Mandarin House

I ended up not going down to SD because I was too tired to drive today. I'm going to leave tomorrow. So with that said, here's a Thursday post.

I went to LA/Koreatown this week after my finals to take my grandpa out for lunch. He's over 90, and this man still loves to go out to shop and eat. As we entered the food court, he started getting really excited, just because there was so much variety and forgot that we were there to go to Mandarin House, one of his favorite eats in the area. The place serves Korean-Chinese food.


I haven't tried many things here because we go here mainly for the jjajjangmyun (black bean sauce noodle). It is derived from the Chinese dish, but the taste is definitely different. I've only been here for lunch, and a lot of times, there's a bit of a wait, but never longer than 10-15 minutes. The inside of the place isn't that big.


After we were seated, we were given the standard: tea, cabbage kimchi, and raw onions, which I enjoy with a bit of vingear, with black bean sauce. I thought the kimchi wasn't ripe enough. It tasted like they just made it that day, and it needed to sit out for a bit longer. It's usually good though.




I ordered the gan jjajjang for a little over 8 bucks. The sauce and noodles come out separately, and you have to mix it together. They were a bit skimpy on the cucumbers, and I wish I got more. The noodles were cooked fine, and the waitress cut them for me. It's a pretty good portion, and you'll definitely be full. The sauce had small chunks of pork, lots of onions, and some zucchini. I don't know why, but the past couple times I've eaten this, I started having really bad gas pains. I think it was just eating too much of the onions and the fact that my stomach has gotten more sensitive lately because this never really happened until this year. So a caveat to you all. I was careful not to eat all the onions this time although I wanted to. Next time, I'm just going to pop a couple tums after I eat.
The jjajjang for the most part has been pretty consistent here, and I personally think it's a much better place than what the DB and Rowland Heights area offers. It's the sauce that's superior to the other places I've tried, and I think it might be because of their liberal use of meat. I've also tried their jjamppong here and wasn't very impressed with it because I thought the broth was bland and oily, but like the jjajjang, it came in a big portion.

Service wasn't that attentive. We had to ask for everything, but they were pretty busy. I've never really had a problem with the service here though overall.

Mandarin House (Koreatown Plaza 1st Floor)
928 S Western Ave Ste 147
Los Angeles, CA 90006