Yupdduk

Got a small assorted ddukboki for 12.95 or something similar. Ordered it as the medium spice which was perfect for me. They gave the same side they do in those Korean/​Chinese places
I guess I’ll list it in order of what was my personal favorite.
Tteok: Nicely chewy, solid
Sausage: Quite good, liked this topping a lot
Fish cake: Not as thick as other places, taste was good.
Noodles: A bit chewy, but overall fine.
Cabbage: Nothing special
Boiled Egg: Uhh, a boiled egg. I think a different type of egg would work better. I guess I’m too used to Ramen/​Ramyeon where the egg adds to the experience
Broth/​Sauce: Spicy but really watery, not super good
Cheese: Super clumped together, not good at all. Frankly one of the reasons why I am giving this place said review.
When two of the main things, i.e. the cheese and to an extent the broth (due to wateriness, not spiciness,) in this dish are not good, I can’t recommend a place like this.
Good tteok/​rice cake at least.
2.4

All I can really say is their ramen is lit. Well, okay I can say a bit more.
The broth is vegetarian, which at some places means its less flavorful, that is not the case here. I can confidently say the flavors were there.
The prices were good. Ramen was about 8 $ with an extra dollar per topping. And you get 7% off if you pay with cash.

Really casual «quick bite to eat» kind of place. I came here only because my usual ktown hit ups were packed to the brim with long waits. The reviews I’ve seen are pretty horrible… whoops i didn’t get the memo! MY experience went pretty smoothly though. Came here on two occasions, with my sister and with a friend. Both times we ordered the budae jiggae.
Standard budae jiggae, with ramen, tteokbokki, scallions, cheese, mushrooms, fishcakes and sausage/​spam. It doesn’t come already cooked/​mixed, so while your stew is heating up, it’s a good time to just chat with your companion and awkwardly stir every few minutes. Budae jiggae is hard to mess up, and great to share, so I’ve always enjoyed stopping by here for some no fuss comfort food. It’s not the BEST, but it’s not the WORST either… it’s solid and fills you up! Service was so-​so, they aren’t particularly attentive and are somewhat stand offish
Simple, easy, in and out. Most likely would drop by again in the future every now and then.

Okay, I went to Yupdduk about 4x before i wrote a review… giving this place the benefit of the doubt over and over again.
I mean come on, how do you mess up ddukbokkgi??? Like how?!! After all the rave reviews about this establishment in Korea, I was super excited to try it out both locations in Ktown and Queens. I crave ddukbokkgi and «korean street food» all the time but yupdduk is seriously a disappointment.
The «Yupdduk Topokki» is wayyy too watery but the rice cake itself is pretty chewy and good, but let’s be real, I’m not going to spend $$$ to chew rice cake only am I right or am I right? I got super excited about the melted cheese on top until it got SUPER HARD after like what, 5 minutes? After that I was using my chopsticks to pull apart the plastic-​like cheese on top of the ddukbokki.
Their soondae (sundae) is SUPER bland and I’m not sure if they changed it up a bit to appeal more to foreigners as I’m sure «pig intestine with stuffed noodles» is probably not the most appealing… REGARDLESS, they shouldn’t have changed the essence of what sundae is just because of that. It’s like blood sausage people, it’s delicious and it’s great.
Donkatsu – dry & thin. ‘Nuff said.
Assortment fried set – pretty good. I mean it’s fried, how can it not be good right? I love dipping the fried vegetables into the ddukbokki sauce.
Mini rice balls – it’s rice and seaweed… rolled into little balls. You can make this at home folks.
If you’re already seated reading this on your phone… PAY WITH CASH and you get a slight discount.
Otherwise, don’t go near this place. I mean, only go if you’re ABSOLUTELY CRAVING IT, like I’M ABOUT TO DIE craving. Nahmean?

I should have read the reviews before I came here. I came here on the new year of 2016. It was my worst experience dining in a Korean restaurant.
The waiters just didn’t give it shit on serving. We didn’t finish ordering yet, but he already took the menus alway. Did you think we could memorize all the meals name??!
The kitchen was really dirty and smelled like… sewer! I didn’t think it was ok to have kitchen to be that dirty! I almost didn’t want to eat at there anymore. BTW, the food wasn’t tasty! I was hungry but I couldn’t finish the food.
The restaurant was small, but it took forever to get them to take our credit card. While waiting, the server just passed by us without talking our bill, and went to the middle part of the restaurant «eating» (I’m not sure if it’s leftovers or what) and touched the garbage bag accidentally (?!) and walked back without washing his hands. Uhhhhh… disgusting!!! If you didn’t want the bill, you could have told us, so we could’ve just walked out.
My friend and I would never never never come back ever. Good luck if you still want to try this restaurant.

