Nak Won Restaurant

The price of product is so expensive nowadays that the $ 26 AYCE dinner option at Nak Won isn’t wholly unreasonable. It’s not amazing quality, but I find it’s also better than many other Korean AYCE/​sushi-​hybrid options in the area. With the AYCE, you also get one stew/​soup per table, from which you can pick either tofu, pork bone, or kimchi.
There’s regular, a la carte dishes too.
Nak Won serves OK/​standard fare stuff, with OK service (save for the one lady that was particularly nice). Meh.

Okay, I didn’t have as bad of an experience as many others have had. In general, this place has a big menu of average tasting korean food with some questionable service.
We decided to try the korean barbeque and it was average at best. The meat was okay, nothing special. They’re not known for their barbeque. There was no jjang but at least it came with fresh lettuce and some vegetables to grill. Making my own sambap were good. The kimchi jjigae was disappointing, it was so sour you couldn’t eat it. The tteokbokki tasted like teokbokki which is a good thing.
I am not the biggest fan of gamjatang overall but thought the pork bone here was phenomenal. It was tender, fall off the bone kind of meat and had a good amount of fat to meat ratio. The soup was also really good. The highlight of my visit here for sure. It made me a fan of gamjatang, seriously.
So now onto the so called ‘terrible service’. It wasn’t that bad, I would say we had good service. I mean it was rude service but our waitress refilled our side dishes four times, tea once in a timely fashion and had no problems whatsoever. Maybe I’m just used to rude service? The value could have been better considering the quality of what you get.

Ambiance/​décor-​3
Service-​1
Food-​3
Strikeouts-​0/​3
We ordered a 3 person KBBQ combo here, and it was a lot of food for essentially 5 people. However, it was a bit pricey, like at least $ 25 per person. The assortment of free appetizers that always comes with the korean food was a nice selection on the other hand. The combo not only came with meat, but a selection of other items our our choice. We got pork bone soup, a onion pancake, gyoza, and jajamen. I personally liked the jajamen, and the onion pancake.
The biggest flaw here though isn’t the food. I would say it’s very traditional korean food and the prices overall are fair for what you get. It’s the service! Not the mannerism, or over attitude, BUT the amount of people working. This place is huge, and I’ve read review below and it confirms that this place lacks staff. Probably lacks staff in the kitchen also in addition to the service. It only had two people working on the outside, sometimes one. I had to go grab bowels, chopsticks, napkins, and whatever I needed from their reserve, because it was just that much faster.
Only go to this place during non-​peak times, or else you’re not going to get any service, even with the button they have at each table to call for service.

Firstly, I like the kimchi, bean curd, and potatoes in a sweet sauce side dishes in particular but all the other side dishes were good too. They were very nice about refilling them for us too :)
Pork bone soups had 3 large pieces of pork bone with a good amount of meat. Soup was mild-​moderately spicy and not overly salty. Seafood pancake was pretty big but didn’t have too much seafood in it. The dipping sauce nicely complements the pancake but overall, I felt like it was a little overpriced at $ 15.99.
Two waitresses working tonight. Younger lady was very nice and friendly and the older lady was a bit of a grouch. She wasn’t rude or anything to us since we were mostly served by the younger lady but she was just perpetually frowning :(
They have a pretty extensive menu and the food is generally decent.

Very expensive with little substance.
The lamb in the $ 15 lamb stew was so over boiled that what tiny amount of lamb they did use had almost entirely disintegrated. It was also really over-​spiced.

This place doesn’t deserve any star but I had to put something down to write a review. It was a blood boiling experience having to deal with grumpy servers there. I have been to the Yonge and Finch location and found the experience ok. Maybe they decided to send the moody staffs to the FMP location.
I was there with my friends and their parents for a gathering. We decided on this location since the food (from other Nak Wons) were decent. I don’t remember much about the food because I was too consumed by my growing rage. The servers are perhaps on a competition to piss off their customers because they were excelling at that from start to finish. I sensed the hostility at the time of ordering the food because of a very grumpy tone and face. When we asked for another round of side dishes my friends parents were nice enough to stack the side dish plates for the servers since we are running out of place. We thought it would be easier for them to take it away. Instead of just doing their job they nagged at us for doing that and said «how am I suppose to reuse these plates» implying questionable sanitary practices. I was holding back since I had to keep my calm in front of my friends parents buy everyone felt the negativity. They were lucky that the parents still decide to tip them since we know what curtesy means.
There are a lot of choices to eat within FMP and clearly these people don’t want your business. Skip this one next time you choose a place to eat over there.

