Cah-Chi

Last night I had the pork bibimbap and it was phenomenal! It comes in a sizzling bowl and gets mixed up at your table with an egg dropped in. The whole dish was so tasty and less than £10.
It’s not a very flashy restaurant but the food is excellent. Plus they give you a selection of small dishes after you order, the soy beans are goood.

Semi authentic Korean food. Portions are a bit of a joke though, and they are obviously catering for the easily pleased westerners packing out the place. I know this isn’t Korea (where all the banchan is free!) but even in London having to pay for the lettuce to accompany the BBQ is just a piss take.

A stone throw and a hop around the corner from my casa in Wandsworth this place was worth a try as it had raving reviews. Unfortunately as soon as I ate there I threw up in their bathroom, I don’t think it was the food … I wasn’t feeling so hot when I walked in. My husband loved it. I didn’t get to fully enjoy my visit so I would swing by here and give it another chance. Note it can get very crowded, not sure if they take reservations but we where barely able up get a table.

Enjoyed this place. BUT.
Ok let’s start from the beginning: I never ate korean BBQ out of Shanghai, and I really wanted to repeat the experience. The problem is that the only good korean place in London seems to be out of London. Yeah, I can’t consider SW18, wimbledon as London, sorry. I tried to ask to my friends «hey, let’s eat korean bbq in wimbledon», they just told me NO. Lucky me my parents were in town, and they just don’t know what sw18 does mean… Muhahahaha!
Then… to most important thing, the restaurant: the place is pretty small, and we had an issue as soon as we came in. We booked a table for 8:30, we actually sat down at 9:05. But the worst thing is that they tell you to wait at the bar, where the «bar» is a counter with a 20 cm space from the counter to the first table. That’s bad, that’s really bad. There are actually two tables that are basically in the bar space, and in front of the toilet and the kitchen: I felt really bad for the people sat there, it basically ruins you food experience, as you eat with people passing by and people waiting (half an hour, not 2 minutes) right on your table. BAD BAD BAD.
When we actually sat down, we finally had our food: we went for the set meal, it has a bunch of appetizers (good but nothing mind blowing, except for the dumpling which were awesome) and the BBQ. Not this is absolutely great, right caramelization, nicely cooked on the grill and the radish and spring onion side were perfect. This is how a korean bbq should be! I also tried the octopus balls. well pretty standard IMHO, nothing out of the world…
They have an awesome option for the dessert: three ice creams selection, with green tea, black sesame and yuzu. I never tried the latter two, not a great ice cream but still I was happy to try it!
In the end… yes it;s a very good place and it should deserve ⁴⁄₅ for the food, but those two tables put over there and the delay for the tables make them lose 1 star… If you ever come here PLEASE refuse to sit at the last two tables!

I’ve eaten at a bunch of Nyc (K-​Town) Korean restaurants and this is a London gem. I was very impressed.

I really wanted to like this place. The starters we got were the japchae and dokboki. Both portions were so tiny it was embarrassing. We also got the kalbi, samgyupsal, and chicken. The chicken was not that great, but the kalbi and samgyupsal were good.
Overall, the portions are ridiculously tiny for the price you’re paying. I suggest you head to New Malden if you want the best Korean food in London.

The service was brilliant. I’m not sure the same was true of all the servers around, but our waitress had a very sincere smile, even when she didn’t fully understand what I was saying.
The barbecue pork was good and I enjoyed the spectacle of it being cooked at the table. But a lot of the other dishes which made up the set menu were small and uninspiring. And the leaves of the salad were limp. Always a bit concerned when a restaurant would consider serving you something that looks like that.

Even as a native Korean I was pleasantly surprised at how authentic the food was. I was the only Korean in the restaurant though – I assume because the dishes were overpriced. The food was cooked a bit sweeter to cater to non-​Koreans, and the presentation of the food was clean and neatly done. Good job making the food appetizing to non-​Koreans while keeping it authentic. I would have given four stars if only the price was a little less expensive or they had given us more portions. In Korea I would’ve been able to eat much more for the same price, but I guess I can’t complain in London. Recommend!

