Mrs Kim's Grill — Restaurant in Melbourne

Used to be my favourite local Korean BBQ restaurant, no longer is since tonight.

Walked in wanted a table for 2, were advised that the wait was 20 mins, we were happy to wait and since the wait was a little bit long, we left to buy some milk tea in the mean time. After 5 mins i got a text saying my table was ready so i rushed back, left my boyfriend waiting to pick up my tea since we’d already ordered it. I sat down first then started ordering then my boyfriend came in after, first thing the Korean manager/owner said to my boyfriend was not a greeting but “You’re not allowed to bring outside drink in here”. We were quite unhappy with the attitude since we were loyal customers here, we knew the deal and it would not hurt anyone to deliver their message in a nicer way.

Once my boyfriend sat down another Asian male staff with pushed back hair ran to our table and told us we were not allowed to bring outside food in with a serious face. At that point i was fuming. We didn’t bring the drink in on purpose, it was meant to be a quick resolution during waiting time of which they decided to cut short. We were not criminals, we were customers, the drink was still sealed and we didn’t even attempt to drink it but putting it nicely on the corner of our table. My boyfriend calmed me down, told me probably they were tired so they might’ve delivered the message the wrong way.

We started ordering, there was some issue with our order that they wouldn’t do for us even though they had done that for us a million times in the past, they said things’d changed, okay we accepted that. Started getting served by the attitude boy, no smile no interaction no changing grill plate for us. The fire they put on for us was too high so meat got burnt quickly and my boyfriend attempted to lower it but it got turned off accidentally, we asked the staff to help us lit it back on and the attitude rolled over again. During our meal we would have occasional checks, some sided eye looks from the staff i was not sure why, maybe to make sure that we were not drinking our bubble tea so they wouldn’t have to call police upon us 🤷‍♀️

There are hundreds of Korean BBQ restaurants out there that have nice food, nice location and good price. The only reason i come to this place often is because i want to support local businesses and i enjoy the customer service i used to have here. After today I won’t come back, probably you won’t care since you’re busy still with or without an upset customer anyway but words of advice, be better human beings and treat your customers with respect as...

Disappointing experience. Save your money and go to any other Korean BBQ restaurant. I recommend either Bornga (China town) or Yeonga (Cobden street, near Vic market). Portion sizes were small and meat was average and not fresh. Gas stove. Got dirty quickly and waitstaff didn’t replace it like they do in other kbbq restaurants. Also no ?daikkon provided, so we couldn’t clean the grill ourselves. The only complimentary sides you get are a tiny serving of kimchi and radish, and spring onion salad. At every other kbbq restaurant in Melbourne you’ll get these sides in addition to rice, lettuce, a small selection of vegetables for the grill, a soup of your choice and an egg soufflé (at minimum). Mrs Kim’s grill provided less than the bare minimum. Although the waitress was polite, she stood in the corner of the room the entire time. Typically waitstaff at kbbq restaurants will start the cooking for you, and check back in now and then. So I was disappointed this didn’t happen.

I went with my two sisters and apologised a couple of times to my sister who had never been to kbbq before. I felt embarrassed at how bad Mrs Kim’s grill was. I genuinely don’t know why the restaurant has such high reviews because it’s simply the worst KBBQ I’ve ever been to. If you’re in Carnegie and thinking about getting kbbq - don’t. Go to any other restaurant instead. If you want good kbbq and willing to travel a bit, head into the city - plenty of better quality and value for money...

I made a booking of more than 10 pax all you can eat for my husband birthday and was very looking forward to dine in there as I really like the quality of their meat especially wagyu. Service was attentive and good too.

But what disappointed us and made the whole dining experience sooo horrible was the ventilation (we’re seated upstairs). The whole place just full of smoke despite of turning on all the exhaust fans (which is really an old school type).

One of our friends got very bad headache from inhaling too much bbq smoke and eventually just left halfway through the dinner. The rest of us also felt suffocated and stopped one of the bbq grill before the end of the dining session. So we actually did not get very full altho it’s AYCE. None of us had experienced this kinda “suffocated” kbbq before.

Advice to you all is that you can still go for the quality meat but please don’t sit upstairs. And the owner should really invest in a better...