I wasn’t very impressed by the food quality at this Nakwon branch. It was bland and plain. It’s a great place for average and cheap Korean food

Going downhill from my last visit take out style… ordered the tofu pork soup for my wife at home… get it home and they decided to put the soup with tofu and pork in a clean plastic bag tied at the top, then they put that bag in a tall Styrofoam container with lid on and then they put that in another clear plastic bag tied at the top and then they put that in a take out plastic bag with a side of rice and Kim chi.
Why would my wife want her soup to taste like plastic bag and why is the soup packaged and treated like it was bio hazard material?
Big FAIL.
Lost my business for good and to the chef or food packer that packed soup like that isn’t thinking or is over thinking something that is simple and has a tried and tested method from the decades of takeout places all over the world.

ZERO STARS. Quite possibly my worst dining experience ever. It was mid afternoon and we just happened to be in the area. There are many restaurants in this mall, mostly Chinese and a few Korean. We picked this one based on the menu but in retrospect we should have eaten Chinese.
We ordered: tuk kalbee which is supposed to be chicken thigh chunks, cabbage, duk (rice cake), carrots, perilla leaves and spicy sauce — all cooked in front of you at the table. I have had this dish in Korea, Canada and at home, each time the formula remains the same with the odd variation from one place to the next.
Our table was fired up and then our plate of «tuk kalbee» arrived. It was actually: pre-​cooked chicken breast slices in a red sauce with green and red peppers.
Me in English: what is this? Is that pre-​cooked ?Are we table cooking or table reheating?
My wife immediately translates to Korean
Server: that’s how we do it here.
Me: but this isn’t tuk kalbee, this is pre-​cooked chicken fajitas that we are now cooking again on a hot plate.
Server: we tell the manager that but he doesn’t listen.
The apathy from the staff was as infuriating as the food. They did not apologize or offer something else. Here’s your crappy food, ring us when you want the bill. They saw zero tip, something I have never done before.
Just an awful experience.

The rating for this place is accurate. When the appetizers arrived everybody started digging in. We wanted some more potatoes and glass noodles so we asked the server. Right after we asked she puts the old glass noodle dish and just pours it into my plate without even asking me if I want to eat it. I felt so disgusted and unpleasant by then. When my food arrived I had the pork bone soup. I didn’t really like the taste too much and it made my stomach feel uneasy. The food here sucks and the service is poor. Not recommended.

So torn about this place. There are days where my favourite server is working and everything is great. She is happy to see me and knows exactly what I want and is quick about it. Other days, I get this older woman who doesn’t seem to care about what she’s doing and doesn’t really care to fully understand your order.
When I get my favourite server, I get my usual, kimchi chiggae, promptly with all the banchans. Refills on the banchan as per request. She is so cheerful and pleasant and if she has time, she will teach you how to properly pronounce the dishes.
When I get the other lady, she doesn’t get the order right or gives the wrong order to me and doesn’t refill the banchans as I’ve asked, even though I stare at her while she walks by my table every time. I’m vehemently against pushing their call button because I’m positive the servers get nightmares about that sound, but I still would like to receive some kind of service. One time, my friend ordered the kimchi chiggae and asked for it extra spicy. This server handed me the extra spicy dish and I couldn’t eat any of it. She took away a full bowl of stew and didn’t care to ask if anything was wrong.
When food and service is good, everything is awesome. The kimchi chiggae is so tasty with just the right amount of spiciness to it. The rice is sticky and fragrant. And the price is right. Honestly, you can’t go wrong with an $ 8 dinner!

Drop by to have lunch today. Haven’t been to this store for a while cuz I think ‘the owl’ has better pork bone soup which I usually order. Today we ordered two Bento boxes, one was beef ribs and the other was beef. The service was friendly and fast. The food came out nicely looking. The beef towards to the salty side but the beef ribs was OK. However I strongly suspect the food was pre-​cook and kept in a warmer instead of make to order.
Price was reasonable, if they could freshly make the order would even better. All in all, passed.
They are going to have all u can eat BBQ, looking forward to try it: p
The poster is funny, it said no limited all you can eat BBQ but min 2 people and max 2 hours, so… I m confused

Service here is so terrible. We came at 10:30pm and the restaurant closes at 11pm. The staff was rude to us the entire time from taking our order to bringing our food. I asked for another topping of sides and they didn’t bring it for us, instead they brought us the bill and shooed us away.

