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    Sam Sam

    4.0 (19 reviews)
    ModerateKorean
    Closed 11:30 am - 9:30 pm

    Sam Sam Photos

    SAM SAM ATMOSPHERE

    What's the vibe?
    Moderate noise
    Good for kids
    Good for groups

    Recommended Reviews - Sam Sam

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    Fried chicken, kimchi fries and a bowl of rice.
    Taylor B.

    Korean fried chicken has to be one of the greatest inventions ever, and Sam Sam is the latest kid on the block to offer this god-send of a meal. It's housed over 3 levels with high tables bathed in neon lights. The staff are friendly and attentive. The main menu is made up of fried chicken and a bunch of sides. I've been there 3 times so far and had the boneless fried chicken each time. It's $16 for a half serve which isaround 275 grams. I'd also recommend grabbing the Kimchi fries; shoestring fries topped with cheese, crispy pork belly, sour cream and spring onion. Throw in a bowl of rice and you're looking at aroud $33 dollars. This is enough to feed two hungy mouths. Sam Sam is a very welcome addition to the Swanston St restaurant scene. Highly recommended.

    One Whole boneless chicken to rule them all
    Ahmed E.

    Delicious, fast, and clean. Tried Samsam for the first time recently and it did not disappoint. I went for boneless chicken (one whole chicken, if you'd like to know), one half with sweet and sour sauce and the other with soy garlic (I think) and I was in heaven. I am not a fan of the beer + fried chicken = happines, so dont even know if they offer any beverage or not. Service was very quick considering the place was full and with a few queueing at the door. It does not take away Chick-In or Gami's very greasy fried chicken crown but it certainly comes very close. Oh, and when I asked them to wrap the rest of the food to go, they provided a nice and clean plastic container and cover. Neat.

    Lachlan C.

    Walked into this bustling restaurant and there was a table waiting for me which I got. Very impressed with the service that I received whenever I needed water I got it, when I wanted to switch tables I got it and when I wanted a few condiments they got it. I ordered the Bibimbap which came with rice, an egg, spicy chicken, onion, choy, cucumber, beanshoots and carrot. The freshness of the vegetables gave a fresh taste along with the good flavour of the egg and the spicy chicken. This dish was excellent combining authentic korean flavours with a modern twist. Also got the Hite beer to go along with it only $6. This meal came to a total of $19 and was very good value for the excellent food received. Definitely will come back for the fried chicken!

    Xingyi W.

    If you want to have a meal with rats,that will be a very nice place eating here.really really an excellent experience

    Horrific
    Reem A.

    Worst Korean place I've ever been to. Such a scam!! Targeting rich Asian kids and other "inexperienced" consumers. My plate was such an economic scam! All rice, cheap veggies, and pinch of beef, over cooked eggs. I almost threw up halfway through, I had to leave the plate as you can see in the photo. DONT COME HERE NO MATTER WHAT!!! And the staff is super rude and racist

    Soy milk.. where's the other half
    Jenn H.

    Meh.. Overpriced bits of chicken covered in sauce and it appeared I only got half a glass of soya bean. Very average..

    Denzil D.

    Ok, this is not fine dining but when you are looking for fried chicken you can't go wrong. The place is fast and efficient and the food is good. I had the fried rice and spicy chicken and really enjoyed it. After drinking this is the best! I did order too much food, but I took it home and had it for lunch the next day.

    Spicy chicken and cheese fries

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    9 years ago

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    9 years ago

    Cool place. Friendly staff, prompt service. Beer came quick and the food shortly after. Tasty and just enough. Total bill $18, not bad!

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    9 years ago

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    Review Highlights - Sam Sam

    The freshness of the vegetables gave a fresh taste along with the good flavour of the egg and the spicy chicken.

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    Guhng - the Palace

    Guhng - the Palace

    4.1(24 reviews)
    0.4 kmMelbourne
    $$$

    This is a hidden gem down McKillop that boasts a good selection of Korean dishes and the…read moreopportunity to grill your own meal! Not to mention the decor is classy and chic. I went with the bi bim bap, a classic that was cooked to perfection. Loads of toppings on purple rice. It was so delicious. You also get to add as much hot sauce as you desire. Plus there are unlimited sides like kim chi, pickled radish and seasoned onions. For a dinner meal coming out at under $20, it can't be beat! I would gladly come here again.

