Benjia South Korean Restaurant — Restaurant in Shanghai

I initially wanted to give this place 4 to 5 stars. In Dianping (China's food rating app) it's at 4.9 stars which is why we wanted to try it out. At first everything was okay. The female manager was very friendly and gave us candies and water while waiting. She was the best part of the service there, afterwards everything went downhill.

The food is ... Okay. They charge 5 yuan for the unlimited side dishes, which is odd but not too bad (In the Philippines it's usually just given for free). The pumpkin side dish though was bitter and we can't understand why. The meat cuts were good, with the angus beef being our favorite. A small part of me though was expecting for the meat to be cut exactly the way they look in the pictures.

The service though, except for the manager, was not good. Their idea of good service is that they'll cook the meat for us. And that's where it ends.

1. We ordered two cups of rice. We were already halfway through our meats and they still haven't arrived. We followed up and they brought us one cup of rice. They said the other one is still being prepared. Last I checked, rice is very important and easy to prep in advance if you have 2 large rice cookers.

2. They placed our tofu stew opposite us despite me making space at our side of the table for it. I had to stand up and move it to our side. They did not served us bowls despite there being a soup ladle, which meant it was for sharing. We also checked the table beside us and they got bowls.

3. We were nearly finished with our first batch of orders and we still haven't received our steamed egg. We had to follow up again.

4. Our 3rd batch of meat didn't also arrive until we followed up after 10 minutes or so. I even had to point to the waiter that it was on the serving pass already for a while now.

I was supposed to give them 3 stars but typing all these issues out and the fact that our bill totalled to 500+ CNY ... they need to do better. And if you're used to samgyupsal places in your country like we are, I don't think there's anything special in this restaurant which was why I was tempted to give them only 4 stars in the beginning until all the bad service...

Very nice Korean restaurant chain with several locations in Shanghai. Great BBQ with good services, offers many free appetizers, you can ask refills as many as you like. Strongly...

Excellent Korean food, quite authentic! We enjoyed new style of soju (pomegranade) that we haven't tried earlier in Seoul, it was the first time in Shanghai...