In Search of Good Jajangmyeon

After a series of late-night K-drama marathons last year - which, for my own academic career, probably shouldn't happen too often - I started having intermittent cravings for jajangmyun, a.k.a. black bean noodles. Not to be confused with the chinese black bean noodles or cha jiang mien. The korean one originated from the chinese black bean noodles, but is now quite different.

I went to place that had really good jajangmyun before but I had forgotten the name and haven't been able to find it again! :( All I know is that the place was K-style chinese food, open 24 hours, in a strip mall where they also have a hopping nightclub of sorts ... Anyone has any idea?

So in an attempt to find another good place, I went to try Mandarin House, which had pretty good jajangmyun reviews. They had the regular jajangmyun, with no meat, and they also had a meat sauce jajangmyun. I wanted some meat, so that's what I ordered. My friend who was there does not like to eat meat (except for kalbi, which she would eat a lot of :> ) ordered the regular.

Here's the meat jajangmyun:
It seemed to me that the regular one that my friend got had more sauce and the sauce was thicker and blacker ... in other words, it looked better to me. Still, my jajangmyun was really pretty good, although I did want more sauce on it! Since the sauce is so good!

So while the jajangmyun here is pretty good, it's still not perfect in my opinion. I'm still looking for one with great sauce and lots of it, and with substantial amount of meat, too! If anyone has any recommendation, please do let me know!

Mandarin House
3074 W 8th St
Los Angeles, CA 90005
(213) 386-8976