Stefanie D.
Yelp
We went for an early dinner on Friday night- night 2 of this establishment being open. I will preface this by saying we absolutely plan on returning and the only reason I didn't give 5 stars was service which could absolutely be fixed once this place gets its feet under it.
Food: We got the regular AYCE for $31 per person. I think this is a great deal- they have a huge selection of porks, beef, chicken and seafood. We received 4 or 5 little banchan dishes and rice, as well as a dipping trio. For appetizers we got the cheese tonkatsu, japchae and dumplings. The cheese tonkatsu was extremely disappointing- there was next to no cheese in it. The dumplings were standard, and the japchae also disappointing. The noodles tasted overcooked and there was ZERO flavor. Also the timing of the apps was odd- we ordered them first and they came out way after our first meat round. They allow you to order up to 4 meats a round- we did 4, 4 and then three. We had everything from the steak, to a few kinds of pork belly, bulgogi, the Korean fried chicken, short ribs and more. All of the meat WAS DELICIOUS. Fresh, flavorful, and I loved how they served it with enhancements- like fresh rosemary to cook with the steak or onions to go with the bulgogi. Plus, the presentation was very nice and neat which shows attention to detail. The short ribs, Hawaiian bacon, and all the pork bellies were my fave. My boyfriend really liked the bulgogi. The meat is the star, and they knocked it out of the park. They also refilled rice for us. They have an extensive menu of sauces you can order from to get extra dippings flavors and more banchan or veggies, such as radish paper (my fave)! We were overall so happy with the food and full!
Drinks: They have a pretty standard BBQ menu- soju bottles, mixed soju carafes with different flavors, wine, beer and cocktails. We did a mango soju carafe for $18, it was big, but it looked and tasted exactly like Mountain Dew and I didn't like it at all nor could I taste the soju. I'll stick to straight bottles.
Service: Here is where it got a little less than great. We were also sat directly in front of the kitchen- literally the booth is 8 feet from the food window, so we saw and heard a lot more. First, putting people that close to the food window is dangerous. I heard aggressive yelling and fighting from the wait and kitchen staff. People were constantly running by with hot grills yelling hot grill (which is safety, but hard to hold a convo). It was so LOUD over there bc there are so many people running food, kitchen staff yelling, etc that it was so hard to talk to my boyfriend. It was also hard to get up because it was such a high traffic area. Really disliked sitting there. Second, we could see and hear the kitchen was out of control- and this was at 5:30 I can't even imagine which it's like at 7:30 in dinner rush. Our apps came out all over the place and some took FOREVER. Meats didn't come out together either, which is okay, but we would be totally done with the first two and still be waiting for the other two from the same round. It was all staggered so weird and we had a lot of sitting around. Then, the bar. We ordered our soju before our first meats and it took 30 mins for a single carafe (I timed it- and were done with our second round by the time it came out). The waiter did nothing to see us in the loop, finally I had to ask bc we were almost done and he just said " we are busy sorry". Not a great way to handle it. We ended up keeping the table longer after we paid because we still had half a carafe left since it came so late. In general, our waiter was next to non existent. They have a lot of people running stuff so most of the time we could get the random side orders we needed or meat but there were some long periods where we had no meat ordered and were just sitting there because our waiter was not checking on us. The asian girl who was changing grills was amazing though- she was on top of it! And again, we could hear all the staff and they were.....freaking out and not nice to each other.
Again, the menu choices and quality of meat for this price point are perfect and I will def be back- I just hope service finds its groove and we don't have to sit almost in the kitchen again.