Fodor's Expert Review Jaha Son Mandu

In business since 1993, Jaha Son Mandu specializes in gourmet mandu or Korean-style dumplings. Both the house that the restaurant is in and the recipes used have been passed down to owner Park Hye-kyung from her grandparents. Until recently, you could catch glimpses of her grandmother overseeing quality control in the kitchen. While their prices are approximately double that of other restaurants in the area, Jaha Son Mandu is distinctly different, as many of the ingredients are made on site (son means hand, and in the case of the restaurant's name, handmade). They even ferment the soy sauce themselves and don’t use a single drop of artificial flavoring. Some of their dishes, like their mandu-guk (dumpling soup), are elevated takes on classics while other dishes, like their pyeonsu (dumplings with beef, mushrooms, and cucumbers) are hard-to-find gems.