Beauty World Korean Food: Reviews, Menus & Dining Tips

Anyone who has followed the smell of grilled pork up the escalators at Beauty World Centre knows this corner of Bukit Timah punches above its weight for Korean food. Pink Candy, the fourth-floor regular, runs a menu of more than 40 items, from kimbap to sweet-spicy fried chicken, according to Eatbook’s guide to the food centre.

Korean eateries nearby: 3+ (HungryGoWhere (Singapore food guide)) · Price range: S$10–25 (Eatbook (Singapore food guide)) · Location: 144 Upper Bukit Timah Road · Nearest MRT: Beauty World · Open: Daily; stall hours vary

Three-plus Korean kitchens, one pattern: the shortest queues are not at the fanciest addresses, and the price spread between a hawker counter and a sit-down room is smaller than most people expect.

Beauty World Korean Food Review

The Korean options in this neighbourhood fall into two groups: the compact food-centre kitchens on Beauty World Centre’s upper floors, and the sit-down restaurants in the malls around the station. The review signal from both groups points the same direction — the food is the reason people come, not the room.

What do customers say about Pink Candy?

• TripAdvisor reviewers consistently name the chicken wings, army stew, seafood pancakes and pork belly as the dishes that work, and note that the kitchen also serves less common plates such as blood rice sausage; one review calls the bibimbap ordinary (Tripadvisor (travel review platform)).
• The family-run setup, with homemade kimchi, helps explain the regulars who come back weekly — the same people who order by dish name, not by photo.

The pattern in the reviews: almost every standout dish is fried, braised or grilled, while the occasional misfire is a rice bowl. Order from the stew-and-pancake end of the menu and you are eating with the consensus.

The trade-off is real: Pink Candy closes between lunch and dinner, and the fourth-floor corridor is not a dining room. It is a meal stop, not a date-night venue.

How does Joo Mak compare?

• Joo Mak Korean Restaurant, inside Beauty World Centre, covers the gap Pink Candy leaves open: Korean BBQ at the table, plus classics like jjajangmyeon and seafood pancake.
• It is listed on TripAdvisor alongside the neighbourhood’s other Korean options, with reviewers calling out the side dishes and the room.

The comparison comes down to intent. A solo lunch or a quick catch-up over stew? Pink Candy. A slow dinner where the grill does the talking? Joo Mak. The deciding factor is usually who else is in your group.

The reviews consistently point to stews and fried dishes as the strongest offerings across these Korean kitchens.

Beauty World Korean Food Menu

Beauty World’s Korean menu story is not a one-restaurant story. The useful way to read it is by dish type: stews, noodles, rice bowls and fried plates, spread across three kitchens.

What dishes are popular at Pink Candy?

• Eatbook’s price guide lists Pink Candy’s kimbap at S$8.50, black-bean noodles at S$12.90, bibimbap at S$12.90, spicy rice cake at S$12.90, kimchi pancake at S$21.90 and sweet-spicy fried chicken at S$36 (Eatbook (Singapore food guide)).
• HungryGoWhere adds the apple kimchi at S$8 for 500g and the army stew at S$22.90 (HungryGoWhere (Singapore food guide)).
• One Lemon8 post lists the beef cold noodle soup at S$12.90 and dried seaweed rolls at S$7.90 — treat a single post as a data point, not as an official menu (Lemon8 (diner post)).

Read the board as a group strategy: one kimbap, one stew, and fried chicken when there are four of you. The army stew line is the menu’s heavyweight — the gap between the basic version and the pork-loaded one tells you that portion size is a spectrum here.

Does Myung Ga II offer set meals?

• Myung Ga II, across the road in Bukit Timah Plaza, is the budget sit-down, known for giant Korean-style tonkatsu and set lunches around S$10–15.
• SethLui’s roundup of affordable Korean meals flags it as a place often filled with students and Korean diners — a useful signal for a quick, authentic lunch.

Where Myung Ga II wins is efficiency: the set lunch is faster than a BBQ session and cheaper than a full stew spread. Where it loses is atmosphere — this is a quick-service dining room, not a slow-dinner room.

The implication for menu planning: share. A solo diner gets a kimbap and a soup; a table of four gets variety without ordering the whole board.

Sharing plates across the table is the approach that delivers the most variety and value for groups.

Is Beauty World Food Centre Closed?

If you have seen conflicting posts online, here is the short version: Beauty World Food Centre is open. The confusion comes from stall-level closures and the split-level layout, not from a building-wide shutdown.