    Having been to a number of Korean BBQ places in Melbourne (Oriental Spoon, Hwaro, Marroo) I would…read morehave to say this is one of the better ones. It's decked out decently enough; kind of has a warehouse feel complete earthy tones. I'd recommend dining in the basement close to the front for 2 reasons: 1. The smoke that inevitably billows out in korean bbq will rise and so if you're one of those poor buggers on the top floor, you will be copping 3 levels worth of bbq fumes 2. It's very close to the kitchen so your food comes out amazingly fast. One thing I must share are the desserts at this place which are absolutely amazing. The desserts are only 6 bucks a pop and you can have everything from black sesame ice cream, green tea cakes and ice-cream, lemon sorbet with jelly and black and white chocolate mousse. You'd easily expect to pay $15 for comparable desserts elsewhere. To understand my complex voting system, this place is a 4 for food, plus 1 for the dessert and minus one for the service, which was about as interesting and engaging as a wet lettuce leaf. They are attentive enough in that they bring out the food fast, and replace your grill as soon it gets blackened like coal, but as I've stated elsewhere, to get a 5, I need an experience with friendly casual banter! TIP: this place has unlimited lettuce and side dishes if you run out.

    Photos
    Guhng - the Palace - Korean BBQ with Pork Belly and Beef

    Korean BBQ with Pork Belly and Beef

    Guhng - the Palace
    Guhng - the Palace

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    Korean Table - Interior decor

    Korean Table

    5.0(5 reviews)
    1.0 kmMelbourne

    The food here was amazing, ambiance was very street Korean and comfortable, and the service was…read moregood - Sunday surcharge was a bit steep, but the meal made up for it.

    Cute little Korean restaurant on Rose Lane, the "new laneway" in the Upper West Side building…read more Korean Table is surrounded by I Love Chicken, Hakoya Ramen, Kyoto Mart, and Rolling Nori - and it holds its own for sure! I came here on New Years Day for dinner. The menu is 6 pages long, but there is a picture of every dish, which makes it really helpful to decide (I assume especially if you're not Korean). I kept it classic and went with the beef bibimbap, and boy am I glad I did! The only adjustment I made was no bean sprouts. Served in a sizzling hot stone bowl, you'll have to control yourself for a couple of minutes to let the rice continue to cook and get all crispy on the edges. The server was quite sweet and asked me if I knew how to eat it when she delivered the bowl. I sheepishly said, "um, mix it all together?" and she nodded in approval and skipped away. All of the ingredients and flavors blended together perfectly, aided by a generous helping of gochugang (sweet/spicy red sauce). I added a grapefruit soju to wash it down. Like many places, you'll self serve cutlery (chopsticks, spoons, napkins) as well as water from the counter. Someone takes your order either at the register or your table (didn't seem to be rhyme or reason to which or why), and then drops off your food when you're done. Space is tailored to groups of 2 or 4, though one group of about 6 or 7 kids came in together looking worse for wear after NYE. Prices are about $15 each for most entrees. The food was delicious (see photos) and I will be back!

    Photos
    Korean Table - Spicy bugogi beef

    Spicy bugogi beef

    Korean Table - Bibimbab Chicken bowl

    Bibimbab Chicken bowl

    Korean Table - Beef bibimbap, no bean sprouts.

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    Beef bibimbap, no bean sprouts.

    Ohsso

    Ohsso

    3.5(2 reviews)
    0.3 kmMelbourne

    Food: 4/5 Service: 3/5…read moreCleanliness: 4/5 Decor & Style: 4/5 Bulgogi Hotpot was good/decent, but I've had better. I do like the ambience and having hot pot sitting on the streets, something I've never had before with Korean hot pot. This is a good place for late night dining.

