Four Season Tofu House

I am so sad… Tried to go to dinner here tonight, to see that they closed on 8÷17÷2009. One of my favorite restaurants ever, no longer here :(
Can anyone recommend a good place for tofu soup? Goodbye, mushroom soon tofu, goodbye :(

Sadly, Four Seasons is closed; but the countless joyful memories of delicious soon dubu and kalbi it provided live on. Best of luck to Steve and his family! This was one of my favorite restaurants in Fremont.

This is our family’s favorite place to have Korean food. They are like going to Korea. The food in really good, the bonchon is always fresh and wonderful. The owners are always friendly and happy to see us!
I would rate the food 2 chopsticks up.
Service is good
Nothing fancy, but a good meal. Hits the spot EVERTIME!

After reading some of the other reviews, I decided to wait before posting my own just in case any gastrointestinal surprises came later in the day. Luckily, none did.
Tofu House has daily lunch specials for $ 6.95 but I was a little disappointed that Friday’s special, bibimbap, is asterisked. It’s $ 8.95 so you don’t really have to wait until Friday for the special since it’s regularly $ 9.95 .
Yesterday’s special (Weds), the BBQ Sliced Beef came with a salad, miso soup, some items from the small plates and rice (bento box style). I didn’t like the fish paste tofu strips (?) or the crab cakes but the spicy pickled cucumbers were delicious. While the beef was tasty, there was a strong garlic-​y aftertaste to it. I could taste it well into the evening; not sure quite sure I appreciated that…
Any Korean restaurant on El Camino would readily beat this place in a taste test, IMO. Still worth checking out for lunch but I’d pass on dinner.

four seasons is a no frills restaurant, a rare korean place that uses disposable chopsticks. diners wanting soju are out of luck, their liquor license has been suspended. indefinitely .
mostly lunch items are 8.95 (soon tofu & bento boxes). signs of daily specials are on the wall but no prices are posted.
sampling:
–7 banchan, the usual suspects except for the rock hard anchovies. ok quality.
–seafood tofu soup (8.95): came boiling hot. upgradeded to extra spicy. big mistake. their menu says all broth is beef based. should have left it as is. didn’t taste anything special about the soup. the seafood was mostly small clams/​oysters with a few shrimps. the broth watery
maybe kalbi would have been better.
–purple rice with beans was nice.
service: exceptional. had many tea refills and inquiries whether i wanted banchan refilled. unfortunately not.
rating: 2 for food, one for service.
dessert: melon gum
food notes: read menu carefully. four seasons too cheap to print separate dinner and lunch menus. dinner prices superimposed via small box. i. e soontofu 8.95lunch, 9.95 dinner.

Tofu soup here is very good. All varieties. I believe they make their own fresh tofu here. Here is the part I get annoyed.
One night came here for dinner and proceeded to order the ddukbossam dinner. Which wasn’t exactly cheap. After they bring out all the meat and food, the waiter/​owner comes out and tells me that they ran out of dduk. I was pretty pissed/​annoyed. The ENTIRE reason I decided to order that was for the duk. I should’ve been more forthright in my annoyance, but we were still charged for the entire price of the meal. Sure the meat is the main part, but it’s like ordering lettuce wraps, and then finding out they ran out of lettuce!
I haven’t been back since, and I even called them a few weeks ago on a Saturday night around 6 or 7 PM. I called specifically to ask if they had dduk. To which they answered, they don’t have much left. Who runs out of a dish you advertise so much in the restaurant! On a Saturday night of all nights.
Needless to say I save my ddukbosahm cravings for when I head down to LA. Stick with the tofu soup here.

I came here because they had the thin rice paper — ddukbossam or whatever. I wasn’t that impressed because it wasn’t exactly thin by my standards although my dinner date said she liked it better that way.
The meat, eh, ok I suppose. The pork belly — not good.
Not sure if I’ll make my way to this part of town for this but if I do, maybe i’ll just stick to the tofu.

The very reason we went to this place was for the ddukbossam (thin rice paper), but as Clara mentioned, they didn’t have it! Bogus! If you go to Gooyi Gooyi, you know what I’m talking about. Not many places in Norcal have this so I’m always excited to find it. we weren’t told about the ddukbossam melfunction until we were seated and had already ordered the ddukbossam combo. Ddukbossam without ddukbossam. Whatever!
We ordered anyway since we were here. we got the seafood pancake to start. Not a lot of seafood but excelled at the jun. It was not too thick and heavy and not overfried. Actually very well done with good complementary sauce.
The stew we had was good as well as the purple rice with all the beans and grains. We had to ask them to bring our banchan out in the beginning. Usually this just happens but we had to ask them, weird. They weren’t reluctant or anything, it was just a bit odd.
The meat was decent. The disappointment over the ddukbossam almost made me give this place a 2, but the pajun and stew were very good and the service was accomodating; I think the owner’s daughter was waiting tables.
Probably wouldn’t come out of my way to come here but if I was in the area … I’d call ahead to see if they had the ddukbossam.

