Seoul Korean BBQ — Restaurant in Calgary

Do not eat at this place. I do not frequently complain with a passion regarding restaurants but when I do, its fairly reasonable. Below are the reasons why:

They did not have kimchi. Their reaaon is because they make their own kimchi and currently they are short of supply on cabbages. Really? So go and buy some grocery store kimchi then? This speaks volumes on the business principles of the restaurant owners. It's very obvious that Kimchi is a staple on any Korean restaurant. For a bit of a business expense, you would rather not serve any kimchi than just get grocery kimchi for the sake of service quality. This in itself already speaks volumes, and im not wondering why my second reason exists.

Staff are not friendly. They cant even smile and sometimes when we call them, they look away. After we ask them what we need, some female staff of theirs pout and dont even acknowledge your request. A short "ok" is a pretty decent way of communicating with your customers. If you do not like what you are doing, either food service jobs aren't for you, or the owners aren't taking care of you well.

They refused to give us the Calgary Stampede 15% discount. We arrived at 2:05 and the promo was between 2:30 to 4:30. I tried to bargain with them to just give us the discount because they did not give us Kimchi during our stay here, and we would be okay to make up for it. They just blatantly said "no".

This is possibly the worst korean restaurant I have ever went to, $333 for 6 people was basically a scam. My friends were really looking forward to coming back here, but at the restaurant's current state, I would highly suggest for people to stay away from this place. I've been in many other Korean BBQ places and by far this is at the...

To be honest, I was ready to write a bad review. We didn’t have a good start upon arrival, but there were multiple staff members who were good, and the food was good.

We felt kind of ignored upon arrival. There was only two of us. It took a bit to seat us, and they weren’t full, quite a few empty tables. We were seated and our server just walked away. We weren’t sure we wanted to do the all you can eat, but I wanted to ask a couple questions. I was waiting for a server to return to the table. But I noticed the person who sat us not only sat another table beside us, but also explained the all you can eat vs a la carte menu, turned their grill on, took their order, and brought them their food. While we still hadn’t even had our drink order taken. I was almost ready to walk out. Another person checkin on us probably noticing my annoyed look. She kindly answered my question, and I asked for a couple more minute to order.

After our order, the rest of the staff was attentive to changing the grill when needed. They took empty plates away quickly. The rest of the staff was easy to wave down to make additional orders. By end of our meal, our original server finally paying attention to our table.

Food was great. We ended up doing the a la carte option. I can’t eat too much in one sitting so AYCE isn’t usually the best option for me. You get delicious side dishes and rice with your order. Veg come with your meat order. Their portions are hearty. Ordered two a la carte items and we didn’t finish our food. A plus I’ve seen done here that I have yet to see at Korean BBQ where I’m from is they offer lettuce baskets. Make yourself a lettuce wrap instead of eating with rice.

Overall, I’m glad we stayed instead of...

UPDATE 2: Menu has changed a little bit. The Pork Belly is not as thick anymore.

UPDATE: We eat here regularly and enjoy the BBQ. So far, no dish has disappointed us.

My wife wanted to come here because she saw a charcoal option, which is rare or even impossible to find.

We got seated and ordered the charcoal add-on ($5 extra). For meats, we got the LA Kalbi and the Premium Pork Belly. We also added a basket of lettuce ($3). You can't have Korean BBQ meat without lettuce!

For non-BBQ dishes, we got Japchae, Korean Style Deep-Fried Boneless Chicken, Tonkatsu Set Meal, and Kimchi Jjigae.

The charcoal add-on gave the meats some added flavor. We loved both the LA Kalbi and the Premium Pork Belly. They were very good with changing the grill plate regularly.

The Japchae was the best that we have had in Calgary. It was not oily and not overly sweet like we have commonly found. Seoul Korean BBQ delivers a more savory Japchae, and we love it!

My wife loves the Kimchi Jjigae and has since this meal ordered it to-go twice more already. She found the Kimchi Jjigae here is superior to the others in town.

My eldest likes the Korean Style Deep-Fried Boneless Chicken. I ate one and found it lightly crispy with tender juicy meat in the centre.

The Tonkatsu Set Meal was a decent deal. The accompanied peppery gravy is an absolute must for the tonkatsu. In fact, both my eldest and I dunked the fried chicken pieces into the peppery gravy as well.

Overall, every single item we had was a winner tonight. We were happy with our service...