Andrea and I first ate here back in December of 2021 not too long after they first opened in November of that year. It was hailed as being high-end Korean cuisine with Corey Lee, of Benu fame, as one of the founders. We had very high expectations from our experience at Benu. Back then, we found it elevated, but definitely not on the level of Benu with a few things we found a bit off putting, namely the counter seating being odd and service being a bit uneven.
A year after their opening (also a year after we had dined there), San Ho Won earned their first Michelin star and ever since I had been meaning to revisit. It wasn’t at the top of my list to try, but the difficulty in getting a reservation always stymied our return (we could have tried walk-in at opening though, but we generally prefer the predictability of a reservation). Eventually, I did get a reservation and so ushers in our return.
We had a 5:30 reservation, but had we done 5:00pm instead, we probably could have scored a booth which would have been nice. We eschewed the counter because of our experience last time, but the counter looked a bit more interesting since the grill was in full use this time (last time we were here it wasn’t used barely at all) and were seated at a table for 2. We were doing the House (i.e. tasting) Menu which did give us a couple choices.
We started with a couple cocktails (only two options) – Andrea had the Yuju Highball and I had the Bokbunja Negroni both made with soju of course. Both were decent, not as good as some of the best cocktails available in SF, but decent. The highball was lighter and refreshing and we’re suckers for yuja/yuzu anyway. The negroni was a bit bland for a negroni and I missed the bitterness, but it was fine for what it was.
All in all, we quite enjoyed this meal. The banchan was delicious. I enjoyed the egg souffle. The meats were both fantastic. I was hoping for a bit more flavor from the jigae (although having the leftovers for lunch, it was plenty flavorful…just didn’t seem it in the moment), but I was pretty full already anyway. Service was a little uneven though. At the start, dishes just came out too quickly. But all in all, we had an enjoyable time. Interestingly, I went back to my writeup from our first visit. There was no House Menu back then so we had just ordered a la carte. Many of the dishes were same or very similar and in total actually looked better than what we had this time. Interesting that we enjoyed ourselves more this time than the first time. So maybe not so much difference in the food, but more a difference in us and our expectations!
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