Was debating between 2 or 3 stars, but I gave 3 stars in the end because I am assuming that the food is catered to mainly foreigners or people living in New York (as broad as it gets).
First suggestion, the odeng (fish cakes on skewers woth soup) should be hot, not served lukewarm. It just tasted wierd and could be served together when serving dokbokgi (spicy rice cakes) if the customer ordered them together as a combo. Second suggestion, if there are only four pieces of fries (2 potatoes, 1 squid, 1 seaweed roll) putting in a smaller bowl would have looked better. Placing small four pieces in a bowl that can fill 10+ fries does not look appetizing for guests paying 20+ bucks at a topokki place. Third suggestion, topokki should also be hotter (temperature). The little cheese on top was a solid after a few seconds, and the overall dish was also just at a lukewarm temperature which is not what I expected.
Now, the spicyness level. We ordered spicy, which is the 2^nd level out of 3 levels. Not spicy at all. I don’t know if it is because they catered to people here who might not eat spicy food often. The ones I tried in Korea are really spicy and with my expectation, it was a bit of a dissapointment when I had spicy and it was NOT SPICY AT ALL. So please note for those who visited Korea and tried these spicy dokbokgi places, do not order spicy level.
Overall, the staff was nice. I read a lot of comments of the staff being unkind, but that was not true in my experience. For me, it was just the food. Not what I expected because the bottom line, I expected the food to be hotter and spicier. The rice cakes were chewy and well cooked though.

If you ever saw a promotion card that says «7% off when paid in cash» that comes along with your check, don’t do it. It’s a total scam.
Our bill came to $ 50 and we decided to pay in cash because of the promotion. We paid $ 55 in total ($ 46.5 after 7% off plus 18% tip $ 8.37) and were stopped by the waiter when we were about to leave. He pointed us the tip policy, looks at us as we did something horribly wrong and said our tip is not enough. When we asked him about the 7% off he said, which I can’t believe anyone would say something stupid like that, «7% is only a few, it’s like only one or two dollars. «
Seriously, if you don’t know how to do basic math please don’t associate any numbers with your store promotion, or at least take a look at how much the bill was. As to the food, we ordered omelette rice, the fried rice inside tasted like a day old. Never going back to this place again.

The place is casual. It’s not very amusing. They have music playing and all but this place wasn’t as enthusiastic. However, the service was fast. I got seated immediately. I ordered and the food came in no time.
The food: Assorted ddukboki and the bulgogi rice
The assorted ddukboki came with one boiled egg, fishcakes and cheese on top. That was alright. I didn’t know what I was expecting from it since it didn’t remind me of anything as I was eating it. It was just spicy, nothing else. The bulgogi rice was supposed to be savory but it was sweet… It was hard to eat. I didn’t like the sweetness.

The Dduckbboki (rice cake) is quiet original and easy to eat! The sauce is quiet spicy and it was a mild level. The combo quiet pricy for k-​town price. The space is comfortable with the bright red color increase the spicy feeling of our food! Its a nice place but not really wow.

I got the combo A and they ran out of sundae cause they didn’t make the next batch and so they switched it with kimbap and it was super small portioned and made me very unhappy so they lose a star for that. They didn’t even give a discount or try to bring the sundae later in the meal when it was ready. Anyhow the ddukpoki was delicious and people say it was too spicy, but if you get the regular, it won’t be spicy. The oden soup was super watered down and not that good. So avoid those if you can. The assorted fries were great as well.

One of the best spots to get dukkbukki in the city. Good spiciness to it and the texture is good.
Fast friendly service and they have take-​out available too. Good place to go to with a group before a night of drinking.

I’ve never been interested in writing Unilocal reviews before, but my experience at this restaurant was what took me over the edge and convinced me to make an account.
I’ve been here a few times before. The food has always been decent – not amazingly delicious, but tasty enough for the price you pay. But to be honest, the dishes here are the kind that would take real effort to screw up. None of them are that complex or intricate.
Last week, I ate dinner here with a friend. She ordered the kimchi fried rice and requested Spam to be cooked with it rather than the bacon mentioned in the menu item. I ordered donkatsu (fried pork cutlet). I was quite hungry so I ate the meal with relish. It was good, but again, a dish that’s hard to mess up.
While I was watching my friend finish her kimchi fried rice, I noticed a cockroach skittering around on the wall right next to our table, much to my friend’s disgust. We immediately notified a waiter. When he came over, all he did was reach over with a napkin and kill the roach. He didn’t apologize, nor did any of the wait staff watching everything happen.
My friend couldn’t finish her dish because she was just so revolted after seeing the cockroach. I was unnerved by the experience because if a roach is present in the dining area like that, it indicates that the kitchen is potentially unclean or in poor condition. Also, I couldn’t believe that no one apologize or even tried to offer a reason for the roach being there. All of them just quietly watched us while we paid for our meal and left.
My friend and I have decided to never go back to this establishment again.

3.5 stars! me and my friend had a huge craving for dukboki while we met up for drinks. since arang closed down awhile go. my friend kept raving about this new place. we ordered the assorted dukboki and the tuna & mayo dish. it took awhile for the dishes to come out. the dukboki was too spicy for us. thank goodness we ordered the tuna & mayo rice. it was a good pair to help with spiciness of the dukboki. this place is decently sized and the prices for their dishes are okay. good place to stop by for lunch take out or no frills type of dinner.

