Ssam Kitchen

We arrived about 7:50pm on a Sunday night. The place was nearly full. It closes at 9pm and emptied out near that time. Looked like a lot of regulars. Loud music. Lots of tv screens. Service right away. Dark flattering lighting.Heidi took good care of us. We ordered tacos Al pastor, fried cod tacos, birrias, tacos gal-bee, carnitas, pork belly tacos.Everything was good but some were amazing: 1. Both our favorite- the BurriaTacos. Wow. Still thinking about them!2. My Second favorite- the Gal-bee. My friend's 2nd favorite were the carnitas. 3. Third for both of us were the sopas with carnitas. Highly recommend for casual night out of delicious fusion food.

Located in the same location as the original Taco Ssam, Ssam Kitchen specializes in chicken sandwiches, saltenas, tamales and Korean fried or steamed dumplings.Chicken for the sandwich was marinated in buttermilk and was juicy flavorful and perfectly cooked. The bread was rather pedestrian, would like to see a better quality roll.While I really liked the sandwich, I just could not justify going there just for the sandwich and while the other options looked interesting, I think I will stick to Taco Ssam and Chick-fil-A when I am in the mood for a chicken sandwich.

This is a gem in the wall right off of Leesburg pike. They serve a variety of Latin American specialties and as authentic as I've had for the area. They were out of most dishes by the time we got there so we just quickly grabbed some reasonably priced sopas which were as mouthwateringly delicious as they were artful. Ssam kitchen as well as the new Korean Mexican fusion neighbor Taco Ssam are going to make a real name for themselves!

1. Really small joint, no tables, maybe four chairs at the counter. Definitely a take out/to go place.2. Takes forever. Expect to spend at least 15 minutes during non-busy hours. Gosh knows how long it would take during lunch or dinner rush hour.3. We got the fried chicken sandwich with spicy sauce. We expected the chicken to be crispy but it was really soggy! Turns out they drench the chicken when it comes out of the fryer in whatever sauce you get. Not ideal. They should just drizzle/spread the sauce on the sandwich to keep the crispiness of the chicken. Besides this, the flavors were good and the chicken was moist.4. French fries were soggy too. Good thing I love soggy fries but a lot of people prefer them normal (crispy). Overall, decent place but I won't be coming back because it didn't leave me wanting more.

This place is brand new and has a couple kinks to work out, but is still really good! It's located in a pretty busy plaza, right next to the original Taco Ssam location. The low point of this place is the size. The restaurant is TINY, literally a skinny bar with 6 bar stools located right next to the register. Also, there is absolutely no room to wait (as it's a single hallway that runs straight to the back). It was a little awkward to sit right next to people I don't know while eating at the bar. But once you get over the lack of space, this place is pretty good. The kitchen is located right in front of the bar stools, so you can see them make all of your food right in front of you!I ordered the buttermilk chicken sandwich, which this place is known for. I thought it was super cool that you could get 3 different "flavors" for the sandwich. I decided to get the Korean twist and get the spicy/sweet (gochujang) flavor. The food did take a long time to come out. I was waiting for almost 20 minutes, but I attribute this to being new. The owner saw how long I was waiting and compensated me with a free mini Shepard's Pie, which was nice and flaky. Once I got my food, I was pretty impressed! The buttermilk chicken was perfectly fried! It was crispy and juicy at the same time and paired perfectly with the gochujang. All of the sandwich elements fit perfectly. Paired with the fries, I had tons of food and was full for hours. There was also some cool sauces available that had combined elements of Mexican and Korean culture. Overall, I think that this place was a great fusion of three different cultures into one dish!o

Food was honestly just "okay". Did not wow me. There's no place to eat really. A very small place with a pop up bar table with about 6 seats.

Didn't like their food, their buttermilk chicken was too salty and the empanadas weren't that good either.Not coming back

Saltenas here are bomb. If you love Taco Ssam you'll love this place. There's an eclectic mix of food here, from mandu to fried chicken. Definitely pick up a chicken saltena while you're here. Ssam never does wrong.

Really small place. They have a good variety of food choices. I got tamales and my boyfriend got the buttermilk crispy chicken. I thought getting tamales were safe to get (as in nothing could go wrong with it since I've had it before) but the ones I got were very soggy and it made it hard to eat. It was wrapped with 2 huge leafs. Got very messy. I was disappointed because I was excited, since I haven't had it in while. My boyfriends meal looked good he said he didn't like it much though. The fries were very good !! I also got the corn tamal which was my favorite out of everything we ordered. The cashier was very nice and polite.

According to the past reviews this was supposed to be a Korean Mexican fusion restaurant. This does not seem to be the case anymore. The menu is completely different and doesn't even say "Ssam" on it anymore. The only reason we went ahead and ordered was that "Ssam" is still written on the door, and the Ssam Tacos next door is amazing. Unfortunately this proved to be a grave mistake. First, their credit card machine was broken and we had to pay cash. The food we ordered did not taste very fresh and the galbi (what seemed like the last vestige of the "Korean fusion" part) had just one flavor: salty. We ended up throwing most of it away :(Not sure what happened to Ssam kitchen, but this definitely isn't it anymore.