Korean food has become quite popular in Columbus — it’s even featured in chain eateries — but scanning a large menu of Korean dishes can still be intimidating for people who didn’t grow up eating the cuisine. Enter Manna Korean Restaurant.
Because it focuses on well-executed, crowd-pleasing classics — and shows them in menu photos — Manna is a great place to explore Korean food. It’ll hook veterans of the cuisine looking for good values, too.
(Bonus: You can shop till you bop after dining at Manna.)
“Bop” — aka “bap” and “bob” — pops up frequently on Korean menus because the word means “cooked rice.” Manna (like Momo Ghar and Ranchero Kitchen before it) is another strong-performing eatery launched inside the global-ingredient wonderland of Saraga International Grocery on Morse Road.
After eating at Manna, then you can shop for the bop and other ingredients in the dishes you just ate mere feet away— then intensify your education by trying to replicate the dishes at home. Or you can just keep “studying” at Manna.
Manna Korean Restaurant: Classic dishes, generous portions, affordable prices
Occupying a niche on the right-hand side of Saraga’s entrance with about a half-dozen simple, well-spaced tables and a blond wooden counter with about a half-dozen stools, Manna is small but not cramped. While hardly fancy, Manna offers friendly service, and its largely wood-paneled space includes endearingly homey touches: numerous plants, swaths of red paint, strings of multi-colored lights and (head-scratcher alert!) Norman Rockwell-style decorative plates on sale for $3 to $5.
