New Totowa
“The pork cutlet and spicy rice cakes are a must!”
“The new location is much brighter, cleaner, bigger and overall just a lot nicer than the previous location which was pretty run down in my opinion.”
“They usually give you free ice cream with your meal but we arrived very close to closing time so I can't complain.”
New Totowa
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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I don't really have any strong opinion towards this restaurant. It wasn't super amazing, but at the same time it wasn't terribly bad.
Totowa pretty much serves what Koreans like to eat as snack, which is also referred as "boon-sik." However, totowa made Boon-sik seem like more of a meal- meaning, they served in pretty much generous portion.
My friends and I visited this place and ordered: pork cutlet, cheese dukbokki, fried rice, and a seafood cream pasta.
Pork cutlet was pretty good. Unlike Japanese style pork cutlets, the pork cutlet offered in Totowa was pretty unique. The sauce was spread on top of cutlet, and it made a great harmony and balance between the meat and the sauce. I loved how the generous the portion was.
Unfortunately, there were nothing to recall about other foods we had.
It's a pretty chill place to hang out with friends.
Kinda a standard Korean restaurant in Pal Park. It's a pretty affordable option in the very Korean area. The restaurant was nice, the men's bathroom in the basement was not, it felt like I stepped into a third world country. Also, they have free self serve ice cream at the counter.
The food:
Pork Cutlet- The cutlet was humongous! It was enough to share with two people, it was nice and crunchy but the pork itself wasn't really that noticeable. It also had this odd ketchup like sauce on top that I thought was too sweet. Overall, a decent dish. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
Korean Roll with Beef- Also known as Kimbap I enjoyed the flavor as a whole, I enjoyed all the ingredients except the ground beef, the beef really had no flavor and had a very dry texture. Think the Kimbap with another filling would have been better. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
Spicy Rice Cake Stew with Sticky Noodle- Their ddukbokki was kinda sad. The chewy noodles were annoyingly chew, the sauce seemed very one dimensional and flat. The sauce was sweet and did have a kick but the kick faded rather quickly. I also didn't like their rice cakes, I felt they should have been cooked more and needed to absorb more flavor. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
CHECK YOUR FOOD IF YOU GET TAKEOUT.
Their food is good, but their service is crap, especially for take out. I ordered a japchae dupbap and there was no JAPCHAE. that's the freaking dish i ordered and it's missing the main ingredient?! I had to eat just the fried rice…. So I check my bag every time I get take out from here. Next time was okay, but the last time I went, I checked the bag again, ordered Jaeyuk dupbap and there's NO MEAT. It looked like the restaurant took someone's leftovers from dining in and threw it on top of some rice and wrapped it up to go. I brought this to the attention of the manager (?) and he took it and had them add more, the right amount… and apologized and gave me some free soda. How do you let something like that go out the door? Do they not check the food when it's done?
Utter disappointment.. food is good when it's prepared right, but that's WHEN they get it right. Time to go to bunsiknara.
The Story:They moved! Down the street! Came here with boyfriend for some dinner!
Food: They have a good variety of fusion and traditional Korean dishes. Comfortable and Casual dining.
I ordered the jjampong and it was HUGEE! I took 1/2 of it home.
Decor: I feel its more open compare to their last location. Definitely an improvement.
Price: Dishes are not expensive. Dinner for my boyfriend and I was $25 with tip!
Service: This is where it kinda lacks. Flagging down someone is near impossible when they're busy.
Parking & Finding the Place: If you're lucky enough to get parking on the main street but they usually have side street parking. I think this location has a parking lot in the back. Kinda creepy for my taste at night.
Additional Thoughts/Tips: Granted service isn't that great… I love the food. Its quick, easy and nommy.
There's a saying that goes "if you're in the Palisades Park area and unsure of where to eat, go to Totowa." Ok, maybe I made that up but I'd say it's pretty accurate and served me well.
For the non-Korean folk, I think the best way to describe Totowa is to call it a Korean diner. They basically offers a huge variety of Korean dishes (both comfort and traditional food) and surprisingly, they all taste very good.
Some of the many highlights on the menu are the Cheese Donkatsu (Pork Katsu), Tukpokki (spicy rice cake) and Jeyook Udon Bokeum (Spicy Pork w/ Udon noodles). All their dumplings are also made in-house and they are delicious as well. Their traditional jigaes (soups) are also excellent too. All the food portions are huge too so if you're not a fatty like me, you will have leftovers to bring home with you.
The one knock I have on them is that they give very little banchan (side dishes) and they aren't good. It is forgivable since they aren't going for the traditional Korean restaurant but at the same time, their kimchee isn't very good either and that leaves your meal feeling a little incomplete.
After you're done with your meal, you can help yourself to their ice cream which is always a great way to finish off your meal.
The restaurant itself is pretty clean except they have a slight gnat problem which is extremely bothersome to deal with when you're eating. Their old location had it even worse but it looks like a few of the gnats came along for the move. Service is pretty efficient and fast.
Overall, like I stated from the beginning, you really can't go wrong with Totowa.
Used to come to the old location all the time for my jjajjanmyun fill, but no longer. The new location seems to have downgraded the quality of food (unclear if the cooking staff/recipes have changed?), and the three chances I gave the new location have each greeted me with the distinct smell of stale water and poor ventilation. It's hard to describe the exact scent, but it's in the same terminal as sewage.
I don't know if the service was poor, understaffed, or both, but there was more than one occasion where one of our orders was simply missing, and it was difficult to get the attention of any of the wait staff.
The free self serve at the front (that seems to be empty every time I visit), and the large portions (of mediocre food) isn't enough to bring me back a fourth time. Sad times.
I used to like this place a lot, I always ordered rice cake & korean sausage and ice noodles (naengmyeon) and I liked the vibe of the old place a lot too, I felt like I was in a typical fastfood restaurant in Korea.
And I was very disappointed when I went here last week. They did not have both dishes I wanted to order. So I order rice cake with fried squid and veggie, the plate was huge but I gave up after few bites, it was oily and flavorless… this was probably my last time here, it is sad that one of my fav restaurants in Palisades park is gone :'(
Bigger, cleaner, newer, same food. Can't ask for me. I didn't notice the price increase, regardless it is still super affordable.
The ice cream machine was broken though. Hopefully that's just a temporary glitch.
Mush haves are the donkatsu (HUGE, Enough for three), the dokbuki (with the ramen or chewy noodles), and the fried dumplings with the cold noodles. It can probably feed four people but the three of us stuffed ourselves silly.
Service is also pretty friendly. Maybe I'm just too used to ctown courtesy.
I am so glad you're still around. You made crossing the GWB worthwhile.