What are the operating hours?

• The centre operates daily; individual stalls set their own hours, and Korean counters typically cover a lunch window and a dinner window.
• Pink Candy runs 11am–2:30pm and 5–9pm, closing for Tuesday lunch — so a mid-afternoon visit will find the shutters down on the fourth floor.

Are there any renovation closures?

• As of the latest food guides, no major renovation closure has been announced for 2024–2025.
• The real operational risk is smaller: a stall running out of ingredients by mid-evening, or a kitchen taking an unplanned break day. Check the stalls’ social accounts if you’re making a special trip.

What this means for planning: the building will be standing, but the food may not be. Treat the operating hours as a starting point, and the queue — or its absence — as the live update.

Beauty World Food Centre Directory

Beauty World Centre pairs a hawker-style food centre with retail floors, which makes it easy to miss the Korean counters if you walk past the wrong escalator.

What are the main food stalls?

• The food centre spans multiple levels with more than 30 stalls, covering Malay, Chinese, Indian and Korean hawker food; the official directory is posted at the centre’s entrance.
• Eatbook’s guide walks through the centre level by level and is the closest thing to an updated stall list you will find online.

The directory pattern points to one habit worth copying: locals treat the Korean counters as a fourth-floor destination, not an impulse stop. You plan the trip, then you eat.

Where is the Korean section?

• There is no formal “Korean floor” — Pink Candy operates from #04-60 on the fourth floor, and Myung Ga III from #04-04 on the same level.
• Joo Mak operates as a restaurant unit within the centre’s shopping floors, so it appears on the building directory under retail tenants rather than hawker stalls.

The practical takeaway: once you are on the fourth floor, the Korean options are within sight of each other. The rest of the centre is worth a walk, but the Korean meal is an upstairs affair.

Beauty World Restaurant

Beyond the food centre, the Beauty World dining scene has enough Korean sit-down options to justify a meal that does not involve balancing a tray.

Which restaurants are in Beauty World Centre?

• Joo Mak Korean Restaurant is the main sit-down Korean address inside the centre, with Korean BBQ and a menu that includes jjajangmyeon and seafood pancake.
• The same building puts a Korean food-centre counter (Pink Candy) and a second Myung Ga branch (Myung Ga III) within a single escalator ride.

Are there other dining options besides the food centre?

• Myung Ga II sits in Bukit Timah Plaza, directly across from the MRT station, and covers the tonkatsu-and-set-lunch end of the market.
• Myung Ga III specialises in traditional Korean dishes rather than BBQ; the kitchen’s strength, documented by the food blog Spring Tomorrow, is authenticity and volume (Spring Tomorrow (food blog)).

Choose by appetite: Joo Mak for the grill and the banchan spread, Myung Ga III for volume, Myung Ga II for a cheap set lunch that still tastes like a proper Korean meal.

Four Korean kitchens within a short walk of the station, but the differences are not where you’d expect: the hawker counter out-menus the restaurants, and the biggest portions come from the most unassuming room.

The trade-off is the real takeaway: Pink Candy gives you the widest menu for the smallest bill, Joo Mak sells the experience, and the Myung Ga twins compete on portion size. Pick your constraint — price, experience or volume — before you pick your table.

A few voices sum up the neighbourhood’s appeal — reviewers, a food blog, and the restaurant’s own bio.

“Quite authentic Korean cuisine with BBQ pork and beef, grill Mackerel fish, Jia Jang noodle, seafood pancake and steam egg. Side dishes are good, ambience and …”

TripAdvisor reviewer, on the Beauty World Korean dining scene (Tripadvisor (travel review platform))

“Highly authentic” flavours and portion sizes that make “a meal ordered for two sufficient for approximately four people.”

Spring Tomorrow, food blog, on Myung Ga III (Spring Tomorrow (food blog))

“Authentic Korean food with alfresco dining.”

Pink Candy’s Instagram bio

The practical verdict on Beauty World Korean food is that this is a neighbourhood built for regulars, not for once-in-a-blue-moon pilgrimages: the food centre keeps its best Korean cooking on an upper floor, the sit-down restaurants hide in plain sight, and the menus reward anyone who orders with a group in mind. For the first-time visitor stepping off the MRT at Beauty World, the choice is clear: queue at Pink Candy for the widest menu, or walk across to Bukit Timah Plaza for the fastest set lunch.

Frequently asked questions

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