This place is the best if you know what you want and you are really hungry!
The people are so sweet and nice, its makes you feel like home :]
Being so close to my old high school … makes its it even better to have some decent asian food near by to eat at!
they are known for their pancake things. which are yummy.
But as i sit there and eat, i contemplate what this place use to be before they were a tofu house. the interior doesn’t look like it was always an asian restaurant, maybe some kind of bbq house with a crazy air suctioning thing? i dont know…

if you’re looking for ddukbossam (thin rice wraps to eat with bbq), they haven’t been able to get it recently, so CALL AHEAD to avoid disappointment. we were so excited about it, since it’s hard to find outside of LA, and for weeks now we’ve been crowing «FOAR SEASON! FOAR SEASON!» (note the singular) to each other on IM. but sadly, we weren’t told about the ddukbossam shortage until after we were seated and had already ordered the ddukbossam combo (#3 which comes with 3 kinds of thinly sliced pork and beef with mushrooms and onion to grill at the table, drinks and a stew), so we decided to just go ahead with our order. we got the seafood pancake (haemul pajun) to start, and although it was skimpy in the seafood department, it was pan fried to perfection and came with a yummy soy sauce and vinegar based dipping sauce. yum.
for our stew, we selected the lunch special of the day, gamjatang (potato and pork stew with greens). they brought that out after we were finished grilling and eating the meat, along with rice (they ask if you want white or purple — get the purple, it’s white mixed with purple wild rice and really yummy). they were going to wait to bring out the banchan (complimentary side dishes including kimchee etc) until then too, but we wanted it with our meat. i was kind of confused because at the myriad of other korean restaurants i’ve eaten at, they bring out the banchan right away and here they seemed really reluctant to do so. they were good about refilling it when we needed more though.
the meat was good… but it was just like any other korean bbq place without the ddukbossam. next time, we’re going to gooyi gooyi in santa clara.

When it comes to Korean food, LA will always be king, but this place comes close. I have eaten here several times and the food is always fantastic.
If you eat here, you have to try the kimchee pancake. It doesn’t have the stalks of green onions like the typical seafood pancake. You can get all of your Korean staples here. Chicken, beef and pork. I saw a goat option as well. The whole barnyard is available.
Service is typically good as well.

I wish I could eat here more often! Ive been here a dozen times and have no complaints. Service is always really nice and prompt. I’ve liked this Korean food more than other Korean restaurants I’ve been to.
Eat the teriyaki tofu!!! They make fresh in-​house organic ingredients tofu!

I can’t say much about this place — it’s decent, but not amazingly good. I’ve been spoiled by all the Korean restaurants on El Camino, so this was just a central location for my girlfriends to all meet at.
The chap jae was chewy, and didn’t have much flavor. The bulgogi was on the dry side, but at least the kalbi was tasty. The seafood pancake was absent of seafood — only tiny bits of octopus and shrimp were scattered throughout. I miss Jinmi!
I would give it a 2.75 or 3, but I don’t think I’d return. $ 58 for lunch for 4 people and a baby.

Honestly this place deserves 3.5 stars, but you STILL can’t do that on Unilocal. C’mon developers, I’m sure there’s an easy code you can write to get that going? hahaha
Anyhow, this place was great because they actually serve Dok Bo Sam. For those of you who are not in the know, Dok Bo Sam literally translates to rice noodle wraps. Basically you get an open grill where you cook up your meet of choice (traditionally it’s a Korean style bacon, but you can now get beef, steak, pork, etc…), while it’s still sizzling you dip it in sesame seed oil and hot sauce. Then place the sauced meat on top a bed of mixed greens with a special Asian style vinaigrette. Take a 3“inch x 3″ inch square of a flat rice noodle (imagine a really thin lasagna layer) and wrap that over your meat and salad. And Enjoy!
I’ve only been to places in LA for this treat, but low and behold they have one in Fremont?
Atmosphere– 3*: Nothing fancy, paper napkins, plastic water cups, etc…
Food-​4*: The Dok Bo Sam was good, but not as good as it is down in LA. They do serve special Korean rice with red bean so that was really yummy. The prices were pretty average for your typical Korean restaurant.
Service-​2*: I don’t know if it was the night we went, but it was just horrible. They had two people there to host, serve, and bus. Granted the place only has about 15 tables and not all of them were busy so it seemed manageable for 2. It took FOREVER to get refills on water, Dok, side dishes, napkins, EVERYTHING! And I don’t know about you, but Korean food is supposed to make your nose run, so water and napkins is a necessity!
I’ll return here if my boyfriend and I are jonesing for some Korean food and don’t want to head up to Oakland, but I may just bring my own water next time: o)

