Hilan

We went to the one on Dame St. and it was great. We had the seafood ramen and tonkotsu ramen. The broth for both were just ok but the noodles and toppings were generous. We also had the seafood pancake and tempura appetizers. They were wonderful. Service was fast and one of the cheapest dinners we’ve had all week here in overpriced Dublin.

Went in here and had a huge barbecue meal for two with beef, chicken, prawns, pork and potatoes. There was so much food that i was truly stuffed after and most importantly it all tasted excellent.
They bring out the raw food and you cook it at on a hot plate at your table which does add some novelty. The food comes with an excellent dipping sauce and loads of sides. I also had chicken and mushroom soup which was also lovely. Id really recommend it all.

Don’t know much about Korean food; but my girlfriend and me got huge plates of very nice food for very little money. That’s what I’m looking for, so very much recommended.

Capel Street is generally pretty great for restaurants these days, but think Hilan tops the lot. Fresh, cheap and excellent quality Korean food with an extensive menu and a little bit of everything to suit all tastes. I wouldn’t be an expert in Korean cuisine by a long shot, but the menu is clear so you’ve a fairly good idea what you’re getting before you order.
I recommend the beef and chilli sandbowl with silk noodles and you can’t go wrong with their chive pancakes either-​delicious! They also do a Korean BBQ-I’ve never ordered it myself because the portions are enormous, but it looks great and smells incredible from having a sneaky gawk at other peoples tables. Speaking of portion sizes, one main here will easily do two people so we generally go for one main and a side or starter. Usually coming in at € 20-​€ 25 for two people, it’s a guilt free way to eat out and not break the bank.
The staff here are also lovely: order something spicy and you will feel like a superhero for getting through it as you’ll get multiple warnings when ordering and a huge surprise/​congratulations for finishing it! Like a boss.

Really like Korean food in general. It is more fermented, pickled and savoury in general than Chinese food. Occasionally it can suffer from generic msg flavouring but mostly it is fresher and has a cleaner flavour than Chinese food. Rice and vegetables are more prominent than meat also.
I tried the bibimbap with beef, a traditional Korean dish that is served with a fried or raw egg yolk on top. You put in a few spoons if the chilli sauce that comes with it and then stir and mix it all up together before eating. That is bibimbap.
It came with a portion if kimchi and a bowl of tofu miso soup so there was plenty of food.
Really good flavour and seems to be fairly authentic (quite a few Korean people there, and I have visited that country) though i just had the kimchi and Bibimbap.
The radio was too loud and playing bad chart music so that made it less comfortable to sit in.
Clean and neat inside, friendly staff, good value. I will go back.
Dame street now has two good places to eat, here and Umi right opposite it.
Been back a number of times, delicious everytime. Getting better even. But music is diabolical bad and getting worse.

We had a hotpot last Wednesday!
For the first time since I was in China Im actually happy with the chinese cusine!
Dont eat here if you expect the kinda of stuff you would get in a higher class establishment its pretty authentic, very little english, crap coffe, little or no dairy…
Awesome chinese food that your can sit over for hours without anyone trying to usher you out the door!

We came here to try somewhere different from Arisu, bad mistake.
Although to be fair we had dishes from the Chinese menu, the Korean BBQ I saw someone having looked OK.
Why 2 stars?
Expensive, really expensive compared to other places in the area. I think it was 14 euro for a standard dish with rice. Now if that dish had been a hand cooked delight fair enough. But basically it was takeaway food.
We had sweet and sour chicken. (looked like a sauce from a bottle, and chicken balls from a bag)
I had a Black Bean Beef dish, it was pretty poor. I left most of it. The chicken dish was at least eatable.
My rice was actually pretty awful as well. Never had bad boiled rice from a Chinese restaurant before. It was cold and tasted starchy as well. I think it had been sitting out for a while waiting to be put on a plate.
Service was pretty good and a nice interior hence, plus the Korean BBQ looked a bit better so I’ve given it 2 stars. But I wont be back.

Seated quickly, but but it took a while to get the floor staffs attention again to order. But then the food came very quick. And there was lots of it.
My dish was fine, sweet and sour chicken. Although I could have done with a steak knife to cut the chicken, which was battered.
My partners dish of beef in black bean sauce was pretty awful if I am honest.
The rice was not nice either… how hard is it to get steamed rice wrong?
We wont be back.

Had bulgogi bipimbap there for lunch today– quick, friendly, and mostly decent… Although something about the cooking oil smelt off. Usually a more reliable spot.

I have to agree with Emilie about the slightly odd Chinese/​Korean menu, most of the dishes are proper Chinese, and somehow you don’t trust that the Korean food on offer is actually proper Korean.
In the end we decided on Chinese chicken and aubergine in black bean sauce and a spicy vegetable seabass, served whole in a foil bag.
The chicken was OK, although there was something a little processed about it, but to their credit they did use Chinese aubergines, which are much softer and don’t have that disgusting spongey texture that European ones often to have. The fish was very nice, nice soft texture and very nice sauce.