This is tasty korean BBQ. Each table has a BBQ grill and if you tell them you’ve done this before, they’ll let you cook the meat yourself — a far more enjoyable experience. Having been a few times I’d recommend the prawn starter, and for the BBQ my favourite cuts are the chill pork (number b4 on the menu I think!) and the tenderloin steak.
However on the last few visits I’ve grown less keen — it just feels like they’re rushing you and interfering too much. For example last night we ordered 3 bbq dishes and said we’d like to cook them myself. When they came she emptied all 3 dishes on the grill so they all cooked at once and overcooked. Then she kept coming and turning the grill down without asking. It was all just quite rude. The search for a great Korean bbq place goes on!

I’ve been a lot of times and I like the fact it’s different!
I’ve always ordered from the main menu and it’s been great. This time I went with ten people and we had the set menu for ease! What a disappointment it was and very expensive for what we had. The amount of meat would have been lost in martini glass.
Don’t order the set menu!
Staff are always friendly and try hard, but are not very well trained.
The place is small but cosy!
Give it a try.
Thx
KX

Good Korean BBQ, nice and friendly staff. They’re a BYO (except for beer) and the meat is BBQed at the table, which is entertaining.
If you like Korean food, kimchi and sour cabbage, you should like it. Rather good price too.

Que hacer un dia cuando no tienes ganas de cocinar? que hay abierto por la zona? Nada mejor que hacer un Unilocal y descubrir un coreano que todo el mundo pone muy bien y que esta a tres pasos de casa. Habra que probar…
El lugar cumple con las expectativas y las supera! El personal siempre muy amable, te aconseja y te sirve con una sonrisa (todos coreanos, por supuesto)
Y un gran descubrimiento la comida coreana. El bulgogi, carne marinada que tu mismo preparas en el fuego que tienes en la mesa y que enrollas en una hoja de lechuga, es algo sencillo pero simplemente delicioso.
Por ahora todo lo que he probado en este sitio me gusta, asi que seguire v iniendo…

My flat mate took us to Cah-​Chi last night for our first try of Korean food.
It was a great experience. One of my favourite restaurants i have been to — period.
I have to wonder whether the restaurant is exemplary as it appears to be, or whether all Korean food is just that good. Regardless, if you go for a meal at Cah-​Chi, you are going to have an incredibly pleasant time.
The décor has a subtle eloquence to it. They have a heated conservatory at the back of the restaurant, which was the perfect place to chill out! You are allowed to bring your own wine to the restaurant, which is served up to you and stored and there is no corking fee, which keeps the price down. Not that you should worry about price. The food there is very fair, for its quality.
Starters were brilliant — deep fried Oysters, Kim shin beef in a lovely sauce and Octopus eggs. The main was a choice of a noodle dish, rish dish or stew. As a table we went for one of each — all delicious. If you do go there, order the Green Tea tiramisu for dessert — absolutely lovely
The Staff were incredibly friendly, welcoming, did a great job and food was quick to the table.
I had never had Korean food before and my expectation lay somewhere between Chinese and Thai. The food wasnt greasy, heavy and the spices were spot on.
I am looking forward to going again

