For the hungry Monash University students that teem around Clayton, the quick solution to their lunch or dinner problems seem to be the McDonald's on either corners of the campus on weekends when on-campus dining is scarce. Yet there are a wealth of a reasonably affordable options to be found on Clayton's main street and town centre which is aptly named Clayton road.

One of the many Korean options available is the Hodori Korean Garden which is situated just off the corner of the intersection between Centre Rd and Clayton Rd. The entrance is quite unassuming with the words "Korea House" emblazoned outside but the restaurant opens up into two floors with the main dining floor located on the top floor. Hodori is clearly a family run cash-only affair with what appears to be the mother cooking away in the kitchen, the son waiting tables and the dad scurrying about managing the accounts.


Unfortunately, the service is fairly apathetic and it seemed we were in a constant tussle to garner the waiter's attention despite the table top buzzers. Nevertheless, we ordered our favourite Korean staples of Beef Bulgogi ($15.50) and rice (sorry we can't recall the price) with the accompanying ban chan of course that we thought would be a good measure of the strength of this Korean outpost.


Worryingly for Hodori, the ban chan was quite under par and whittled in comparison to the offerings elsewhere including Oriental Spoon in the CBD. The Kimchi was under done and lacked the punch and depth of better options while the bulgogi seemed lacking in value and flavours were slightly over sweetened. The other ban chan too seemed to lack any sense of vibrancy and energy leaving the meal to be slightly underwhelming.

Hodori is by no means bad for a suburban outpost but there may be superior options just down the road. We'll have to give them a try.

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