It's Okay, But Not Really

I am not really sure if there is such a feeling of satisfaction and disappointment at the same time. Han-Il Kwan was my second Korean restaurant to visit for a review. I must admit that I was pretty excited because I’ve seen a lot of good reviews about it. My best friend and I journeyed through Waters Avenue to not see any sign of this restaurant. I used MapQuest and all, and I just pulled in this Korean-looking place hoping it was what we were looking for. I was so confused because this is America, and the sign for the place was in the restaurant’s language. Like really? How do they expect people to find it? I literally had to step out of the car to ask them what the name of the restaurant was.

Stepping inside was a whole new experience. It was a kind of small, but it was really appealing to the eyes. You can sense a modern-Korean feel. The same server who I asked if the place was called Han-Il Kwan greeted us warmly. She led us to the first booth. I couldn’t help, but look around ‘cause of the beautiful decorations and bonsais made of glass. It was just weird that we weren’t given our menus. We just had our utensils in front of us. I was like, “Okay. I guess they’re expecting us to eat the table or something?” After what seemed like forever, the server finally came up to us and asked for our drinks. She then realized that we didn’t even have menus to look at. We were the only ones there, by the way.




Glass Bonsai

After a few minutes of trying to figure out the small selection they had, we decided that we needed to buy more time and started with the Mansu Soup as our appetizer. The server looked at my best friend’s menu, pointed to make sure that was what we wanted, and then took it away from him. Oh. My. God. I was foreseeing really bad service. To think that we even said beforehand that we still needed time for our main course, but wanted to have the soup first.



What they had wasn’t much. I would say there was an average of five to seven dishes in one category. They didn’t really have crazy dishes like the Asian restaurants I’ve visited before. They had a sushi menu though. But this wasn’t the right time. Even if I had a craving for weeks, I was still strong on focusing on Korean cuisine.

The Mandu soup finally arrived. I was surprised at how small it was, considering the price. It wasn't very appealing too. It just looked like broth with some greens and dumplings tossed in there. I would say that I had to eat all the words I just said when I tasted it. It was so flavorful. It was as if they boiled the meat in bone for hours on end to create the lovely broth. Biting into the dumpling was as good as it was for me to slurp the soup. It was a mix of different minced ingredients in a encased delicate film of wanton. Although I forget the name, it reminded me of a dish my mother used to cook in the Philippines; only, the wrapper was crispy and crunchy. I know I was eating Korean cuisine, but I’m quite glad that it kind of reminded me of home.


Mandu Soup

After finally deciding on what to get for our main course, we waited for our server to get to the table. It was all about waiting in this restaurant. I guess that’s the trend. We ordered Hoedeopbap and Pork Bulgogi. I know we got beef bulgogi in the previous Korean restaurant we went to, but we were curious about what take they have on the same dish with different meat.

I was pretty disappointed when they served our food to us. Aside from the extremely long wait, they just gave us 5 different side dishes, unlike the thousands that they gave us at Rice Restaurant and Lounge. In addition to that, they were not nearly as good. They didn’t really taste fresh. Even my kimchi-loving best friend had one bite of each of the two types they had. Their take on the seafood salad was so-so. The bean sprouts weren’t that good too. And the ginseng strips were still a no go for me.


Side Dishes

I was already starting to feel bad for actually going here. And I wasn’t looking forward to our main course. I got the Hoedeopbap, a bowl filled with a lot of different ingredients. At least I could say that it sparked my interest. It was very colorful and appetizing. It mainly consisted of sashimi, which was fresh, thank God! There were imitation crabsticks, greens, cucumbers, tamago (sweetened egg), avocado, greens, fish roe, and topped with a little bit of shredded seaweed. The addition of the last ingredient made my day (Well, not really.. Just kind of.) I love seaweed and I used to much on them when I was a kid. The objective of this dish is to have the rice and the spicy sauce that comes with it mixed perfectly with everything else. I’d have to say that I agree with kcchoi on his review describing this dish as huge and well made. It was interesting, I must say. I wasn’t really impressed when I tried all of items individually. However, as a whole, it was phenomenal even if you can’t really tell the taste of which is which in your mouth.


Hoedeopbap

The pork bulgogi was all right. That’s all I can say. The good part was that it was tender and spicy, but not as hot as qla at Citysearch characterized it to be. In my book, those are always good things when it comes to the food I eat. However, it wasn’t as great as I expected it to be, considering the fact that I was all praises when I ate the beef bulgogi at another restaurant. Also, I was kind of put off by the color. It was like a glistening red-orange. I wonder what stuff they put on the meat to make the dish look like that (It looks really yummy in the picture, but trust me, it wasn’t that appetizing in person.)


Pork Bulgogi

After eating our not-that-good-not-that-bad meal, we had to wait. What did we expect, right? When we couldn’t take it anymore my best friend finally stood up, asked for boxes and went to the our server to ask for the check. Seriously, we were irritated by their service. We were not really in a good mood anymore, but the table next to us had it worse. They had to wait 3 times longer for their sushi to arrive. Two people, I guess, ordered the exact same thing and the second one got his meal ten minutes after the first finished his. All I was able to do was watch the server and wonder what all the servers do while the customers are waiting. By the way, the whole hour and a half that we were there (including probably the different increments of 45-minute waiting) never came by our table to ask us if everything was fine. We had to wait and practically stand up and run to our waitress to get us more drinks and other things we needed. They had three servers on and two tables to attend to. Such. Great. Service.

I guess this experience proved that there is actually the feeling of satisfaction and disappointment altogether. In my mind, there might be a possibility for me to go back if the food was so-so, but the service was awesome. Too bad their food was all right, and their service was the worst I have ever had! My visit was okay since the food filled me up and kind of made my taste buds happy, but all in all, not really because I seriously did not enjoy every single minute that I had to waste waiting for everything. It’s such a shame because I think I could go to McDonald’s and get better service than that.

Han-Il Kwan
8104 W Waters Ave. Tampa, FL 33615
Phone (813) 806-1551


      Extra Thoughts on Ms. DJ’s WWFF:

“As for how many people to take, there’s no right answer. Reviewing can be distracting. It’s hard to taste, observe, and simultaneously participate in the conversation around the table. When you go alone, it’s easier to soak up atmosphere, experience and energy level. On the other hand, you my hate dining alone, and the downside is that you can’t sample very much food.”

      DJ is right that reviewing can be distracting, but she seem on more dubious ground when she claims that there no right answer as for
      how many people to take. It just that you know you’ll be doing a review, then why would you even think of bringing a whole party
      with you. That is just what I understand from this excerpt from her book. Like, really? If you do want to do a restaurant review, then
      you should know well not to bring the whole gang so that you won’t need to participate in whatever everyone else is doing at the
      table.