Throughout our culinary journey together, my wife Jun and I have often found that reviewing a Korean restaurant is arguably the toughest task. Having grown up in Korea, we have certain expectations on what a Korean cuisine should be, and if a Korean restaurant doesn’t meet those expectations, our review tends to be harsher than other non-Korean restaurants. Is that fair? Perhaps not, especially if a restaurant has gotten a lot of love from non-Korean diners. But if a restaurant’s food has departed significantly from what we know to be the standard, we didn’t think it is inappropriate to call that out. We had the same quandary when visiting Onggi, which a new Korean restaurant that opened in Dupont Circle.

There are two ways to dine at Onggi, a la carte options and a 6-course Hanjeongsik tasting menu (at $145 per person for the regular menu and $125 per person for the vegan menu on our visit). We opted for the latter regular tasting menu to get a full sense of the restaurant’s offerings inspired by royal course cuisine of Korea. The tasting menu started with a playful plate of sweet snacks such as dried gingers and persimmons, followed by the first course in which we both enjoyed the kabocha porridge and white pear kimchi. Goojeolpan, which consists of a number of ingredients you can wrap in mini-sized pancakes, is one of the standout Korean dishes; the version at Onggi wasn’t bad but I found myself missing the delicious plate that my mother prepared for us on our previous visit to Korea.

Things started to go downhill from there. I found the seasoning on abalone and scallop to be overly salty (although Jun’s was just fine in seasoning), and japchae, the beloved stir-fried glass noodles dish, was a disaster, too oily without the chewy texture of the noodles. I whispered to Jun that her mother, who is an expert in japchae, would’ve been really upset with this dish. My biggest disappointment was from the last savory dish. Tteokgalbi, a popular minced beef short rib patty, was completely off in texture (imagine a burger patty that requires a lot of efforts to chew and doesn’t quite melt in your mouth) and the aggressive seasoning completely overwhelmed the meat anyways. By the time the dessert of persimmon ice cream and seasonal fruit (nothing special here, either) arrived, my mood was fairly sour.

Getting a reservation at Onggi doesn’t look challenging and the sleek and modern dining space had a decent number of diners (mostly curious non-Korean) but not quite packed either. There is a full bar with some cocktails using traditional Korean ingredients as well as a concise wine list. On our way home from the restaurant, Jun asked again whether we are being too harsh in judging Onggi’s mediocre dishes. I pondered her question for a few days but ultimately concluded that diners would know when a dish is objectively not very good with or without extensive experience with that country’s cuisine. DC doesn’t have as many great Korean restaurants at the moment (it doesn’t help that we didn’t have a great experience, either, at Anju in the city that many diners seem to like), so our experience at Onggi cemented my view that I will just indulge on Jun’s masterful Korean cooking at home for the time being while we live here.   

KenScale: 7.0/10 (Jun’s Score: 7.0/10)

Address: 2100 P Street NW, Washington, DC 20037

Website: https://www.onggidc.com/

Reservation via Resy