Windows on the Sea

It’s always great when you find another spot that you can add to the food mix. We hadn’t checked out Ssam yet and decided to do a valentines lunch date. If you have a party of 2-6 you can score a special little enclosed booth for privacy and coziness. They even have a special lunch menu which was a pleasant surprise. We started off with an appetizer of French fries (good amount - had to save some for leftover). My wife got the japchae and I opted for beef bulgogi. Since it was V day, we opted to try some cocktails too - a soju margarita and a mule. Service was spot on and efficient. Our cocktails were good if not memorable. The fries had a pleasant flavor of sesame and fresh. My wife enjoyed her japchae and felt it was robust for a lunch item. I thoroughly enjoyed the bulgolgi with a perfect egg on top but felt it was lacking vegetables. Hot sauce helped kick it up and also a solid portion for a lunch item. Overall we had a great time and will be back!

+7

Emily

2nd update 5/18/25: it seems the owners have changed hands and the food is no longer what it used to be. Amusingly, they had live Spanish music which was nice but strange given that it’s a Korean restaurant. Unfortunately, we no longer frequent this location anymore due to the change in flavors. Update: I’ve been here several times - this is my go-to Korean restaurant near downtown Brooklyn. The bulgogi, spicy pork, and bibimbap dishes are fantastic. The ssam dishes come on a sizzling hot plate, while the bibimbap comes in a dolsot (hot stone pot) so you are able to get that crispy rice. The galbi is bone-in, so it’s a bit hard to mix into the bibimbap. The naengmyeon is not as thick and chewy as I am accustomed to at other places but that might just be personal preference. The included bonchon (side dishes) are limited to a small dish of kimchi, pickled radish, and kimchi radish. I was less impressed with the kimchi jiggae which had a strong taste of ground black pepper, and the tteokbokki was okay. Service is always excellent and friendly. We always just walk in without reservations and there’s never a wait. The place is huge and is cozy inside.

Felisekat

It was delayed twice and once it finally arrived I was disappointed. I ordered the 12 wings half garlic soy half spicy and the Pork belly Ramen. Also what’s with the ramen to broth ratio being 2 to 4, that’s a lot of broth for a dish that the broth isn’t quite hitting it in. It barely had any veggies in it also. The ramen had spice to the smell yet tasted like a hint of watered down pork broth, it was lacking something that could have made it amazing. Kind of like when you put too much water in a broth and the meat’s oil overpowers the broth, floats to the top of the water no matter how many times you mix it, and is tasted in each spoon full. (also yes I mixed the broth before eating in case stuff settled in transit.) The chicken had some amazing pieces that were crispy and flavorful and then some that were soft/moist, also none were spicy like I ordered. (probably form the condensation in the box since it was 30-45 mins late) Was really looking forward to this maybe others had a different experience idk \_o_/

Caius

Trying to find decent Korean food away from K-Town 34th area, in the Brooklyn area, and this one was OK. The Banchan (small starter dishes) typically given to start off meals was the smallest amount I've ever seen with two tiny bowls of Kimchi. You get like 6 or 7 in Manhattan. - The Pajun (scallion pancake) was nice. - JapChae was decent, but definitely better at other places. - The Sundubu soup was good flavor, but the meat was chewy - The fried Steak and Eggs cooked Dolsot style was the best dish. The crispy rice was flavored exceptionally well. The meat had the same issue being soft and chewy, but flavored well. Had me wonder meat quality to be this chewy The big kicker was the spotty service. It IS very slow. We thought they were forgot our order at one point as the couple seated right before us were able to eat and receive their bill before we got our first dish. We waited almost 40min for the first order to arrive (the appetizer scallion pancake) during a lunch that was not busy at all around 1:10pm on a Sunday. They also gave us a wrong dish during this time.

Richard C

This place is so inconsistent, but I can tell they cut corners. First time I ordered Budae Jjigae, it was really good. I ordered it again a second time and it was pretty terrible, my impression was that they ran out of spam and sausage and the seasoning for the stew so they overcompensated by adding more rice cake, making the Budae Jjigae just a bland and watery pork kimchi stew with ramen noodles added to it. I liked it enough the first time to order it again but if you’re low on ingredients, cancel the order, don’t compromise quality and try to cut corners…

Mary Ann C

The interior is cute. Pork belly was flavorless, dry, and a small portion of meat and rice. For $29 I would have expected way more. Fried rice was okay. Service was not good despite it being almost empty inside. The server brought us the wrong food at first and it took a very long time to get their attention to get a check when there were only 2 other couples eating. There are other decent Korean restaurants in this area where you’ll get a lot more food with way better quality and better service.

Adrianna Leys

I really wanted to like and try this neighborhood spot however they completely messed up our order and provided terrible customer service. We ordered vegetable dumplings and they served us meat dumplings instead even after when we had expressed that we are vegetarian. They then made no effort to rectify the mistake. Also we ordered vegetable ramen that was completely left out of the order. Overall it was a very unfortunate experience and although the food was decent unless I witnessed a better service experience I would not return to Ssam.

Giftka

thanksgiving 24 nov My family regularly comes to eat at this restaurant. But every time I come here, the Servers never provide good service. I never write reviews bad But today, the Servers was terrible.!!! My daughter loves boneless chicken and I repeated the order twice: "I ordered boneless chicken." There was only one table in the restaurant and the service was still this bad. I waited so long for my food that I had to remind the waiter, who was listening to loud music, to check on my food for me. Suddenly, when the food arrived, we had chicken wings, and we don't like chicken wings. she slandered my daughter had ordered the wrong thing, which was impossible. Finally, she admitted her mistake and demanded that we take responsibility for the food she had misunderstood. Oops! So I advised her that if she wanted to work as a server, she should be responsible, and promptly replace dishes for customers, and have a service mind. She didn't have any servers mind. I asked for a togo box and the bill immediately, and my family will never go back again. For today's tteokbokki, I only took one bite and threw it away. It tasted so bad it was like eating it overnight.

Adam

The food was completely cold, and part of my order was missing. I paid a total of $70 and received only this small portion of meat. The restaurant kept hanging up the phone and even gave me a wrong number. Thank you for this experience.

Janelle W

They cancelled half of our order online without notifying us. What does the other person is supposed to eat? And the beef and tofu soup only have a tiny bit of beef in it, and we still needed to pay the fee and tip to Grubhub. Will not order from this place again.

Gatsby Yang

Absolutely low-quality beef soup. There is only one piece of beef in the soup. The beef is too hard to refuse and has a strange smell. The soup has no beef aroma except for salt and green onion.