Tom Ajumma’s serves up fast-casual Korean food inspired from the hearty fare from the streets and markets of Korea. After some reviews from friends, we’ve decided to try out some of the Korean staple to check out the standards of Ajumma’s
About Ajumma’s Korean Restaurant
There are currently 4 Ajumma’s restaurants islandwide located at Funan Mall, Bukit Panjang Plaza, Waterway Point and PLQ Mall. This time, we visited the Waterway Point outlet in Punggol.
The setting of Ajumma’s is pretty casual with small rectangular tables that seem to be focused on space efficiency – to have as many guests seated as possible. This also means that you could be seated pretty close to your fellow diner at Ajumma’s.
To order at Ajumma’s Korean Restaurant, simply scan the QR code on the table and you’ll be able to send your orders straight to the kitchen. There are several sections on the Ajumma’s menu that includes meats, stews and street foods from Korea. Having tried out some amazing foods in Seoul, South Korea, we had a pretty good idea what to order during our visit this time.
What We Had at Ajumma’s Korean Restaurant
After browsing through the menu at Ajumma’s Korean Restaurant, we decided to go with Korean Staples:
Bulgogi Stew ($15.90)
Beef Bulgogi, vegetables. Served with Dangmyeon (glass noodles), rice and 4 side dishes
Fried Chicken & Crispy Toppoki with Sweet-Spicy Sauce ($11.50)
Crispy toppoki and crunch boneless fried chicken coated in a tantalising sweet-spicy and nutty sauce. Perfect with an ice-cold beer!
Jjajangmyeon ($12.90)
Ajumma’s Jjajangmyeon comes with chunks of pork fried with fermented black bean paste, slathered over hand-made noodles. Served with 4 side dishes.
To try out the standard of a restaurant, you wouldn’t go wrong with the staples of KFC (Korean Fried Chicken) and Jjajangmyeon. The bulgogi stew rounded up our orders this time. After placing our orders online, the side dishes arrived almost immediately…
For our side dishes (banchan) at Ajumma’s Korean Restaurant this time, we had the corn, seaweed, kimchi and a pickled item. As the side dishes were refillable, all we had to do was to press the buzzer and request the staff to bring some more over – no questions asked. We had refills twice this time as we found the kimchi and corn to be pretty good.
Soon, our 3 Korean dishes arrived…
The Bulgogi Stew arrived piping hot, loaded with ingredients within. We loved the flavourful soup as well as the generous portion of beef within. We also loved the large green onions with its fragrance as well as the springy glass noodles. A great start to the meal.
Next, the Fried Chicken & Crispy Toppoki with Sweet-Spicy Sauce from Ajumma’s. We knew that for a Korean restaurant to be considered “decent”, there would be a certainly standard for its Korean Fried Chicken along with the sauce use. The fried chicken at Ajumma’s was pretty excellent. Nicely crisp on the outside and we loved the tangy enticing sauce as well. But what really made this dish interesting was the crispy toppoki. They were probably lightly pan-fried to bring out the crisp texture on the outside while the chewy texture remained on the bite. Yum!
As for the Jjajangmyeong at Ajumma’s, it was not too bad. Not sure if I’d want to pay the same price for this dish in the future but we have to say that they’re actually quite generous with the pork in the jjajang sauce as compared to many other versions of Jjajangmyeon we’ve tried. In terms of the sauce though, it was quite expected. Not the ones that will lit up your eyes, signalling a secret marination process waiting to be explored. Nope, none this time.
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All in all, we had an excellent meal in a no-frills Korean restaurant. What we like about Ajumma’s was its prompt service and good standard fares in its Korean Fried Chicken and Bulgogi Stew. The crispy toppoki was a nice little surprise. Definitely will be back to enjoy this dish once again. If you have visited Ajumma’s Korean Restaurant, let us know what you think in the comments section below as well!
