Ham Gi Pak Cafe

My friend recommended this little Korean café as it is like home cooked food. So we pop in to try it for a few small dishes before another event.
Your can’t missed the bright yellow shop front entrance, it is a small café style restaurant. Toilet is outside too. We have tried the japchae, kimchee Korean pancake, and BBQ beef ribs .
The rib is juicy and nice but it £9, so more expensive than central london. And I have tried better for the other two dishes. So give it three stars this time. I will review again if I try more dishes next time.

I tried a bunch of items here and they ranged from ok to fantastic. The best were the chicken wings, which were amazing, and I generally don’t like wings that much. These were perfectly cooked and perfectly flavored. The skin was thin and crispy, not slimey at all, and the meat was juicy and delicious. The flavor was a little bit sweet and a little spicy. I’d come back just to get more wings. The seafood paejon was also fantastic, really well done. The size was good, there was a good dose of seafood throughout and it was cooked perfectly, not too greasy and no burnt spring onions.
The dukboki was pretty good, though it could do with pieces of duk a little bit smaller so that you get a better sauce/​duk ratio (I’m clearly a little obsessive about dukboki).
The bibimbap was not great. It was a little bland and the rice seemed overcooked.
The sausage and noodle chigae was good. This was the first time I’ve had this particular dish so I don’t have much to compare it to, but the sausage had a nice flavor that permeated the broth.
Cold spicy noodles were good but could have been a bit spicier.
I would go here again.

Ham Gi Pak Café is a small, very casual restaurant with about 15 seats in the entire place. I wanted desparately to give Ham Gi Pak 4 stars, as some of the items were prepared superbly, but others fell flat.
The chicken wings were the best fried chicken wings I’ve had in the UK and amongst the best Korean chicken wings ever. Very thin layer of crisp, perfect spicy/​sweet sauce and fantastic juicy flesh inside. Just great
Pa Jeon — best seafood pancake I’ve had in the UK. Crisp without being overcooked; scallions weren’t burnt. Fantastic.
Dukboki had good bite, though I thought the sauce could have been stronger.
The bibimbop was the biggest disappointment. The rice was still fluffy and did not have the charred crispy bottom. The quantity of the ingredients wasn’t terrific either. The owner came by and actually apologized for the quality of this dish after we told her it wasn’t very good.
The stew with sausages and pork was very good, but again I thought the flavor could have been a bit stronger.
Overall, a good experience and a place I would try again. Prices are fair and the service is good. Most notably, the owner is very straightforward and honest.

As a relative novice to Korean food, I went because somebody I follow on twitter suggested it.
Really nice, and the staff were very helpful in helping me choose. For one person, the portions are huge, but yum

Been here many, many, many times. Lovely food. Dumplings, chicken wings, ground tofu and pork, sea food soup, and cold spicy noodles. In fact I can’t think of anything I don’t like here. Family love coming here.
It was taken over by someone when the original owner retired but they didn’t last very long. The original owner then helped the current owner get it back on its feet and what a welcome return they are. They do a very nice whole spicy fish (forget what it is called) but you can’t ask for more at the price.

Hamgipak is amazingly small, and the entrance rather nondescript. When we walked by, we weren’t even sure if it was open, or if it was a restaurant, even though it said ‘open’ on the door. The windows were so fogged up, we couldn’t tell what was inside.
There are only six tables inside (three meant for two, and another three intended for four, or a squished six). So I guess it’s lucky my friend and I got a table when we did, given that this place doesn’t seem to do reservations! We got here at 1.30 pm on Sunday (granted, it was Valentine’s Day) when the place was half-​full, but 20 minutes after we arrived, the whole restaurant filled up, with some other people having to share their tables (not us though, as our food pretty much filled up the table).
That aside, this place is really nice and cosy, and the service is very friendly. The kitchen is located in the back room, so the smell of food cooking doesn’t permeate the dining area, although it had to be said that our clothes did smell of food after that.
The menu seemed extensive enough, and the jap chae (glass noodles with meat) was incredibly delicious, with the serving one third larger than those served in restaurants located in central London. The ban chan — assortment of picked vegetables as appetisers — was good as well, not to mention free! The other dish we went for — C7 on the menu, stew of mashed-​up beancurd with minced meat and kim chi — wasn’t that great, and needed a little salt to be added — and I don’t think we’ll be ordering that again when we next come back.
We were pleasantly surprised by the bill, which came up to less than £10 per person. We had both ordered green tea, and rather than charge us both for a cup, they’d given us a pot of water with one tea bag and charged us the price of one, which is not something I’d encountered in other restaurants which are usually a little more eager to get money out of you.
All in all, in spite of the distance (22 minutes on the overground from Waterloo and a six minutes walk from New Malden station), this is definitely a place I’d like to come and try out once more. It has the added bonus of being open on a Sunday, which was how we ended up here, as the restaurant we had originally intended to go to — and the next two we saw — turned out to be closed on Sundays.

Best Korean food I’ve had in London, hands down. If you’re into Korean – and I’m into Korean – then it’s actually worth taking a train to New Malden for a taste of their sweet Korean goodness.
We ordered five dishes for four people and it came to £45. In central London it would have been twice that. I was especially pleased with the soon dubu chigae – was the nicest I’ve had in a very long time. I’d go back for that alone.
The seafood pancake was one of the best I’d had. Not greasy, cooked through, spring onions perfectly done. Yum. Bulgogi was great and cheap £8 for a big plate of beef. The spicy octopus was good, but since it was twice as much as everything else at £15, I was expecting it to be the high point of the meal, which it wasn’t. It was still really tasty, though.
The only frightening moment was at the end, when we had finished and the entire staff were sitting there with their fleece jackets on waiting for us to get the hell out so they could go home. Understandable, but I think this was around 10:30. So I guess they keep early hours. In my experience, I’d advise against messing with Korean women in fleece. Seriously.
Advice: go to the off-​license that you see immediately on leaving the train station on your way. The place is BYO and there aren’t any shops in the immediate area with a decent selection. The restaurant is 5 or 6 minutes from the train station.