SEOUL SISTA — Restaurant in Amsterdam

I'm really not sure how to rate this.

The quality of the meat was above average. The venue itself is actually pretty nice. The servers and management were reasonably friendly.

However...

It's normal for a Korean BBQ to do what they can to minimize customers being gluttons. The game is for customers to try to be as gluttonous as possible. They used every possible trick to their advantage, which seems awkward when our bill for 2 people ran 100 euros (we had drinks). Would a euro or two of extra meat have bankrupted them?

The seating is limited to 2 hours, which is fine. The orders are gated to no closer than 15 minutes, with 3 dishes per diner. Again fine. But the dishes themselves are very small - we ordered 6x and didn't walk away with the full "meat sweat" experience. The cooktop is also underpowered, and they keep coming by and reducing the power back down to half or less. That means that it takes longer to cook the meat, which means you really have to work those 2 hours to get enough.

The meat was also largely unmarinated (2 bulgogi's not withstanding). The quality of the meat was good - but not good enough to warrant not seasoning it. Or the simple black pepper/salt they were perpetrating.

They also have no sauces other than the dodgy one they start your table with. You can find sauces that come with the mandu, fried shrimp, and fried chicken - but they won't just give them to you.

Weird.

Cheap and weird.

Speaking of which, they have a 1 scoop of ice cream policy. The ice cream is good... but again... cheap and weird for a place that's charging upwards of 30 euro a plate.

The mandu was weak.

The kimchi was excellent, but their banchan game is simply very weak. Only 2 on the table when you arrive and maybe 4 more you can order as one of your 6 dishes.

Drinks - paid for separately - count as one of your 6 dishes. Not cool.

The Bi Bim Bap is actually excellent and can be ordered as a normal dish. The glass noodles were good too, albeit more vegetable heavy than I'd have liked.

They aren't the best place. They aren't the worst place. If they didn't make the customer-unfriendly decisions I noted above to save money this might be a 4* place - maybe even 5* in the context of the weak Amsterdam food scene.

Those choices were distracting though. We probably will not return. We're not mad. Just...

I will NEVER come back to this restaurant!!! On 25th Dec, we had very bad experience at your restaurant. Although the food is delicious, but still allow me fairly conclude what we experienced negatively, which should get your attention to improve your service: The variety of food isn't big enough, other Korean BBQ restaurants have more options on the menu. It is not worth for the money for the limited food choices. I've been to Korean BBQ in London, Utrecht and Rotterdam, they both have wider selection. After several rounds of grilling, we asked the waitor to change the griddle plate because it was dirty. He didn't want to change it for us(all other BBQ restaurants change it for customers regularly), instead he rudely asked us to clean the plate by ourselves and he walked away. We couldn't clean it so we asked another waitress who is willing to help us. This is so rude as the griddle plate should be changed by waitors regularly. The time limit is super strict! We were NOT told at the beginning that the last round of order will be 30mins before your timeslot ends. When we still have 45mins left, the waitress came to us and asked us to order the last round. This is insanely stressful and rude that customers need to place last order when they still have 45mins left. Furthermore, when the times up, the waitors directly ask us to leave, ignoring my friend is still having the last bite of the food. We saw that half of the restaurant is still empty, so they still have space for upcoming customers, even though they need to prepare the table for the next customers, they should still leave some buffer time for preparation, instead of kicking ppl out immediately at 20:01, one minute after timeslot🙄!

I'm here to enjoy the dinner and socialise with my friends, i'm here NOT for food competition. No matter what policy you place in your restaurant, this is the most rude and stressful experience i've ever experienced in Korea BBQ. Other BBQ restaurants also have time limit, but they are never rude like this.

My sincere suggestion to your restaurant: improve your service, put your customers at the first place, you may earn a bit more money by using this short-term strategy to have one more round of customers in the evening, but you will lose customers forever in the...

Came here a while ago to have KBBQ with a friend and we left underwhelmed and actually got sick a few hours after our visit here.

We ordered several meats for the bbq under which bulgogi beef and Ka Kalbi. Besides the bbq we ordered: a spicy stew, side of rice, beef gimbap and another small dish.

We are aware that we cannot compare it to an Original Korean or even Japanese bbq, but our experience was quite below par. The meat was of poor quality and had a "weird" colour to it, which probably should have been our clue to maybe not eat it. The texture of the meat was also very different to any Korean BBQ we have ever had.

The stew wasn't really a stew, it was a watery spicy soup with chaphae in it? There was a lack of flavour and a lack of proper ingredients used.

The seating came with 2 side dishes: Kimchi and pickled spiced cucumber. Both of those side dishes were of average quality and nothing worth mentioning to be honest. Normally there should be a radish side of any kind, yet not at SEOUL SISTA.

The side of rice we ordered was very sticky and not smooth-, soft or nicely steamed at all. It looked and tasted more like cheap style sushi rice than proper steamed rice.

On top of this, this restaurant doesn't have the proper utensils for an original KBBQ and are using crafting scissors to cut meats with..

If we both hadn't gotten sick from our experience here it might have gotten two stars. But for the price you are paying, the quality you are getting and the lack of authenticity, they are getting a one.

Would not...