“Oppaya” is a newly opened Korean Buffet restaurant in Bangkok. The concept here is “Korean food buffet at an affordable price”. If you ever have a big craving for Korean food, this one will surely be your answer!
The restaurant is located in front of “The Sense Pinklao”. You might need to take a taxi from “Hua Lumpong” subway station but don’t worry because the restaurant is not too far from that area. (Taxi fare will not exceed 100 THB) The restaurant opens from 11 am – 9.30 pm.
Oppaya offers you 2 kinds of Buffet, the 219 THB buffet set and the 259 THB buffet set. However, I would like to recommend the 259 THB buffet more as the first set only allows you to order 4 pieces of fried chicken per person and the 259 THB set also has a wider range of food for you to choose.
Our first item here is “Geran Mari” or Korean fried egg. I really like this dish. It is simply fried egg with chives and tomato sauce but the texture is really fluffy and soft. The saltiness from the sesame also makes the fried egg taste even better!
The second item that I would like to introduce is “Squid Bibimbap”. I am quite surprised that this dish tastes exactly like what I had in Korea. Even though the portion is not that big, it really packed with quality ingredients. They gave out the right amount of Kochujung and the hot stone bowl made it taste better because the rice was crispy outside and very soft inside! (The original Bibimbap also taste good!)
The third dish here is “Tonkatsu”. Tonkatsu here is special because the put mashed potatoes inside the katsu too. As a result, the potatoes make the katsu taste a little bit sweet. If you are a fan of mashed potatoes as well, you should try this one out.
The fourth item is “Ddeokbokki”. I would say that Ddeokbokki here is not as spicy as in Korea. In fact, it is quite sweet. I would not recommend you to order this if you are not a fan of the food that tastes sweet. However, the Ddok itself has a really nice and soft texture.
The next dish is “Jjuggumi” (Spicy fried squid). For me, I think that this item is a hybrid between Korean and Thai style of spiciness. However, I really like it! You can taste the original taste of Kochujung while you also feel the nice smell of Thai spices. This dish is not too spicy. Everyone can eat it. And the squid is also very fresh.
Fifth item of this buffet is “Jajangmyeon” (Black bean noodles). This dish is served with a boiled egg. It tastes a little sweeter than the ones in Korea but what I like about this dish here is that it is not as greasy as the one in Korea. The noodles they give you is very soft. Combined with the warm Jajangmyeon sauce, it is very nice!
The next item is “Cheese Jjimdak”. Again, I would say that it is a hybrid between Korean and Thai style. The spices that they put in this menu are Thai spices; however, it still tastes good! It goes well with the warm melty cheese. You can still smell the spices when you are eating this.
The eighth dish is the highlight of the restaurant and it is “Fried Chicken”. They have 2 kinds of fried chicken. One is spicy (boneless) and the other is fried with honey (wings and drumsticks). For the spicy fried chicken, they used the Thai Chilli Powder/Paste on the outside to make it spicy. (However, it is not as spicy compared to spicy fried chicken from the fast food restaurants) I would recommend the Honey Fried Chicken more. They taste very much like the ones in Korea. They are super crispy outside and very soft inside. They are also not that sweet, you can still taste the saltiness and smell some spices from them.
Our ninth dish is “Jjampong” (Spicy Korean noodles). This one is a little bit spicy but not in the Korean way. It taste more like “Tomyum”. However, it still goes well with the other Korean food because of its spiciness and sourness from lime. I would say that actually Korean noodles which is very thick and soft really goes along well with this kind of soup.
The tenth item here is “Naengmyeon” (Cold Noodles). This one tastes exactly like the ones in Korea. They even use the buckwheat noodles for this dish. The Kochujung sauce spices up the dish well. However, I would recommend you to eat this along with Bulgogi or Jjimdak because they don’t have any meat in this dish.
And here comes our last item, “Kimchi Soup”. This one tastes really really good! The spiciness and the sourness are just at the right level. It tastes exactly like those in Korea. They put some Toufu, Pork, Egg and Kimchi in the soup. Eating this soup with a hot bowl of rice is just the perfect thing to do!
There are also several tips I would like to tell you before going to this restaurant. First is that it is not a good idea to go to Oppaya during lunch time without reservation. The queue will be quite long as it is very popular among the locals. Second is that sometimes the food takes quite long to be served because the restaurant does it order by order in order to ensure the freshness of the food and to make sure you get the best out of it! Third one is that don’t worry about the language barrier, the staff can speak English and their service is very very good!
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