Dropped in here for a quick bite to eat and to say I was underwhelmed is about right. We ordered the aromatic duck with pancakes and garlic spicy chicken. The duck was lovely, crispy and lots of it. The pancakes however were glued together served on an open plate and impossible to separate. The chicken was ok sauce was gloopy though and although the staff were pleasant enough I wouldn’t be running back there. IMHO there is better on offer within Dublin. The meal with 2 glasses of wine came to a hefty 52euro which is quite hefty in these recessionary times.

I used to live a few doors up. I have been there on more than 10 occasions.
I’ve also tried most of the other asian places on Capel st and this is the best one, or should I say the least horrible one.
This is not fine dining, but it’s quite nice and the price is adequate.
I have had their Korean sushi dozens of time: a very generous rice roll with whatever you picked in it. It’s not raw like the Japanese type. It’s enough for a meal and I usually order it out.
The other dishes I’ve tried were all tasty, nothing amazing but good. They have an extensive menu and I think there could be one or two gems in it but it’s impossible to know unless you try everything.
The issue here is it’s supposed to be Korean AND chinese! I don’t get it… it’s like having a Polish/​Italian restaurant. It’s not the same at all. I want to know where the chef is from and if he/​she has trained in both types of food. Just because we are in europe doesn’t mean we are ignorant enough to think Japan, China and Korea are the same.
Besides that, the staff is lovely, the atmosphere pleasant. It’s good for a week night when you don’t know what to do for diner.

If I had reviewed this place from my visit a month ago it would have gotten a 4 (maybe a 5 depending on what time of the month I wrote my review ^_​_​_​_​^)…
But I came here a week later and the experience was quite a different one…
I volunteer with a group and this primarily happens on a Tuesday and we do tend to get NOM noms afterwards. So I read the Unilocal reviews about this place and said we would give it a go as we were close by.
The menu is huge and part of the charm of a lot of these Chinese restaurants around Capel Street and Parnell St is that you experience the «Engrish» phenomenon. IE most of the menu does not make any sense but that’s part of the fun!
You can get a «Selective Hotpot» with a choice of «Rape», «Pigs Blood», «Tofu Skin» or «Chrysanthemum»… (see picture above)
Now granted all of the above sounded delicious but as it was my first visit I did decide to go with their Korean Spiced Pork with boiled rice and an oul Coke. My friend had sweet and sour king prawn with fried rice. I asked for mine to be extra spicy as I am a chili whore. Both dishes were NOM noms. My dish was really spicy and the pork was mouth wateringly amazeballs. The staff were so friendly and smiley all the time! We both looked at each other and said «let’s come back next week!!»…
We did…
So this time we brought another friend who we had been raving to about this place and well needless to say I was a bit morto at the end of the meal as it was in no way to the standard we had it the previous week on the same day and same time!!!
I wanted to try something different. Whilst I had to think long and hard about my selection I thought I would save the «Rape» for another time and go with a fish dish.
«Hello Mr. Waiter what type of fish is in your „sizzling fish plate“?»
«It’s spiced fish»
«What type of fish?»
«Fish that is lightly spiced on a hot plate»
«OK, so is it cod, prawns, whiting or something else?»
«Eh it is very nice and it is spiced fish»
«OK. I will have the Korean Spiced Pork please…»
My friends ordered sushi, chicken wings and seafood fried rice. I ordered some pork dumplings on the side. Wings and dumplings were really nice. My pork dish tasted sooo different to the previous week. Awful aniseed taste off of it. Twas OK but I was not very impressed. The seafood fried rice and some of the sushi had fish sticks in it. Yes that’s right folks — those manky cheap fish sticks wrapped in seaweed as sushi and put through a fried rice main. No doubt this is what would have been in my «sizzling fish plate»… They also used a vegetable cutter thing to make lovely designs in the fish sticks. Hilarious. Top marks for creativity at least. We named these «dolphin willies»…
My friends wine was watered down too. Not good.
On the upside they have a great selection of cat ornaments and paw swinging lucky cats to be looking at. I LOVE those guys. Have some at home!
I was so disappointed 2^nd time around. It really put me off going back. Inconsistency is my pet hate with restaurants.

Despite the looks and even the plastic «example food» sitting in the window, Hilan puts on a great showing for a meal.
My BF has been searching for Korean in-​the-​table barbecue for ages, and we found the setup here but didn’t have the appetite for it. Instead, we went for sweet & sour beef and Mongolian lamb, while our guests had the Korean lunch special and chicken of some variation.
The lunch special is a taste of a whole mass of foods and looked really good. Soup, kimchi, and two or three other hot dishes covered the large tray. The Mongolian lamb is not for the faint-​hearted: covered in chilli flakes, I think the only reason I could eat as much as I did is ‘cos I’d seared my tongue moments earlier on the hot green tea! Naw, it’s grand, I even love the leftovers today. All meals came with a generous portion of rice, and mine was even shaped like a heart. I’m a fan of the lunch meal deal (starter, main and drink for under € 10), while the entrée that I ordered for € 12 could definitely serve two. Waitstaff were kind and patient while we deliberated, asked questions, and even requested a bilingual menu (as we’d been slipped a Chinese-​only one first!)
Some day, and soon, BF and I will go back for the BBQ, and report our findings.