Daebak Chicken The K Grill — Restaurant in Dacorum

This was a confusing experience for a number of reasons. The staff are very warm and friendly, this is the only reason I'm taking the time to write this, ironically. I'll keep it simple and number the issues.

We were sat at an unclean table despite there being only one other table in use. We cleaned it ourselves with hand sanitizer and tissue.

You simply can't be serving basmati rice in a Korean barbeque restaurant. That is unacceptable. Korean rice isn't terribly expensive and is easy to source. If not that, then go for Viet or Italian grown Japanese rice. There is no replacing short grain rice with long grain rice, and people can tell the difference if they have tried the two. Furthermore, the rice was soggy and a bit stale. It means the timing for when and how much to cook is off. Or, unfortunately, the rice itself is nearing expiry. 100% need to change this.

The beef was entirely unseasoned. A little salt will go a long way. It'll also help tender the meat. One of the three sauces was OK, the ssamjang, but I know that was the only one not prepared in the kitchen. The soy mustard was tasting like something else entirely, almost more like thin barbeque sauce, and usually the queen of the three, the sesame oil with salt, was the worst of the three. That is not pure sesame oil at all, you can tell not only by the flavour but the viscosity. I'm not sure which brand you're using, but it has a consistency closer to vegetable oil mixed with sesame oil. There's no aroma at all.

Please, you've gotta add some barley tea on the menu. And the kimchi was OK, but I couldn't help thinking it was the kimchi you could buy in Sainsbury's? I may be wrong on that one, and that kimchi actually isn't that bad, but there's no fish sauce. It's a little underwhelming. People can handle spice, throw some fish sauce and more gochugaru on there, it'll make it so much better. Or better yet, maybe try working on fermenting in-house? Take pride in the kimchi. That is the real welcome.

There's simply too much batter on the fried chicken. The ratio is way out, you can't have more batter than chicken on your fried chicken. If you're using tempura flour, don't. Try potato starch instead. Or cornstarch. You'll arrive at a more authentic Korean fried chicken. Otherwise, you're just eating oil.

And lastly, and this one is just for you guys to be able to make way more money, you've gotta work on making a great recipe for kimchi jeon on the menu. I guarantee you that will be your money maker. It is so cheap to make, and so incredibly delicious to practically any palate. Rice vinegar, (authentic) toasted sesame oil, soy sauce and crushed garlic as a side dip. Also, gyozas. Margins are made on delicious side dishes, not just alcohol.

I hope you don't take any offence by this, as there was none intended because I really did appreciate how welcoming you all were, and feel the place does have potential if these details were paid attention to. You have the only Korean barbeque place in quite a wide area, it's a great opportunity to introduce more people to genuine Korean food. Thank you for your hospitality, and would certainly visit again in the future if these changes were...

Really wanted to like this place but unfortunately it didn’t live up to expectations.

Food…The fried chicken was nice and crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside.

The beef with rice was a bit of a disaster. £15 for a small amount of very thin beef with rice, sorry but that should have been maybe £8-9 tops.

The Korean spicy pork was ok but really just sliced pork with some gochujang - pork was a bit on the fatty side and quite chewy.

Pineapple juice at £7 a glass was a bit steep - we passed on that.

It would have been nice if some condiments were offered but there weren’t any. Some kimchee perhaps? They could make their own varieties and make it a bit of a specialty.

The venue is a bit cold and didn’t have any character to it. Just felt too big and empty.

Service was friendly but not sure why they couldn’t bring all the dishes at once when that’s what we asked for. One at a time and things getting cold just isn’t a great experience.

Given the canteen style the pricing seems steep - more like what you’d pay for being in London. The service charge was too high at 13% and on top of that the payment machine asks for a tip. I felt that was pretty cheeky to be honest.

I’m not sure how the £75 a head Valentines menu they did recently made any sense.

Soup, ham and melon, fish and shrimp with rice and cake for dessert with water. Hardly “Exquisite” as they put it.

If you wanted anything different it was extra charges - Prosecco another £32 each, Lobster bisque another £5, Wagyu for your main - another £25. We’re talking up to nearly £140 a head here and no doubt 13% service charge and tip! Honestly guys, this is just crazy.

I know nothing about running a restaurant and the obvious overheads and high costs - I’m sure it’s incredibly challenging but honestly I think this needs a lot of work.

Play on being the best, have some specialities, put some shrimp crackers on the table while people wait for their food, make some kimchee - just make it special.

We need more decent restaurants in Hemel. I’m just not convinced this is going to stand up to the...

I have just had the worst restaurant experience ever in this place. I have left 1 star as there is no opportunity to leave zero! 5 adults and two small children went for a meal. The building was cold. They brought out one persons 1/2 a meal and 10 minutes later brought out one more! This continued throughout and whilst we were all waiting for our food with little ones get upset because they were hungry the staff managed to cook and eat for themselves! When I complained that we still hadn’t received any food for the children they said it was because they didn’t usually do kids meals on a Sunday but would make them! They then blamed the waitress who took the order for why the food came out so slowly and when I told them to not bother cooking anymore and we’d leave allowing the last 3 people in the party to go get food elsewhere they brought it out anyway. We were told by a lady who finally came to speak to us that it’s a cultural difference that British people like to all eat their food at the same time!! Pretty sure Korean families like to eat as a family too and not one at a time! It was the worst service I have ever encountered. The food wasn’t particularly nice and we left £113 poorer with three people still hungry and having to stop to buy food on the way home. The attitude and rubbish that came out of the woman’s mouth in her reasoning for such terrible service was...