As I was leaving the restaurant, I said ‘this is the worst meal we’ve had in the city so far.’ I came here for lunch on a Saturday and had the ddukbokki and fried rice. Both were overwhelmingly spicy and otherwise flavorless. I like eating spicy food, and one of the waitresses said it was an average level of spice. The fried egg in the rice was rubbery. The dduk was a little overdone.
The service was fine – nothing to rave or complain about.
I would highly recommend avoiding this place and eating at some of the other fine establishments on 32^nd St.

Loved the dubokki here! Bookmarked this place for awhile now ever since I heard of the one from flushing! I knew I had to go because who can give up cheese dubboki? Not me! We got the 3^rd dubokki on the list (I forgot the name because we were debating whether to get the 2^nd or the 3^rd one on the list). Anyways, we went around 3 which is definitely not lunch time so it was not packed at all. We got seated and served pretty quickly. We got radish as a side and it was decent. But it was cut into big pieces. Anywho, we ordered mild for the spiciness level because my friend heard it was pretty spicy to others who are spicy food lovers! Our dish had dubokki, fish cakes, cabbage, glass noodles, and other ingredients I’m not as familiar with.
The waiters and waitresses were definitely attentive and the place was sanitary.
I would definitely come back when my cravings start to kick in.

This review is only based on the chicken feet dish. I’ve gotten chicken feet from all over ktown and chinatown in nyc, nj, queens, but this place is by FAR the best.
I asked for extra spicy, and it was spot on. This is the first and only place that knows how to do true korean style, maybe even better than the ones in korea.
Don’t forget to mix rice with the leftover sauce and sprinkle seaweed over it! I’ve finally found my favorite chicken feet place!

I’m a huge fan of ddukbokki. I can literally eat ddukbokki 5 days in a row. Yupdduk is already very famous in Korea, so I expected a lot.
I had a combo A and bamboo naenmyun. Foods were ok but I wasn’t impressed. Among those, I think ddukbokki and skewed oden were good. Others like assorted fries and sundae were just ok, or below that. They didn’t look fresh and fries didn’t look like they were fried right before they were served. Naengmyun was pretty good.
Service was just ok too.
I would recommend only yupdduk (ddukbokki) if you go there.

Get your tteokbokki, teokbokki, ddeokbokki, topokki, or dukboki at Yupdduk!
Thanks to wiki, I wasn’t bombarding my korean friend with hundreds of questions perusing the menus in ktown. The spelling varies from place to place, but when it’s done well, it all points to a satisfying bubbling plate of rice cakes submerged in a sweet-​spicy chili sauce. We were denied our tteokbokki the night before hence my friend sought out Yupdduk for a late afternoon snack. We split the no-​frills version on spicy (you can pick three different spice levels) and a kimchi rice ball. Our order came out fast and I watched her kill it in the delicious style of «Let’s Eat»
Admittedly I have a limited experience with teokbokki, but I thought the sauce had just the right amount of sweetness and lingering spice. We were both huffing and puffing by the end– perfect. The rice cakes were softer than other ddeokbokkis and just how I like it.
Yupdduk’s interiors look a tad worn. Staff was apathetic but prompt with our orders. As a transplant chain from Korea, this place executes street food with a straightfoward approach. I was intrigued by the cheese topokki, but perhaps another time. As for my friend, Yupdduk quelled her dukboki cravings. I’d call this a job well done.

What a surprise… I saw the sign for 7.99 ramen so I thought I would give it a try. Then I looked at the reviews, and thought man, did I choose a wrong place to eat lunch, but to my surprise it was actually pretty good!
Service: nothing special, like any other Asian restaurant.
Ramen for 7.99 + toppings
–The only down fall is having to add toppings for an extra cost, but honestly it doesn’t really need anything extra, unless you want the meat, but that’s an additional $ 4
–I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, how spicy the ramen is! Its hard to find restaurants that meets my spicy standard and this place almost has it up to par for the ramen.
–Not only is it spicy, but it has flavor! 2 very most important things, if you are going to make it spicy, I still better taste the food. Great job!
Not bad for lunch, the other stuff on the menu was a little more on the pricy side for a lunch time meal, but maybe good for dinner or later in the night. Ramen so far is the only thing worth it for a lunch time dish.

I came here earlier in the week with a group of friends for lunch.
The service was good, the food came out super fast
The menus were quite confusing~ it seems half the items on the menu they didn’t have, and the pictures on the walls they did have. Typical Ktown.
I would recommend the spicy tofu soup or any of the chicken and rice or pork and rice. Everybody loved the food, but one of the people thought it was too spicy and was sweating the whole meal. which was pretty entertaining.
Also each of our plates was really cheap $ 7.99 /​$$ 8.99 or $ 9.99 so really well priced.
The place is a bit tiny so I would say its good for groups of 2 or four max