    Miznon was full, Busan was closed. We chose Ohsso at random off the street. We'd give Ohso a 3.3…read morewhich would round out to a 3.5 if that option was available. This is best described as a Korean cafe, I reckon. The space is pretty rough and ready and open to the street. Seating is on backless stools. The food is serviceable but without real wow factor. We chose the pork and kimchi dumplings to start. There were 6 to share not 8 as the server has promised, not that that was ever going to be a game changer with people as good humoured as us. The dumplings were good. We liked them and they disappeared with some speed. I chose the Seafood Jiim for main and my partner chose the Bulgogi Hot Pot. The hot pot was the dish. Silky smooth with good amounts of beef and onion, it's a beauty. Really nicely flavoured and we both loved it. A very generous serve on offer which we couldn't finish. The seafood dish wasn't as successful. Probably a strategic error on my part to order it. Overspiced for me. There was a good amount of seafood though and again the dish was a good serve. Note, the wine choice here is alarming. Basically there is no choice and the house wine is a NZ sav blanc, never our first choice. That is as may be. We had some unexpected entertainment during our meal. We heard the life story of the three people at the next table. Their mission seemed to be to speak so loudly, shout almost, that the whole restaurant could hear. As annoying as it was it was also strangely compelling.

    Photos
    Ohsso
    Ohsso
    Ohsso

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    Uncle Jung's - Spicy rice cake

    Uncle Jung's

    4.5(2 reviews)
    0.4 kmMelbourne

    Uncle Jung's is in amongst a group of smaller food outlets in the walk through of Melbourne…read moreCentral and Elizabeth Street, Menzies Alley. Having frequented its neighbour, Saigon Square countless times, I decided to mix things up and give Uncle Jung's a try and I was very glad I did. I went for one of the bibimbab bowls - here you choose your meat (or veg) of choice along with a combination of other vegetables like mushrooms, carrot, zucchini, etc along with a raw egg. I opted to try the Spicy Pork minus the raw egg. We chose to sit in the upstairs area that is shared by this group of food outlets and as with its sister stores, the food arrived quickly, was delivered with a smile and looked delicious. I could still hear mine sizzling away and loved the presentation with the addition of the mini chilli and soy sauce bottles on the side, enabling you to add as much or as little of these as you pleased. My only complaint would be that for "spicy pork", it didn't taste spicy at all - having been to other Korean restaurants in the past, I have come to learn that one chilli in Korean speak is the equivalent of three or more anywhere else! However, this was no biggy as I simply added chilli sauce to get it to the right heat level and devoured every last morsel of food. I definitely recommend making a visiting and trying one of the bibimbab bowls - I don't think it will be too long before I make a return visit! They also have a card you can get stamped and earn your 10th meal free - got to love a place that rewards your return custom!

    If you are after a great Korean modern take. You have to try uncle Jung's. It offers Korean…read moretacos, Korean burgers, fried chicken, and chips with an awesome variety of sauces to choose from. Uncle Jung's used real nixtamal tortillas.. Not your usual imitation Mexican super market branded tortillas. If you feel like trying something completely new right in the cbd. Give uncle Jung's s shot and you won't be disappointed.

    Photos
    Uncle Jung's - Front of the restaurant

    Front of the restaurant

    Uncle Jung's - Original flavour Korean fried chicken rice plate

    Original flavour Korean fried chicken rice plate

    Uncle Jung's - Chicken bibimbap

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    Chicken bibimbap

    ChangGo - Tofu soup

    ChangGo

    3.9(9 reviews)
    0.5 kmMelbourne
    $$

    We arrived at this restaurant at 6:30 pm on a Thursday night only to find that there was already a…read morelong queue of people waiting outside. It took us 30 minutes to get in but it was well worth the wait. We tried the 8 flavours of belly pork set (8 slices of belly pork which came with some vegetables, 2 bowls of rice, seafood stew/hotpot and some dipping sauces) and it was perfect for 2 hungry diners. We loved cooking our own food on the hotplate (with plenty of help from the waitresses) and it was fun to try all the different pork marinades. It was delicious and very good value!!