I was super stoked to try this place as my aunt had been raving about their food for a couple days now. I don’t know if it’s because there is no lack of good Korean food back at home, but I didn’t find their mains that special. Their starters were really yummy, and the service is good! But their BBQ meats, and dolsot bibimbap were just okay.
STARTERS:
**Pa jeon (seafood pancake): So good! It’s not very thick, so it’s easy to eat a lot!
**Calamari in spicy sauce: Also really good! Not too spicy.
**Fried chicken in garlic & honey sauce: Soooo yummy! Reminds me of the usual garlic & soy sauce fried chicken.
**Fried softshell crab: Good taste but it wasn’t that crispy.
**Prawn tempura: Very average. I didn’t really like the sauce that came with it, tasted a little of peanut butter?
**Fried courgette in egg: Not a huge fan of zucchini, but my cousin really liked it.
MAINS:
**BBQ: We tried the galbi (spare rib), bulgogi and bakbulgogi (chicken). I felt like they were all pretty standard. The meat is well marinated so it’s not bland, but the sauce wasn’t special. Definitely think I’ve had better bbq meats elsewhere.
**Dolsotbap: Okay, I was super confused about this! I’ve never ordered bibimbap without being served the red sauce. It was worth paying more for the stone pot as the rice was actually crispy, and the dish overall wasn’t bad, but I felt like it lacked flavor due to the missing sauce :(
DESSERTS:
We split a green tea tiramisu, and a chocolate cake with green tea ice cream. The tiramisu was pretty good, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the chocolate cake. I thought it would be a dense cake, but it was more like a light cake with mousse. The green tea ice cream is very mild, and pretty standard. Nothing spectacular on the dessert side.
I also really like their kimchi! It’s more mild/​less spicy than what I’m used to. The service was also really great! My youngest cousin talks soooo much, and the waiter was really patient with him and even brought out extra seaweed since he liked it so much.
***TL;DR: Service is great! Starters are amazing! Try the fried chicken and seafood pancake!!!

Cah Chi lives up to the hype. I have to admit I was slightly apprehensive about coming here on a UYE (thanks for organising Katherine B!) after failing to cope with kim-​chi in a trip to Korea a couple of years ago. Then, I just couldn’t deal with what to me seemed like its seriously hot tang, forcing me to break all my culinary rules when abroad and take refuge in Western-​style eateries in a twin act of self-​loathing and self-​preservation.
Cah Chi’s food was the hot mug of Ovaltine that made it all better. Everything on the BBQ set menu I opted for seemed so fresh and tasty. I’m nowhere near knowledgeable enough about Korean food to know just what the set menu was comprised of (let’s face it, it’s not as though the receipt was any help — see photo) — for that I recommend Andrew M’s review. But I can say that I enjoyed every last bit of it. Even the kim-​chi held few fears for me. Sure, it was tangy, but this seemed to come from mild vinegar rather than chilli. It was refreshing, even. It’s possible that this is because its intensity has been lessened for the UK market, but I’m fine with that.
Service was quick and value decent — I’d recommend the set menu for its quality and sheer quantity of food. I’ll happily be returning for more, and, hopefully, start to learn the names of some of the dishes.

Cah-​Chi, I have no idea how I should pronounce you — my terrible Korean accent makes it sound like ‘catch’ with a Japanese accent ‘ka-​chi’. Ah well… despite my failure of pronunciation, I am in love. (…with your food)
This place is good from the first second you wander in! The smell of the beautifully marinated meats cooking on a barbecue has to be the best possible greeting for dinner. They also have those cool little hand-​wipes that grow when a member of staff pours boiling water over them. My friends had never seen those before, and were impressed before we even got started ordering!
The food was excellent. Seriously. Excellent.
It lived up to the happy meaty smell… we tried:
— The staff brought three extra small dishes with fermented soy beans, potato salad and some other really good thing that involved daikon radishes. They didn’t charge us for it… and I don’t know what it was, but it was gooood.
— A selection of Kimchi
— Salad with a Korean dressing (It was really good with all the spicy meats)
— Fried courgettes (Hobak-​Jeon– oh my goodness I loved this)
— Gyoza (yummy dumplings… I have no idea what you call them in Korean– sorry!)
— Steak tartar (It was served really cold with raw egg and thin slices of pear)
— Hot pot: Kimchi Jji-​gae (a spicy stew with tofu and pork)
— Meat: Kalbi/​Bulgolgi/​Dak Bulgolgi (all delicious when served in lettuce leaves with miso paste, daikon and spring onions) plus Duck (comes with a mustard/​orange sauce– yum!)
— We also ordered a couple of dolsot bibimbap and some jap-​chae
— Sweet potato cake. This was really good, but I still want to try the chocolate fudge cake served with maccha ice-​cream.
To be honest, I have had better Korean barbecue in Japan (near Kobe you can have yaki-​niku using melt-​in-​the-​mouth Kobe beef) but to find somewhere this amazing in London made me happy to take the looong trip out to Earlsfield station despite living in NE London. Hence 5 stars.
**Extra stars** You can bring your own bottle (s) of wine for a corkage fee of £3. They are happy to bring you glasses and serve the wine for you… but this helped keep our meal very inexpensive. (^^)

