K - Town Korean BBQ House — Restaurant in Sydney

Summary: if you are thinking to have food delivered from K-Town, don't. If you plan to have a dine-in experience, looks like folks generally loved it and suggest you ignore my review of the delivery experience.

We had K-Town delivered via Uber Eats. We can tell that the delivery was not at fault because we can check that the last mile did not make any other stops and was reasonably fast. Now that that there is some context -

Portions: Really small. We ordered 2x half fried chicken. Compared to what other shops near the area offer, you can tell that it is possibly a quarter chicken plus a few more pieces. You would think the batter would help make the presentation look like the portion is bigger but it did not. It was really ₛₘₐₗₗ. I wish I had taken some photos. The pickle side dish? Five small diced pickles - we all know that Zoolander meme.

Texture: On the rubbery side. It appears either the chicken was overcooked or pre-cooked (and sitting for a long time) with flavoring only added when order was received. The flavoring cannot be blamed as we ordered both the snowy and sauced variety - both had meat that were equally rubbery as if not freshly cooked. Which leads me to -

Temperature: As mentioned, the delivery was reasonably fast. With the season changing to spring, it was not terribly cold either when we ordered. Our food was.

Flavor: This the redeeming factor which adds the second star on top of the one-star which I would have given: spicy was really spicy. But the snowy seasoning was more of snow balls - the powder has amalgamated; possibly humidity, possibly just the type of powder but I have not seen that in snowy Korean fried chicken before.

We thought of trying K-Town via delivery for a change and it was not great. Dine-in may be a different experience altogether but we are rarely...

“Pedestrian but open,” was how my dining companion described K-Town Korean BBQ House Neutral Bay. We were dining in that difficult period between the last week of December and the first week of January where many restaurants take a break to rest their staff. Despite the “kimchi days, soju nights” neon, during daylight hours the restaurant is pretty empty. The high plywood booths and dark bricks illuminated with a red glow give it a cave-like feel that probably lends itself better to nights.

By day the barbecue grills look like they’ve seen better days, so we opt for Korean street food in the form of spicy cheese tteokbokki ($19). The chewy rice cakes in a gentle red sauce with melted cheese summon childhood memories of canned spaghetti. A half serve of extra hot boneless Korean fried chicken ($28) smacks you in the face with sweetness that sits over serious creeping heat. It grew on me over the course of the meal punctuated by deep dives into a glass of on-tap Cass ($13) to put out the fire.

The dish I enjoyed the most was a simple stir fry of spicy pork bulgogi, tofu and kimchi ($26). The gochujang-marinated pork was tasty and enjoyable against the cool white slabs of tofu. Service was by buzzer demand, which felt slow to me, but may have been a public holiday cost...

This was the first time we came to this Restaurant, we love Korean bbq , food & prices are acceptable. Unfortunately, we experienced bad service there . First, when we made reservation( in person ) we were never told they have 1.5 hour dining policy . Second, we were agreed to reserve a center table upstairs. When we arrived to the restaurant on time as booked . The table were supposed to reserved for us was not available. We suddenly were told table were first come first sitting! It’s still ok for us ,because we were really looking forward to the food . Our reservation was at 6:30pm , we were right on time . However, by 7:40 pm they sent us a bill and said their next customer were already here , they wanted us to leave . I asked the manager , does the restaurant has time limit policy for dining, she said yes, is 1.5 hours dining time !!! But still why asked us to leave only 1 hour & 10 mins already!!! Obviously, there were busy on a Sunday evening!!! When we questioned the manager, she ( seemed )to apologize but did not bother even try to explain it might have been a mistake or something!!! Never mind whether the food is good or not , as far as I am concerned, running a business, honestly is the key . We will not recommend to any of our friends to go...