    Tucked away in the top end of the Melbourne CBD is a secret well-guarded by the Asian community…read moreversed in the art of K-BBQ. There is definitely a specific set of techniques involved when consuming Korean Barbeque, as was evident when meeting fellow ATOTB's blogger Tiff at ChangGo for our death by pork. With both of us arriving in our oversized sack dresses and having starved ourselves for most of the day, we knew things were about to get serious. ChangGo doesn't take bookings after 6pm and I was advised to arrive early to secure our spot on the waiting list. We were relieved (and ridiculously hungry) when we were finally shown to our table an hour and fifteen minutes after arriving. Little did we know that we were about to coud go from being so hungry to so full in a very short amount of time. The 'death by pork' that I speak of involves of eight serves of pork belly in eight different flavours - wine, herb, ginseng, garlic, curry, hot, miso, and plain - and is placed on a table on a metre long plank. The pork is part of a set menu (Palsaik set, $52) that also includes the traditional accompaniments to K-BBQ (kimchi, pickled daikon, bean shoots, rice cake, spring onions, lettuce, steamed rice), as well as a Seafood and Tofu spicy stew (also interchangeable for a pork kimchi stew) - all intended to serve 2-3 people. Being rather petite little (competitive) Asian girls with a love for pork belly and all things K-BBQ, we gladly accepted the challenge. And boy, were we defeated. That bad boy definitely took it's toll on us, and I could not even look at pork for the next week. If ever there was a healthier way of eating pork belly, ChangGo seems to have found the answer with their angled grill plate allowing the excess fat to drip away. The seafood and tofu stew was a generous serve (it could easily feed four people as an entree), full of seafood and intensely flavoured, unlike the generic hot pepper paste flavour that most cheap Korean places offer in their stews. All of the flavours of the pork belly were well marinated and intensely flavoured, with the curry flavour being the only disappointment. Koreans aren't really known for their curry, and as curry fiends, Tiff and I were already quite wary - we would have expected and preferred a kimchi flavour! The waitresses were very attentive, ensuring that even the most rookie of KBBQ-ers were well looked after. Though there was a long line of diners waiting for our table, we were not made to feel rushed, and enjoyed our eight courses in as comfortable a time as possible when consuming eight serves of pork belly. Our commitment to the cause meant that we left ridiculously full bellies, an absolutely demolished table, and delirious enough minds to suggest the option of sharing an Asian icey dessert afterward. Word of warning: everything you say while in a pork belly food coma is stupid, and you should definitely not eat more until at least 24 hours later. Review originally posted on http://www.ataleoftwobougies.com

    Photos
    ChangGo
    ChangGo - Meat

    Meat

    ChangGo - Meat

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    Meat

    Seoul House - Interior

    Seoul House

    3.7(13 reviews)
    0.3 kmMelbourne
    $

    Best value Korean bibimbap lunch in Melbourne cbd, hands down! So what's the deal? The lunch…read morespecial is a choice of either pork, beef or chicken with rice, and loads of mixed vegetables (beenshoots, pickled carrots, cucumber, radish, lettuce) AND a fried egg on top. For vegetarians, it would be everything sans meat/egg. Compliments to the chef, as the bibimbap is consistently awesome each time I come here. Think that's all? Guess again. A delicious miso soup AND a set of small side dishes accompany your meal. The side dishes can vary but it wouldn't be complete without kimchi of course! The others may consist of pickled radish, sweet potato, blanched beanshoots or fried tofu. If you ask nicely, they are usually happy to provide a free top up (unless it's just for regulars). Even if you're not on the VIP list, seriously a 3 course meal for the incredibly modest sum of $6.50 for a standard bowl or $8.50 for a sizzling stone bowl (if you prefer your rice crunchy) is THE bargain of the century. Most other Korean restaurants I've been to charge $$ for side dishes or don't give you any at all. These guys serve up an enormous quality and filling lunch for half the price of their trendier counterparts. Which leads me to bring up the fact that yes the interior is dated/old fashioned but I would prefer to call it traditional :) Adorned on the walls are posters of Korean celebs and events (eg. FIFA world cup) from years ago, which were not placed there as a kitchy homage to the Gen Y glory days, but there because they were cool and relevant back then, and the restaurant has actually been around for that long - they just haven't taken anything down. But by not renovating the interior, they are passing the savings onto us yay. Find me a better deal and I'll shout you lunch!

    I stopped by Seoul House while attending the Australian Grand Prix. I ordered a spicy beef entree…read morewhich was delicious and also came with many sides. It was great value and delicious!

    Photos
    Seoul House - Interior

    Interior

    Seoul House - Tables with built in grill for Korean BBQ

    Tables with built in grill for Korean BBQ

    Seoul House - Spicy beef bowl with many sides

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    Spicy beef bowl with many sides

    Sam Sam - korean - Updated May 2026

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