It was a chilly sunny Sunday and I was lazily sprinting (yes it’s possible) down to Tooting on my bike. I stopped for a minute to double check the address of Cah Chi, and was startled by a tall man sitting erect on a monster of a tourer bike, dark jacket fluttering in his self-​made headwind, and a straw coloured trilby clapped on his head. Who was this paragon of cycling style? None other than our very own Peter S! Strangely enough, that was my first instinctive guess, perhaps because no one stands out quite like Peter.
Anyways, more to the point, we were both headed to Cah Chi for a Sunday lunch organised by Katie B (and funded through some quality LivingSocial vouchers). Cah Chi, for those not in the know, is a Korean place that seems to specialise in Korean BBQ. This involves a bit of frying on a heated metal dome in front of you and in general is delicious.
En masse, we opted for the set menu (£20pp) with a mix beef and pork bulgogi. Take a minute to actually look at the set menu. There is a ridiculous amount of food on offer for your money.
Our «starters» included traditional kimchee, a radish kimchee, cucumbers with a chilli paste, seaweed salad, fermented soy beans in a sweet sticky glaze, salad, and a miso-​like soup with tofu and mushrooms. The radish kimchee and cucumbers were not part of the set menu but ordered at the suggestion of Rob and Katie. We also had a seafood pancake, steak tartare, and octopus balls (called Moon-​o but basically takoyaki).
The kimchees were perfect with just enough tang without being overwhelmingly sour. I would have liked a bit more spice to the chilli but I feel it had been watered down a bit to cater to English tongues. Still, great flavour. Seaweed salad was fresh and crunchy and thankfully lacking that tell tale slickness when you’ve kept your seaweed around for just a little too long. Salad and soup were not memorable but fine and filling.
The fermented soy beans were my favourite and without a doubt would replace popcorn as a great movie snack although they would be a bit messy. It’s hard to describe the taste… it has a firm texture with a slightly creamy nutty taste. The glaze is highly addictive and made me think of a sweet miso paste I once used so maybe along those lines.
The takoyaki was good which a rich flavourful sauce and tasty bonito flakes. It felt as though the octopus was overcooked while the dough ball slightly undercooked so slightly out of whack there. The steak tartare was likewise good, but a bit on the frozen side as if it needed another 10 minutes to lose those last ice crystals. It was also more finely sliced that minced so it felt like snacking on thin meat sticks than a traditional French tartare. Not a problem, more an FYI there. The seafood pancake was quite yummy and beautiful to behold but I only got a few morsels so can’t comment to much on the seafood. The batter was fantastic though.
By the time we had all this, we were a bit stuffed but the meat was still to come. Our tables were converted into grills, and the staff expertly cooked the seasoned meat in front of us. I’m not sure if they always do this, or just because the place was a bit empty. The meat is served with julienned vegetables with a tart dressing, some julienned cucumbers/​radish, lettuce, rice, and a fermented bean paste. Eaten as a lettuce wrap, you take a lettuce leaf, add the rice and veggies, dab a bit of paste, and stick a chunk of two of meat on top. Wrap it up and take a bit. It’s tasty, involves you in your food, and as a benefit is on the lower carb end of things.
Overall, a fun and relaxing meal that was definitely great value for money (even if I was paying the full £20 instead of half price). I’d happily go again and the only drawback being it’s all the way down in Tooting. Still, on a sunny day I don’t mind the ride and will give Peter a race next time!
Thanks Katie B for organising and introducing me to a great source of Korean food in London!

