Before The Main Dish Arrives, A Dozen Banchan Bowls Cover The Table At This Florida Korean Restaurant

I walked in expecting one plate of food and got a whole tabletop instead. Somewhere along a busy Florida street sits a Korean kitchen that fills your table with small bowls before the real meal even shows up, and each one tastes like somebody made it on purpose.

Kimchi, seasoned sprouts, fish cake, little salads, all of it refilled without asking. It looks ordinary from the road, and then the food arrives and you forget the parking lot entirely.

A Storefront on Orlando’s Colonial Drive

Colonial Drive moves fast, and the building holding Shin Jung Korean Restaurant does not beg for attention as you pass it. The sign is plain.

The front is glass and clean lines, sitting in the Mills 50 stretch of Orlando where Vietnamese, Thai, and Korean kitchens share the same few blocks.

Inside, the room turns out to be more polished than the drive-by suggests. Wood tones, table grills built into the surfaces, decent spacing between seats, and dishware that looks chosen rather than ordered by the crate.

The restaurant has been part of the Orlando dining scene for a long stretch, and it reopened after a fire and a round of major renovations, which explains the modern feel of a place with old roots. The menu covers grill-it-yourself barbecue, stews, noodles, and a solid vegetarian selection, all under one roof.

Parking takes a little patience. Street spots line the block, and a handful of spaces sit behind the building, which fill quickly on weekend evenings.

The address is 1638 E Colonial Dr, Orlando, FL 32803.

Small Bowls, Big Statement

Nothing quite prepares you for the moment a server starts unloading a tray of little dishes and just keeps going. Kimchi in more than one form, seasoned bean sprouts, fish cake in a glossy sauce, greens, pickles, and small salads land one after another until the table geometry becomes a puzzle.

Banchan is the Korean tradition of side dishes served alongside rice and the main course, and they are not an appetizer course to be cleared away. They stay.

They get refilled. You eat them throughout the meal, not before it.

The refills here come generously, which matters because a single square of radish kimchi rarely satisfies anybody. The salad and the sides are fresh and distinct in flavor rather than blurring into one pickled note.

My advice: taste each bowl before committing to a favorite, because the one you would have skipped is often the one you end up guarding. The fish cakes get mentioned often, and for good reason.

Rice arrives, the grill heats up, and the bowls stay exactly where they are.

Grilling Your Own at the Table

Tongs in one hand, scissors in the other, and a grill glowing in the middle of the table. Korean barbecue here is the participatory kind, where the raw meat comes out beautifully marinated and the cooking is your job.

The lineup runs deep. Pork belly, beef belly, pork jowl, marinated chicken, beef bulgogi, pork bulgogi, and LA galbi, that cross-cut short rib that caramelizes fast and disappears faster.

There is a seafood platter and assorted vegetables too, so the grill is not strictly a meat operation.

Staff keep a close eye on the grill and will step in with guidance on cutting and cooking, which speeds things along even if you had your own plan for char levels.

A practical note for first-timers: order fewer items than you think you need, because portions run generous and the banchan is already doing heavy work on your appetite.

Wrap a slice of bulgogi in lettuce, add a dab of sauce and a sliver of garlic, and you understand why the table stays busy for two hours.

Stews That Arrive Still Bubbling

Steam first, then sound. The stews come to the table still working, hissing at the edges of a stone pot, and they do not cool down politely just because you are hungry.

Kimchi jjigae is the standout in this category, deep and sour and warming in a way that makes no sense in Florida humidity and yet completely works. Yukgaejang, the spicy shredded beef soup, has its own following, as does the seafood tofu soup and kalbitang.

There is also a Korean hot stone pot udon with thick chewy noodles in savory broth, topped with green onion. Give it a few minutes before the first spoonful, unless you enjoy losing a layer of tongue.

Dolsot bibimbap belongs in this conversation too. Rice crisps against the hot stone while you mix in vegetables, meat, and sauce, and the crunchy bottom layer is the prize at the end.

Pair any stew with the banchan spread and you have a full meal without touching the grill at all, which is the quieter way to eat here.

Pancakes, Dumplings, and Noodles Worth Ordering

Order the pajeon. The Korean pancake here comes out light, fluffy inside, and crackling at the edges, with seafood or scallion running through it, and it hits the table in wedges meant for sharing.

Dumplings hold up their end as well, whether steamed on their own or dropped into dumpling ramen or duk mandu guk, that comforting soup of rice cakes and dumplings in clear broth.

Japchae noodles, the sweet potato glass noodles tossed with vegetables, bring a springy chew and a lightly sweet, sesame-forward sauce. Tteokbokki brings the opposite energy, chewy cylinders of rice cake in a thick chili sauce that sneaks up on you.

Then there is bibim naengmyeon, the cold noodle dish with apple slices and a spicy dressing. The noodles are so chewy that scissors come to the table, and the server will trim them for you before serving.

A ginger and cinnamon juice appears on the drink list too, light with a warm kick that arrives a second after you swallow. Good closer for a meal with this much going on.

The Room, the Volume, and the Pace

Warmth is the first thing the room gives you, helped along by ventilation hoods over each grill and lighting that leans bright rather than moody. Some evenings the brightness is more cafeteria than candlelit, which suits the food better than it suits a quiet date.

Tables accommodate groups comfortably, and the space handles a full house without the noise turning into a wall. Even when every seat is taken, conversation stays possible.

Service moves quickly. Food comes out fast, water and banchan refills appear, and the staff are direct about how things should be grilled and cut.

Several servers are regulars in the reviews by first name, which tells you the crew sticks around.

It works for a group of four ordering across the whole menu, for a solo bowl of soup at lunch, and for anyone curious about Korean food who wants someone to walk them through the order.

Plan on a longer meal than you expected. Between grilling, refills, and the fact that nobody leaves rice on the table here, an hour and a half goes by easily.

Decades of Korean Cooking in Florida

Korean cooking has been part of Florida longer than most people assume. The state’s Korean restaurant history reaches back to the early 1980s, and Orlando’s Mills 50 district grew into a cluster of Asian kitchens that still anchors the city’s food map.

Shin Jung belongs to that older generation. It is described as a veteran outpost for traditional Korean cuisine, and it earned Michelin Guide recognition across multiple years, which is not a thing that happens to a kitchen coasting on habit.

Continuity has not been simple. A fire and a pandemic both interrupted the run, followed by renovations that brought the space back in a more modern form while the kalbi and the pajeon stayed recognizably themselves.

What survived those years is the approach: marinades made in house, kimchi in several styles, stews built on real broth, and a side dish rotation that keeps the table changing.

Families drive in from surrounding towns like St. Cloud for a meal here, which says more about the cooking than any plaque on the wall ever could.

How to Time Your Visit

Arrive near opening if parking stress ruins your appetite. Spots along the street and the small lot behind the building go quickly once the dinner rush builds, and the block gets tight on weekend nights.

The kitchen runs from late morning until late evening every day of the week, so an early lunch is a workable strategy. Lunch specials are one of the better values on the menu, and the room is calmer before the grills all fire at once.

Budget roughly twenty to thirty dollars a person for a main dish and a drink, more if your table goes deep on barbecue meats. Reservations are not required, though a large group on a Saturday will wait less by showing up after the peak.

Bring people. The menu rewards a table that orders across categories, one stew, one grill order, a pancake, and a noodle dish to pass around.

Afterward, the rest of Mills 50 is right there. A walk down the block clears the grill smoke and gives you a reason to linger in this corner of Florida a while longer.