Maru Korean Restaurant — Restaurant in Brisbane City

I’m a tourist from Sydney, and I’ve tried many restaurants in Brisbane—most were excellent, except for this Korean restaurant. This is honestly the worst Korean restaurant I’ve ever been to in my life.

Let’s start with the food. The side dishes were miserably small and clearly not fresh—especially the kimchi, which was completely dry with no juice at all. The banchan also looked unhygienic, and unfortunately, that turned out to be true. I developed acute gastroenteritis later that night after eating here. The beef tartare had an odd mushy texture and tasted like crumbled, stale meat—not fresh at all. The kimchi in the spicy stew was just as dry as the side dish, and the pork had a strong, unpleasant smell, which made it unbearable for anyone sensitive to that kind of odor. The cold noodles were slightly better, but some of the noodles were so hard they seemed undercooked. Overall, every single dish tasted careless, used poor-quality ingredients, and gave me a general feeling of uncleanliness.

Now, the service was even worse. We waited by the entrance for about three minutes, and not a single staff member came to seat us. A female staff member walked out, talking on the phone, saw us clearly, and just ignored us. Other staff saw us too but didn’t bother acknowledging our presence. It was mid-afternoon, and the restaurant wasn’t busy. I eventually had to walk inside and find someone myself—by that point, I was already quite annoyed.

What made me furious was a particular male staff member—skinny with slicked-back hair—who was cold and dismissive. He acted extremely impatient while serving us and even messed up two of our dishes. When we pointed it out, the first thing he asked was whether we had touched the food. Luckily, we hadn’t. He was about to take the dishes back when I told him that one of them was actually what we ordered. He just said, “That’s not your dish,” in the most condescending tone and walked off—no apology, no courtesy. It honestly felt like he looked down on his customers and thought he was above serving them.

I strongly advise against this restaurant. The food and the service both get a zero. It was one of the most disappointing dining experiences I’ve ever had—completely...

I have came to this store for like 20 times. I have lot of pro and con that want to share. First some good points. The sweet chili cheese fried chicken taste wonderful. The chicken cutlet omelette rice taste great as well. These two are very tasty. I do like the spicy pork stew pot. It is great. These are the good things about this restaurant.

There are tons of negative review.The beef large intestine tastes not bad, but the portion is too small. It cost 30 bucks but it is full of shallots. It only deserve a 15 dollars quote from my side. If you ask for 30 dollars then you definitely needs to give for intestine. Being too stingy is not a good thing. Speaking of the large intestine. The other large insteine pot is a disaster. It ask for 50 or 55 dollars but they just bring a garbage to us. Extremely greasy and the portion is small. We all know this is cheap ingredient and it does not require lot of cooking from the chef. I don’t get the sense of asking this high price. The service is bad, there is a person with back hair, he is very cold and always seems arrogant. He is not willing to help us and act very rude. I ask for some side dish and he only gave us very tiny amount of it. He is not patient at all. I always needs to grab water bottle by myself. I have spent more than 1500dollars in this restaurant and you treat us very badly. I am extremely disappointed to this place. I am going to tell everyone I know not to come this restaurant. Even if you spent lot of money here they will still treat you badly. The restroom is dirty. It always runs...

Tastes really authentic! Delicious!

Side dishes: kimchi and konjac noodle mayo salad Refillable, free, and was so good! The kimchi was really damn good. The sauce was rich, thick, and spicy. I wish they sell the kimchi to takeaway! Maybe they do. I forgot to ask.

Super tasty spicy pork dosirak. Lots of side dishes and the portion was HUGE. The photo makes it look small, but its bigger than you think it is. Super filling! The spicy pork was really darn good.

The spicy baby octopus was nice, with lots of sauce, onions, and green onions. Would be great if they have a version of spicy squid instead of octopus. You get to pick a spice level, and the mild level is totally not spicy at all haha. Kids can probably eat it! Comes with perilla leaves, mayonnaise, and tobikko.

The sweet chilli fried chicken was not that nice compared to the spicy pork, which definitely tastes more authentic. The sweet chilli chicken tasted so gentrified. Probably for kids. Would not recommend getting it. The portion was HUGE though. Came with a mountain of fried chicken.

Kimchi soup was great!

Seafood pancakes were huge and delicious with tiny shrimp and octopus pieces, but it could be crispier. A pair of scissors was given to cut the pancakes yourself, which was really fun. Pancake was on the soft side. The sauce given was too little, but dipping it into the spicy octopus sauce tastes better...