Solid spot for Korean bar food. The ambiance is chill n laid back. This place is great for a casual night with friends. There's K-pop music vids playing on a big screen. I believe it's open late on the weekends! The tuna and kimchi soup was super tasty and comes out piping hot in a stone bowl (IYKYK). The fire chicken with cheese had tons of flavor (the marinade is awesome), but there were lots of cartilage pieces we had to eat around. Unfortunately, the seafood pancake was kinda mid. The batter wasn't crispy at all. However, the flavor was good and there was a good amount of seafood.

Dancen is one of the best Korean joints in Chicago. Their toekbokki is the best of any place I've ever been. It's a small spot and they give you basic plastic cups and throw out bowls but the food is so good it doesn't matter at all. All their pork and chicken dishes are incredible I would put this as a top 3 Korean restaurant in the Chicagoland area.

Dancen is always a must try Korean restaurant in Chicago. One might be fooled by their exterior but it's very cozy inside. The food and the service is always excellent! The fire chicken with cheese is definitely worth the trip from the downtown and a hit about my friends.

Eclectic crowd of people being served, but the vibes are fun as hell! An orange space filled with K-pop music videos plastered on screens throughout. Beer towers, big portions, bigger rice cakes. That spicy pork skin is everything. And it's rare to find a Korean pancake that has crisp to it and isn't just floppy. We will for sure be back

Small but cozy. We got there around 7:30pm. The place was pretty much full the whole time until we left. Very few tables for seating. We ordered the fire chicken with cheese. I highly recommend the fire chicken. The cheese is not necessary but get it if you like it. I was surprised by how delicious the chicken was. It was marinated just right. Spicy but tasty. I would order a bowl of rice or two to eat with it. It was enough for two people. Most of the menu prices felt a little bit pricey. I would definitely come back to get fire chicken though.

Interesting divy like place but great unique food that is very filling. It's small on the inside with orange walls and playing K Pop. It's a fun different vibe but just know going in it's nothing fancy at all on the inside. Food seems pricey but every dish can feed two and I think is best shared. It's pretty fast service as well. I would go back

Came on a Sunday night with a couple friends, my partner and toddler - as reviews will attest, it's small inside, but not cramped. However, they also don't have any high chairs so we had to just hold our little guy. They had K-pop playing on the TVs and projectors so that helped to distract him, and I myself was distracted when TWICE came on screen. We ordered the rice balls, rice cakes, their famous fire cheese chicken, sweet pork ribs, seafood pancake and strawberry soju. Well, we didn't actually order the balls, but I think we confused our server and ended up with them anyway. That worked out ok though since what we ordered was the perfect amount for us five. Rice balls - well, we didn't actually get balls, we got a bowl of seasoned rice with seaweed and a couple plastic gloves. These were surprisingly flavorful Rice cakes - I was expecting a plate full of ttoekboki (little rice cylinders in a spicy sauce), but what you actually get are a few large pieces of ttoekboki, a couple mandu, an egg, potato noodles, and those rectangular flat fish cakes. Really great for sharing and weren't too spicy for our baby to have some Seafood pancake - Pretty standard, good quality and also good for baby to munch on Fire cheese chicken - I get why this is their signature dish. The fresh grilled flavor really comes through and it had the most spicy kick out of any of our food. The cheese doesn't do much for me but otherwise the star of the night Sweet pork - Also good, and nicely contrasted the spiciness from the chicken. Solid, but I think the chicken and rice cakes stood out more as things you need to try Strawberry soju - I expected one of those small bottles of soju, but our server told us it came in a pitcher meant to be shared. Turns out it's actually a frozen drink mixed with fresh strawberries, and was perfect for both the heat from the food and the heat from the humid summer. If it wasn't a Sunday we could've polished off a couple more of these pitchers Overall a really fun place with great food, just make sure to get your order confirmed. Also their credit card machine seemed to be down the night we came - not sure if this is a perpetual thing like most taxi cabs suffer from, but they accepted Zelle as payment too.

Have been meaning to come check out Dancen for a while! Came by on a Saturday early evening, and the place was fairly busy. We were able to nab the last table before there started to be a wait. By the time we left around 9pm there was a fairly long wait of people outside. Interior is very small and divey, with fun light decor and a very large open kitchen with the grill. The menu has a lot of grill top favorites as well as a long list of stews. They have soju and makgeolli cocktails as well as bottles of soju for sale. Service was pretty hit or miss but they look a bit understaffed with just one waiter/host and a grill chef. We got the budae jigae which came in a huge serving filled with hot dog and spam. The broth was rich and spicy, and served over a burner. Very tasty to share. The fire chicken was a bit of a miss for us but definitely very popular. The chicken wasn't as spicy as we expected and the portion was a bit small for the price. Overall definitely worth a try. Dancen is a pretty low key vibe with good food!