新派淄博烧烤 Xin Pai Zibo BBQ (Order from our website & get Surprise!) — Restaurant in Richmond

Where do I even begin. Let me preface this review by saying that Zibo is actually my birth city so I was very eager to try out this place, especially after seeing all the influencer ads on Instagram. Sadly, I left the restaurant feeling doubly disappointed.

When we walked in we were greeted by the owner’s kids running around, and was seated by the one waiter who worked the entire floor. Entire ambiance of the place had a 'hole in the wall' type of feeling, so I thought that the food and prices would make up for it. Owner's kids in the restaurant? Authentic. So food must be cheap and amazing right? Not really...

After placing the order for skewers on my phone, I was jumpscared by the $7 sauce/powder bar charge at the very END, for a bar that only had 4 powders, 2 sauces in store bought pouches, some lettuce, garlic, and kimchi. I might be missing another 1 or 2 other items but honestly the options were so minimal and the set up was akin to something you could find inside someone's house. I have never seen a $7 sauce/powder bar like this in my life and even bigger establishments like Haidilao charge you less than $5 for their sauce bar which has more assortment, so to say that I was disappointed by that is an understatement.

Their lamb skewers were pretty well cooked and tender, and I did really like those. However, their beef skewers were so undercooked that it took me 2 minutes of trying to chew through it before I just gave up. The waiter was nice enough to take that off our bill since we didn't eat most of the beef skewers we ordered, so that was nice. I understand the beef skewers they serve are usually around 80% cooked, but that was like... medium rare...

Honestly I'm not even someone who bothers to leave reviews for places that often, and never really send food back to the kitchen since I don't want to be rude, but man. I love that they are bringing popularity to Zibo bbq here but my bf and I left the place feeling very disappointed, especially with such a steep price. I am hoping that they are able to improve on overall customer experience...

I had a disappointing experience at this restaurant. This place has 0 service! When I arrived, I wasn’t greeted and had to wait to be seated. After I sat, I noticed the grill was extremely dirty and they did not clean it. When I turned on the grill, there was no heat even when I turned it to the highest temperature! It was likely due to buildup. The food arrived warm, not hot. The platter with the marinated items was just okay. The marinated tofu was decent, but the pepper was bad, and the egg felt like it was just deep-fried to warm it up. Extremely dry, even for a hard-boiled egg. I left unsatisfied and had to go to another restaurant to eat. I don’t want to be too harsh because it’s a family-run business, and the owner was clearly working hard. Cooking, waiting tables, and serving all on his own. It was a one-man show, and though there were only three tables, he struggled to keep up and I don’t blame him since he was wearing many hats. However, the waitress who I assume was his partner/wife did not provide much help. She was more focused on her kid than on assisting customers. I understand she must care for her child, but there could have been more effort to attend to the customers and help the owner. I honestly felt bad for the owner! While I have a soft spot for family businesses, this place didn’t meet expectations. The cleanliness and service were nonexistent, and the atmosphere was unpleasant. The food had good flavor, but the overall experience was lacking I feel like they paid influencers or offered them food on the house for them to leave a 5-star review, so be wary of the high reviews as they may not be genuine. I would rate this restaurant no higher than 3 stars, and I believe the lower reviews reflect the actual experience more accurately. I believe that the reviews with lower ratings are truer as all the things the low reviews mentioned happened to me. The food reviews with pictures are most likely paid/eat...

We were the first table seated for the evening service. The first couple of dishes arrived quickly after ordering, but then... the wait began. We watched our server deliver multiple courses to other tables while we waited for the remainder of our order.

After a considerable amount of time passed, with no updates from our server, we decided to cancel the remaining dishes. This was met with resistance at first, but we emphasized that over 20 minutes had elapsed since our last dish arrived, and we were no longer hungry.

Another frustrating moment occurred when we asked for a water refill. Our server brought a new pitcher, only to return shortly after and take it away for some reason - only never to be given a new pitcher again.

There was also a kid, perhaps the daughter of the owner, or daughter of a staff, who frequently comes to the dining and sits on the benches where other patrons are seated. A staff would then get this little girl back to the kitchen and we watched this ordeal happen 2 or 3 times. I understand it's hard to fild childcare, but whomever child this is shouldn't be allowed to go to dining area where patrons are seated. It just looks unorganized

Not sure when this restaurant opened, but the service is akin to a restaurant on its dry run. Food was so-so. Unfortunately won't be coming...