pancake.
As far as the ‘sides’ went, the kimchi pancake and bbq pork belly were both incredible.
As for the mains, I had a bit of the bulgogi and the spicy pork, both were really tender and flavourful. Pork had the edge though.
My own dish was the beef in stone bowl which was slightly disappointing. It was the one the waiter recommended, and was just pretty dry and bland. Meat felt underseasoned (or unseasoned) but perhaps its because I was comparing it to every other dish which was covered in sauce and spicy generally.
Anyway, great value. Mains are about £6-£8. My dislikes are that:
— they serve you seaweed and beansprouts when you sit down giving the appearance that it’s complementary but charge you anyway
— they serve you tea as well and I have no idea if it’s charged because;
— the bill is handwritten and just has a bunch of numbers jotted down and a total. Never really an issue in a small group when you each order one thing but with a group of 5 yesterday and each of us largely ordering one dish with some sides to share, we were marginally surprised that the total was £97.
Overall:
Generally great food and value for money. Solid spot if you’re in the mood for Korean. They also have hot pots which I’ve been meaning to try though yet to do so.

Small, Korean restaurant in central London. Gets very busy so either go outside of peak eating hours or reserve! Very friendly staff, excellent food prepared fresh, good prices. Tried my first Korean beer here! Light and refreshing!

Assa is situated next to a number of other Korean restaurants on St Giles High St. We stopped in for a late lunch here on the recommendation of a friend while visiting London for a few days. Place was busy (it’s pretty small — casual with an open kitchen in the back) but we were seated immediately. The majority of diners were tucking into a hotpot, but we ordered sesame bulgogi and the fresh roe hot stone bowl, which was a nice twist on the usual dolsot bibimbap. Loved both dishes and wish we had a place like this back home!
2 things surprised us – first that the bulgogi didn’t come with rice, and second, where we used to live, the local Korean restaurant gave 4 – 6 small dishes at the beginning of the meal (even if we were only 2 diners), and at Assa we only received 2. We’re not familiar enough with Korean dining customs to know which is the standard but it did surprise us a bit.

So I came here today during lunch with 2 of my classmates. I’m from Southern California so maybe my standards are a little too high, I have no idea. The original restaurant we wanted to eat at had a wait time of 15 minutes and since we had to get back to class, we looked into trying Assa.
After walking in we see that the place was full. Must mean it’s good right? Wrong! When we were finally seated… we were placed RIGHT NEXT TO THE DOOR so when people opened the door too wide, my chair would be knocked… that’s fine. We had to flag down our server to order… that’s fine. When we got our plates & utensils… one of the plates had a crusty old piece of green onion stuck to the inside of the plate… that’s fine. We got our seafood pancake… and it seemed a little UNDERCOOKED… ok that’s fine TOO. BUT THE LAST straw was the not so delicious £22 beef and kimchi hotpot. UGH. DISAPPOINTMENT.
The service was only so-​so. The server was very slow and always looked UNHAPPY.
Will I be coming back… I THINK NOT.

Assa serves up some of the better Korean food I have had in Europe The place is pretty small and most often there are a lot of Koreans eating here — I usually take it as a good sign if there are many people from the country in question eating in a restaurant. Usually a sign that it is fairly authentic — I would of course agree that I have had better Bibimbap in Seoul but the one served here is also really good.
It is not at all a fancy place but I like the relaxed atmosphere. Service can sometimes be a bit slow but not so much so to be annoying. If I am in the area I do often end up eating here.

This restaurant is one of four restaurants in a row in Central London. This might be a typical Korean restaurant in London, but it would be odd to the average American where kimchi is always free and the portions are much larger. London is expensive so maybe this is the norm. We received two free side dishes (bean sprouts and seaweed) and free tea with our kimchi pancake, spicy seafood udon, and dol sot bibimbap. The food was ok, not the best Korean food I’ve had, but not bad either. All this cost about 22 GBP or $ 35.
The upstairs was crowded so we ate in one of the karaōke rooms in the basement near the bathrooms so the ambience wasn’t that great.