Dear Unilocal community,
This is Archie R’s nurse. I am typing this review for him because he is currently in a massive food coma. Before he drifted off to oblivion his last wish was for me to convey some sort of message to Unilocal about Four Season.
He mumbled something about the soup being really spicy and the rice paper wrap deals being, and I quote «a super awesome combination of a mini burito like substance.»
He also said Grace was the one that did this to him and he will have his revenge one day. He then gave some sort of thumbs up and then a thumbs down like in Roman times.
If you ask me this is kind of weird but he was insistent on me getting on his computer, getting past his porn bookmarks, and posting this on Unilocal.
You all should have Archie in your prayers because his last blood test revealed that his sodium, fat, and all around goodness (yes, that’s a test) levels were high enough to kill a water buffalo.
Wish him well.
He also said I have to end the note with one word. Does this guy even have a job?
Weird.

This is one of the few Korean restaurants that holds a candle to the home cooked Korean food I’ve grown up with. They make pretty much everything from scratch here. Their Kimchi is in my Kimchi Top 5, which isn’t easy to get into, being that my mom & my grandmother are the best kimchi makers ever.
The soondubu soups are great.
The bbq is great.
The chapjae is great.
The yukae jjang is great.
The décor and the atmosphere isn’t fantastic, but it’s cozy.
And, the owner and staff are really nice. Sometimes they give me free kimchi to take home.
I would definitely recommend this place to anyone. Let me just put it this way… I’ve brought my family here.

Oh my this was the MOST bland soon dubu ever. It was no good. No good at all. At least service was decent.
Maybe I should’ve ordered something else? If I absolutely have to have Korean food while in Fremont, I’ll probably go to Kiwajip.

Based on reviews, I thought this place might be better than Lee’s Tofu or LA Sokongdong but it wasn’t. We ordered the tofu soup spicy (2^nd highest level) and it wasn’t spicy at all. The BBQ pork was nice and lean but a little on the sweet side. The panchan was decent except for the seaweed in hot sauce. Kimchi wasn’t too great either. Bi Bim Bap on other’s tables looked good. It came hot so the rice gets nice and crispy on the bottom. That might be the thing to get here…
Inside looks like an old diner or burger joint.

Totally in the boonies, the parking lot is full of potholes and seriously needs to be repaved.
The interior of the restaurant is minimal, but clean and I didn’t smell like I ate Korean food for lunch.
The Fremont PD were in force, a HUGE indication of YUMMY food being served-​they know how to eat!
The por-​ti-​cha, barley tea water, is only served hot here, the server was a bit rude when I asked for the cold version, but he swung by a few minutes later with a glass of ice for me.
The lunch boxes were served in bento boxes and the soon tofu was very good.
I was pleasantly surprised that the rice was filled with goodies: red beans and black eyed peas. Very unique touch and added sass to boring old rice.
The service was brisk, the food was tasty, and the portions were perfect. Don’t expect to bring a doggie bag home.

Two of us ate here on Sat 4÷8÷06 and we really enjoyed our food. The place is kinda hidden from the road, but it’s easy enough to find. It’s across from Smart and Final, cross street is Fremont Blvd.
We were the only diners at around 5pm so we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. Service was decent, and food came pretty quickly.
I had the under the Dol-​Sot-​Bap #6 Bi-​Bim-​Bap $ 8.95-steamed rice topped w/​beef and mixed vegetables. It is a huge pot that’s very temperature hot – food is temperature hot too. B Recommended.
Hubby had the Combination Tofu Soup (Combination Soondubu) $ 7.95 – he ordered it spicy and it really was spicy. I will try the medium next time we go. Rating: A.
They give you the side dishes – if u need more just ask the waiter/​waitress.
They take credit card, but no American Express or Discover. $ 15 minimum on credit card.
from the take out menu: homemade tofu!
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Update 5÷5÷07
We went to try the BBQ (Dduk BoSsam) that Grace K. loves. I didn’t love it, but thought it was ok. You have to ask for the BBQ menu cuz they don’t give it to you. I don’t know why cuz it’s way more expensive. If it was my restaurant I’d be totally pushing it on ppl.
We got TB2 which is pork bellies + thin slice brisket + rib eye tenderloin for $ 39.95. The reason it’s $ 39.95 is cuz it’s supposed to feed 3 ppl, but since we’re fat asses we finished it all up.
Lots of pork bellies (very fatty), slice brisket, & rib eye tenderloin given on a huge platter. They also give u the standard panchan w/​a side of sliced rice noodles.
The waiter told us how to eat it. Get the slice rice noodle, grab some cooked meat, dip meat into salty sauce or red chili sauce, then add some panchan, try to roll it up and shove it all in your mouth. Repeat.
Overall, thought it was ok. We’d much preferred to get the hot tofu pot, and the cold noodle dish is on the menu they placed on the window. I’d get that next time. He said it was the glass noodles which I love.
Our total with tax & tip was $ 50.45
Business Hrs:
M-​Sat 11am-9:30pm
Close Sun.