In most urban areas, one goes IN to find good ethnic food. Not in London. In London, one must go OUT.
Like Laura N., I would happily travel from Hackney to Earlsfield for this place. And I can finally safely say…
*drumroll*
I’VE FOUND GOOD KOREAN FOOD IN LONDON.
Oh thank god. And just in time. Price wise, it is a little less then Toh Bahn in Clerkenwell. Kimchee and other side dishes are mostly £2.50. My friends and I did Korean BBQ and got the preset meal for £19.50. It came with seaweed and lettuce ponzu salad, soup, chill calamari, Jap chae noodles, gyoza-​style pork dumplings, a couple free ban chan, and either spicy pork BBQ or bugolgi (along with sesame paste sauce, lettuce wraps, spring onion salad, and daikon radish pickle). Both the pork and bugolgi were top notch and caramelized nicely on their gas grill.
They have the grills in front of you, but unlike some places, the waiter will cook it for you. Based on other reviews, we also got the octopus balls (Takoyaki in Japanese), which were very good, but pretty standard takoyaki in my opinion.
The kimchees were VERY flavorful here, and not too spicy for kimchee novices. Kak Doo Gee (radish pickle) was also top notch. You can book reservations online via TimeOut reservations. I am getting incredibly hungry writing this and must stop or else I might start drooling on my keyboard.
If you’ve never had Korean food, don’t go anywhere else in London. Come here first, and if you need help, bring me.

Oh dear god it happened.
Despite my best efforts as an New Yorker, London has finally, unquestionably, outdone a food I love from my home town.
ok. here it goes, this hurts :deep breath:
Cah-​Chi is better Korean BBQ than anywhere in Manhattan*.
Cah-​Chi is better than gil mok (Corner Place) in L.A. (which was good enough to permanently single handedly un-​vegetarian-​ize my girlfriend).
Cah-​Chi easily ranks among the top Korean BBQ options in the US**
How the hell i this place in London? Cah-​Chi is so five star that it hurts. It is an absolute must go location if you are going to be spending time in London. It thoroughly and completely forced me to stop complaining that there wasn’t good enough food in London. It has been a few months and I still just can’t believe how good it was.
If you have never even tried Korean food (apparently none of the british people on my team had!!!) then don’t be scared, the staff was super friendly and I’m sure they will walk you through the process gently. But seriously, if you LIVE in London and haven’t been to Cah-​Chi then you have been making a serious mistake and need to fix that asap.
*To be fair, I haven’t rolled deep enough into queens to really compare Cah-​Chi to all of NYC.
**sorry the chadolbaegi at Cho Sun Ok still reigns supreme as best Korean BBQ man has ever conceived. Cah-​Chi is fantastic, but I haven’t gone crazy.

Seriously.
Seriously, people.
Forget that it will take you upwards to an hour to get here if you’re coming from the opposite side of London.
Forget that you’ll have to get on (gasp!) National Rail.
Forget that you don’t even know if you *like* Korean food.
Forget all that!
And book yourself a table at Cah-​Chi. (Yes, book.)
You’ll get some of the best food you’ve ever had in London. (No, not just some of the best Korean food.)
You’ll get the best service you’ve ever experienced in London. Perhaps in the world!
I’m not exaggerating.
And get the octopus balls.
Just do it.

I will joyfully travel from Islington to Earlsfield and happily sit out in the back patio under heat lamps to enjoy the amazingness of this Korean food again. *That’s* how good it was. And I will make this trek often as this is quite possibly my new favourite restaurant in London, er, Earlsfield.
To conclude this highly informative review, Tom E was right — a visit without octopus balls isn’t a visit at all. At all.