Quick service with decent food and price. One of my favourite places for Korean food. They offer a number of complimentary appetizer dishes which you can get refills for, my favourite is the marinaded sweet potatoes. As per usual, I ordered the stone bibimbap which was very flavourful (~$ 9). You also have the option of getting korean bbq here and is a great option if you are with a bigger group of people.
As mentioned, the service is quick and the food arrives fairly quickly as well. The restaurant does fill up very quickly and as does the parking lot so I recommend arriving before main meal hours.

I came to this restaurant for lunch with friends and we were disappointed with the lack of customer service. Our waitress was visibly annoyed after we asked for more side dishes (we asked for more side dishes a total of two times for the eight of us eating there). The way we were treated was cold and unwelcoming.
The food itself was average, I had the cold noodles, nothing about it stood out particularly. I would avoid this place when hanging around first Markham place in the future.

Out of the two nak wons I frequent, this and the one at yonge and finch, this is the one that constantly disappoints me. Their food is ALRIGHT, nothing special. The recipes may be the same but they still taste a bit different and don’t come with the wow factor.
Atmosphere is quiet as most of the time there aren’t many customers. The place is huge so doesn’t fill up most of the time.
Service is terrible. Pressing the button does not work and sometimes trying to wave a server down seems impossible. Very inattentive. Its like they don’t even care if they get business or not.
Food isn’t terrible, just alright. I only go here if I’m craving Korean food nearby and don’t feel like going to owl.

I come here whenever I crave for Korean foods. hmmm…pork bone soup… hmmm. seafood pancake… and PLUS all the free side dishes… make me happy!
I think this is either the 4^th or 5^th location and they are quite successful in building this Korean food place kingdom. in alot of areas… better than Owl. in terms of pricing and options. The pork bone soup here has a TON of meat… not a lot of boney meat. if that made any sense at all… LOL…
Keep refilling to side dishes. this is a very big restaurant, I’d always wonder how they manage to survive for so long when it’s not actually super busy…
The seafood pancake is an A-​OK, a little too much batter for my taste buds and the noodles are just an A-​OK. I’m not Korean so I won’t be able to tell what is really authentic and what is not… It’s just all an A-​Ok for me…
generally speaking, I will come back when I crave for korean spicy foods…

I ordered the pork tofu soup. When it came it was a pale beige colour. It tasted very bland like just hot water and tofu. I was trying not to be a difficult person but I had to send it back. I called the waitress over and she acknowledged to fix it for me but then she completely forgot! until we reminded her I was still waiting for my soup.
The same bowl of soup was brought back to me. The tofu was all broken into very small pieces, the chef must have stirred it vigorously. All they did in the kitchen was add more salt! The soup still have no flavour except it was very salty now! I was really disappointed and will not be returning again
I have been to restaurant once before about a year ago and it was actually ok and I ordered the same thing. I returned again a few nights ago and I was appalled…

Came here on opening day and it has not improved, whether it be service or food. What can I say about service? It totally sucks sometimes and decent the other times. The ladies here always seem to be on their period. They speak with a rude tone and they do not look like they want to work. I do like the portion of their dishes, but their exceptionally disappointing service sets them back. The service today was better, but still sub par at best.
I stopped visiting couple years back. I ordered their gamjatang (pork bone soup) and the lady had repeated what i ordered. Everything was fine until she gave me the soon tofu soup. So I told her nicely that this isn’t what I ordered. She insisted that I ordered that but both my gf and I heard her repeat my order. She got pissed and got my pork bone soup shortly. She literally dropped that thing on my table, splashing soup everywhere. I got up and processed to cuss this lady up and down but decided not to. And instead complained to the owner and walked up to her face and told her «you’re not being tipped».
Only came back because friend wanted Nak Won. I will continue to support Owl of Minerva or another authentic Korean eatery on Yonge.

Why all the hate for this Nak Won? I have been to many Korean restaurants and its pretty standard to get the cold treatment from the waitresses. I agree that they give you the cold shoulder with no smiles but I found the service pretty fast and efficient. Went on a Wednesday afternoon and there were many seats available. From ordering the food it took less than 5 minutes to start seeing the side dishes arrive.
Got my usual pork bone soup for $ 6.99 and its on par with other Korean restaurants. Not overly salty which I like. Loads of pork bone and scolding hot as usual.
One reason why I love Nak Won is the number of side dishes they give you. Ten in total and one dish I could not even make out what it is. Side dishes are refillable as well which is a plus.
Also tried the grilled Mackerel for $ 5.99 which was surprisingly tasty. The fish was pretty large and the meat itself was moist.
For all the food you get and the rock bottom prices you just can’t go wrong eating here.
Solid 3.5 stars