Hi everyone! I had the privilege of trying an exciting new authentic Korean restaurant – Mister Tiger here in Chicago, and I’m so excited to share the delicious dishes I ate.
Mister Tiger, located in West Town, Chicago, is a new and as the owners say, “unapologetically authentic. No frills. No fusion. Just honest, straight-up Korean cuisine” restaurant. Siblings Min and Charlie own the restaurant, drawing inspiration from their immigrant grandmother and mother, who expressed love through traditional Korean cooking.
To set the scene, I came here on a double date on a Wednesday evening at 6:30. When we walked in for our reservation, it was pleasantly populated but not crowded. The decor of the restaurant is simple- neutral walls with barely any artwork or decor adorning the walls, but the restaurant is blessed with large windows along one wall. The restaurant is larger than I was expecting, with two rooms filled with different sized tables, and a small bar in the corner as well. It was pretty quiet and casual, but by the time we were wrapping up dinner around 8:30, the mood lights were on, the music was a bit louder, and almost all the tables were full. Their cocktail menu looked yummy, but we decided to share a bottle of wine for the table.
Okay now for the most important part… the food! The menu was full of a variety of traditional Korean dishes to try.
We started the dinner with 3 appetizers to share! First, these fried pork dumplings were fried to perfection and filled with delicious flavors. But what was maybe even better was the sweet and spicy cabbage salad the dumplings were paired with. It was the perfect balance of sweet, tangy, and refreshing. We all agreed on how good this salad was- we were pleasantly surprised since we were assuming to dumplings were going to be the star of the show here.
The second appetizer we tried was the Korean Fried Chicken and oh my gosh this was mouthwatering good. It’s been almost 24 hours and I’m still thinking about it. I’m actually pretty sure I went to bed last night dreaming about this dish. Specifically the Sweet and Spicy sauce on the chicken is what made it. This dish is served with either Soy Garlic sauce or Sweet and Spicy sauce. We didn’t get the Soy Garlic sauce and while I’m sure it’s delicious, I highly recommend the Sweet and Spicy sauce. I mean this next sentence with the highest level of respect and admiration- this tasted like a way better, more fresh, less spicy version of the boneless Asian Zing wings at Buffalo Wild Wings. This is high praise considering those boneless Asian Zing wings at BWW are my guilty pleasure and maybe one of my favorite foods of all time (okay… top 30…). Anyways, I highly recommend this appetizer.
The final appetizer we ordered were these Chive Pancakes. While this photo looks like there’s only 2, it came with 4, which was perfect size for each of us to have an entire pancake. I’ve never had a chive pancake before and it isn’t something I would typically order, but it was flavorful with a crispy outside and a soft inside. It didn’t necessarily stand out to me but the table agreed it was yummy. There wasn’t one bite left.
And now for the entrees! We order a few to share with the table as well.
First up is the spicy stir-fried chicken marinated in gochujang sauce, served with sweet potato. The chicken was tender, soft, excellently seasoned, and perfectly spicy. I would definitely order this again.
We also ordered the Bulgogi fried rice to share. New to me as someone who isn’t an experienced Korean food eater, I learned that bulgogi is a Korean dish made of thinly-sliced beef and is typically marinated in soy sauce, sugar, ginger, sesame oil, garlic, and pear. The stir fried rice also included onions and carrots, and was topped with an egg, sesame oil, and dried seaweed. This was soooo tasty and mixing the egg in before serving made it even better. I will say this portion was not super big, we were all able to have a decent sized portion, but as a rice lover/fanatic/stan/call it what you want, I could’ve had 5 more servings.
And last but certainly not least…
… the star of the show… the Hot Stone Bibimbap! This bowl was filled with rice, a mixed of veggies, a fried egg, and served with gochujang sauce. You have a choice of bulgogi or tofu as the protein. We chose bulgogi, of course, and it was amazing. What’s cool about this dish is it’s served in a hot stone bowl so the secret is to immediately give the top half of the bowl a mix so the egg yolks gets mixed in, but leave the bottom half mostly unmixed which always it to get crispy and you end up with crispy rice! It’s delicious and worth the wait! Bibim means “mixing” and bap means rice which is exactly the ideal way to eat this dish. It was so good I could have probably eaten the entire thing on my own. I highly recommend ordering this dish.
And lastly, although unfortunately there is no photographic evidence of this, we also ordered the Galbi Jjim which was braised short rib in a savory-sweet soy-based sauce with rice cakes, potatoes, shishito peppers, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and jujubes. The short rib was cooked to PERFECTION. It was extremely tender and fell right off the bone. I’m not one to order short ribs at a restaurant but would immediately proposition the group to order this the next time I go here and refuse to leave the table until everyone tried it.
Overall, I highly recommend checking out Mister Tiger if you’re in Chicago and looking for traditional Korean food. There’s a variety of options to choose from, everything is flavorful and cooked perfectly, the atmosphere is appealing, and the service was good. I do wish some of the portions were a bit bigger, especially for the price, but I wouldn’t let that deter you from checking this restaurant out! The grand opening is Friday, May 23rd, 2025!
Thanks for reading, come back soon!
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