Insadong Korean BBQ Restaurant — Restaurant in Coquitlam

Reading the other reviews here it seems that service at Insadong is either a hit or a miss. Unfortunately for us tonight it was a miss. Arrived at 8PM looking for a table for 2 plus an infant. Stood in the front lobby for several minutes before a server finally walked out. He then went to check what tables were available. Another server then came out and started arguing with him about which table/area to seat us at. All this while we are standing in front of the doorway with the freezing air from outside blowing down our and baby's back... Finally took us to a room in the back that was crammed full of people with one empty table remaining (there was a main seating area with what looked like 30 tables that they refused to seat us at). We were told that this room would be warm for the baby, which I suppose was true. Problem was vents/hood fans were not turned out and the whole room was full of smoke from the bbqs/stonebowls/hotpots. It got so smokey in the room that our eyes felt uncomfortable and our infant started to fuss and whine. We eat a lot of KBBQ in metro Vancouver, the level of smoke here was NOT normal. We couldn't finish our meals in this environment so we got our gamjatang and remaining kalbi packed up. Cashier did not greet me as she took my payment, chatting in Korean with the gentleman next to me was apparently of more importance. I still left a standard tip, but received no thank you, just a receipt shoved in my hand. Mind you, I did not complain or say a word to the staff about the bad service/hoods being off, we just wanted to leave. We didn't want to cause a scene, but it's ridiculous they didn't even think to ask if everything was OK when we decided to box up everything mid-meal. Would that not be a red flag to staff in most restaurants?

As for the food, we paid roughly $90 (before tax/tip) for a gamjatang for two, wang kalbi, and samgyeopsal. Samgyeopsal portion was a bit small but otherwise the food but alright. Not great, just fairly standard. But unfortunately based on the service/environment we will not be back. Lots of great options in Coquitlam, and this is unfortunately not one of them. I left disappointed and wishing I had went to Wang Ga Ma for soup and...

My family and I have eaten here three times (we like to give places chances to change our opinion) and all three instances we had a terrible experience. The food is the focus of any restaurant and I will admit that they have "ok" food as far as taste, freshness, and authenticity goes (we ordered different things every time and had a family sized bbq the second time inviting my parents to the meal).

UNFORTUNATELY the service is HORRENDOUS, actually its beyond horrendous. On all three occasions the staff treated us with an attitude akin to: "How dare you eat at my restaurant... how dare you ask for "pre dishes" before your food comes..." i could go on.

I write this review after the a very bad and last experience at Insadong, they had the audacity to make us wait for 45 minutes for a meal we didn't get- during which we asked for some of the small pre-meal dishes to munch on at the 15, 30, and 40 min marks and were of course assured that they were coming (how hard is it to grab pre-dishes which are largely assorted "preserved" vegetables, the answer is it isn't hard, they are just cheap and snobby).

Moving on, the reason we didn't get our meal was that our waiter apparently forgot our order and they had to come back to our table, after we had waited 45 minutes expecting our food to arrive at any minute, and ask us what we ordered again. At this point we just gave up and walked out, mind you, this wasn't a jam-packed restaurant, they had about half the restaurant seated.

If you took the time to read this review, I applaud you and hope that it was able to deter you from a horrible dining experience.

As a suggestion, I would have you visit some much better locations for Korean food in the ample alternatives of North Road: House of Tofu soup is a fantastic authentic experience. Or the Jong Ga, which has excellent soups and a appetizer seafood pancake that is less doughy and much more delicious than the disgusting doughy monstrosity that comes out of Insadong.

Thanks for reading.

A...

So I've been to this location in K-town on average about once a year, it's near where lots of people I know have recently moved to for some reason. Insadong is like almost a landmark of K-town. The food has always been good, yes I know there are better korean place out there, i've been to Korea and eaten at many other korean places also, but it feels like this is the best self bbq place in K-town. This place is big and has many hidden rooms great for private parties. How good the food is cooked is up to how good you can bbq it yourself. The marinade is great, and the soup stock is good, the rest is really up to how good you can bbq and not burn everything like I tend to do.

After reading other reviews I wasn't expecting much, but honestly I thought the service was amazing, it was like they could almost read our minds. They changed our cooking surface as soon as it turn partially black, and refilled our stuff promptly. With the push of a service button at the table they were there asap (I think every restaurants should have these devices). We had a party of 10 ppl that grew to 16ppl, they let us upgrade our room, they were extremely accommodating even though we were late and stayed over 4 hours even when there was a 2 hour seating limit.

I'm somewhat confused why the service was so good, compared to all the other reviews. Was it because it was a Monday, did they have more staff that day, was my expectation low? ...or.. Maybe people don't realize it's an asian style self serve mentality. The staff looked so busy and exhausted running all around the place. They had a technician onsite to make sure the vents and AC were working while we stayed cool. I’m almost scared to give them an excellent rating for fear people will call me a shill. We had my fiancé birthday and engagement announcement there, and the staff made the event seamless and memorable in a positive way. Thank you...