The food alone is worth five stars, but there were a few detractors in our experience that made me knock off a star. Let's review.\n\nThe space itself is really nice, although small, with gorgeous wallpaper, red lacquered tables and little stone 'pillows' for your spoons and chopsticks. It's that sort of attention to detail that I appreciate. The service was good as well, the servers were all kind and courteous. The menu is fairly extensive, with something for everyone's tastes, and a good number of traditional Korean dishes and loads of seafood. Nom.\n\nWe ordered the pork and squid bulgogi and hot pot with tofu and clams. The flavors were incredible, especially the bulgogi - tender pork, even more tender squid, cooked to spicy perfection. We cleaned that place instantaneously. The hot pot was quite good as well, although there was an abundance of onions and only five lonely clams in the whole bowl. They were so good, I wanted more of them! This is part of the reason why Shilla falls short of a five-star experience. The other reason was the banchan - I'm likely spoiled, but I'm used to plentiful, bottomless banchan and at Shilla we only received four dishes (and kimchi wasn't even included! sacrilege!) and once they were empty, they were gone. \n\nAfter we were done eating and our dishes were cleared and we mentioned that we were all finished now, thank you very much, we were made to wait for a good ten-fifteen minutes while the servers cleared tables and sat new arrivals. We finally had to ask for the check specifically. Am I missing something, or is it customary to marinate once one is finished with one's meal and sitting at an empty table?\n\nI think once my expectations have been lowered a bit, I could definitely enjoy Shilla for the great Korean food and amazing flavors - but don't expect plentiful portions or an abundance of banchan.
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