Faro Korean BBQ CBD branch — Restaurant in Waitematā

A very disappoitning experience for my short one week stay in Auckland.

We went to the restaurant with a family of 7 (including 1 small kid). We've ordered a fixed "table" set for $20 (it contains a few small dishes of traditional Korean side dishes that are normally free for most other Korean restaurants), a few various kind of korean bbq meat, a couple of the hotpots and a few other main dishes to share. 5 minutes after we finished ordering, one of the waitress came back and said we needed to order 2 "sets" of "table set" because we have 7 people and hence it's considered as "2 tables" (the menu clearly stated a fixed $20 for a "table set" and hence you would have thought it would cost the same even if you are just going there by yourself). We've then advised them that it's fine to have 1 table set only as a few of the people in the group do not like those side dishes. Then they advised they are normally free refills but because we ordered 1 set, we are not entitled for free refills of the side dishes. We've told them that's fine because the few of us only wanted to have a tasting of the side dishes only. After that, the waitress then advised that we are only allowed to use "1 grill" for the korean bbq beacuse of the 1 "table set' we ordered. (I thought the grill is more associated to the meat we ordered rather than the "table set" of side dishes. We've advised them that we are here for korean bbq and half of the fun of the meal is to cook your own meat on the grill, it is overly disappointing if we were only to have 1 grill for 7 people to share. But they insisted we are only allowed to have 1 grill. It is a major disppointment with a lot of unwritten rules in this restaurant and that we have to "obey" every one of their rules when we were the customers. We've decided to walk off from the restaurant.

A major disappointment from an otherwise well...

Worst Korean restaurant I've ever been to. Went there with my friend last night, had the "Ara Set" and it was OK at best. The menu is designed to trick you. It says $55 per person and it lists out all the things you get as part of this menu set. If it shows it comes with 6 side dishes at $55 per person. Logically, if 2 people get the Ara set, you'd expect to have a total of 12 side dishes right? NO! What we actually got is a single portion that is shared by 2 people, BUT we had to pay $55 per person and so a total of $110! It's basically a scam at this point. It literally says "minimum of 2 portions" on the menu, and yet the portion is for one person.

As part of the Ara set, you get one soup that can be ordered on its own and it's $21 on the menu. There's barely any stuff in the soup to fill you up. Normally, any other Korean restaurant will have a variety of nice side dishes and your soup will have plenty of fillings in there, but not in this restaurant. Both my friend and I ended up going to McDonalds after to get some more food because we were still hungry. This is the worst $110 I've ever spent.

To clarify, I have no problem spending $100+ on a meal. But the value you're getting from this is just absolutely terrible. You can get exactly the same thing with much better quality and service elsewhere and you won't feel like you're getting scammed either.

Also, the service is terrible. People just stand there and not help out. There was even a big group of people constantly looking up to get the waitresses' attention. And when we asked about certain things on the menu, they had no clue and had to go and ask the chef.

Do NOT come here, it's not worth it. If you want a decent Korean meal, go to Nol Bu Ne or BannSang, they're literally in walking distance just around the corner, way cheaper and way better meals...

Me and my friend ordered pork belly and marinated beef, and then the waitress put the pork on the grill and cooked for us as usual. After we finished the pork belly, she put marinated beef on the grill and walked away. And we just kept having a conversation and something smells burnt and found out that the marinated beef was burnt like a stone. We asked the waitress like " I thought you guys would grill for us" and she was like "you need to cook yourself, it is not part of our work". We were thinking like "if it is not their job to cook the meat for us, then they should not put the meat on the grill in the first place and cooked the pork for us so we know we need to cook ourselves". And we asked if we can get new one and she said she will ask and never asked. and my friend just told me he is not coming back. We come here cos people cook for us ---it is the only reason we choose this place instead of other BBQ restaurant. Now we lost that only...