Korean BBQ House- Barbican — Restaurant in London

Absolutely not a nice experience.

We (me and the husband!) went on a date night.

Upon arrival we were told we'd have 90 minutes from booking time, to dine. That really made me feel uneasy! And uncomfortable! I don't go to a restaurant to be told to my face, there's a timer on my visit!

So we were seated, and it took 15 minutes TO GET someone's attention to place our order (with the clock ticking, maybe have a hastier service?!).

They brought our starters, and straight away brought our mains! Yes! They were doing this with all customers. That truly takes the biscuit! Scores top marks for poorest attention to detail and service quality! So our table had all our starters, and mains sat there to get cold! I was appalled! Not to mention, it added to my anxiety of feeling so rushed! Felt like a drive through dine in!!! And at this point I became really annoyed inside, but didn't want to ruin my husband's efforts of the plans for me!

Also, ALL food arriving within 5 - 10 minutes... it's a no brainer some of the dishes are pre prepped and reheated! An absolute con!

I decided to eat at my pace!

Food quality was actually poor. Sloppy presentation, and zero attention to detail. Starters were huge portions, which reflected cost price of dishes, compared to price tag!

We ordered the sweet potatoe starter (a very budget starter in terms of cost price). Looked and tasted like cheap street food. Was edible, but not something I'd expect at a restaurant. Slices of potato in a crispy prawn cracker tasting coating.

Toppokki was a very bad tasting dish, with weird tasting bits, and slithers of what tasted like seafood thick skin!

Korean fried chicken was lacking our flavour choice of honey. Could tell from the colour of the chicken, oil needed changing. Greasy and dark.

Mains:

Kalbi with rice. We actually loved this dish in flavour and the tenderness of the beef. Was succulent melt in the mouth type of tender, but meat fat ratio was disgusting! Had chunks of visible fat! Almost 30% fat!

Yaki soba with chicken. A very lacklustre dish! With tiny bits of overcooked chicken!

Service during dining was non existent. Tried to get attention of waitress serving next table. She couldn't have made it anymore obvious she was avoiding eye contact, to not have to add to her workload.

I don't blame her. Judging from the owners disgraceful responses on here, I'm not surprised he has employed cheap overworked young labour!

The best part of my evening was my amazing company.

I would not recommend this place in the slightest. Not worth the money at all! We asked to have service charge removed! Not the type to feel obliged to pay! Happily pay for great service! Not this place!

Considering Korean food is the up and coming popular cuisine, I was eager to try, but am hopeful my less than satisfactory experience here, is not a true reflection of Korean food!

Ps. In response to a possible embarrassing, appalling response from the owner; maybe try a more customer friendly approach. Your attitude on here is shockingly terrible, and also toddler trantrum like! Your food and service are already putting an expiration date ;-) on your business no doubt! Your terrible attitude is accelerating the...

I'd been meaning to try this restaurant for a while, especially with the awkward 'and vegan' suffix in the name. With much excitement I finally got my chance on a Sunday evening around 17:30 as a walk-in.

Luckily it wasn't too busy but I immediately sensed a vibe of inexperience amongst the predominantly youthful staff: from being told to sit at the waiting area for a table then 3 seconds later bring ushered over to sit and dine, to one of the waiting staff stepping on my foot whilst handling a burning hot dish (and not apologising), there's a lot of room for improvement for staff training and an infusion of enthusiasm. Staff are generally functional, performing the bare basics in a somewhat robotic manner.

The restaurant itself has a very clean (almost sterile) feel to it which may suit some but I personally like décor with character and even heritage. Ultimately, the generic ambience suits the restaurant's generic name. Just the background sound of K-Pop playing as you dine gives a slight sense of life and youthfulness.

In regards to the food, the very first menu page lists all the vegan items which is helpful. I wanted to try the vegan KFC drumstick but I was disappointed to learn they'd run out; I ended up ordering the 'gim' (crispy seaweed squares) instead. I reluctantly ate these by hand before realising there's a little wooden box at the table which hides chopsticks and more westernised cutlery - it would've been good for the waiting staff to point this out. More importantly, I felt this setup wasn't very hygienic as it looked like implements weren't being refreshed between sets of customers using the table.

For the main event, I ordered a vegan bibimbap. With a choice of crispy tofu, tempeh and mock chicken, I sided with tempeh and waited about 15 minutes before the dish arrived sizzling in a bowl. As for the food experience, quite honestly I expected a lot more: A good bibimbap is an essential staple in any Korean restaurant - if they can't get that right I fear for the other dishes. The proportion of rice to tempeh was far too high and a chore to get through. But above all it was incredibly dry to the extent that I had to make a special request from the waiting staff for a bottle of gochujang to give both wetness and flavour. A very average bibimbap dish still prevailed and I would recommend avoiding this dish if you visit.

I didn't have to ask for the bill at all once my scrunched up napkin was placed on the plate - one of the very sheepish waiting staff brought the bill over without asking me if I wanted anything else (lucky for them I didn't). I paid with my AmEx and left as swiftly as I could, noting the restaurant was nearly at full capacity by 18:15.

Overall, this was a very average restaurant experience with budget cutbacks surfacing to the fore in food, staff and decor. I also feel the vegan aspect of the name is quite clearly an attempt to virtue signal and exploit SEO - a restaurant with fewer but higher quality vegan dishes available would do much better. A shame really as vegan Korean food can be fantastic, but ultimately there are better representations of this...

We arrived 15 mins early, yet were still seated at a clean booth by one of the friendly servers which we appreciated a lot.

I wanted to order the vegetarian dumplings, but as I have allergies, I asked our server if he could check and let me know. He did so, providing all relevant allergen info and I was able to order the veg dumplings which I did enjoy. They were tasty.

My main was the Vegan Bibimbap which I knew I'd be disappointed by the moment I saw it. How can you charge £12 for a dish which contains raw vegetables with zero seasoning? Also, everything in the bowl tasted the SAME. There was this weird, smoky after taste which I hated and could not understand. Overall, the vegan bibimbap was lazy and unsatisfying. A server walked by and suggested that I use their 'spicy Korean sauce' and mix it all up. I took his advice, but this made no difference whatsoever to the taste of the disappointing dish. Raw onions, raw carrots, mushrooms and lettuce on a bed of rice = £12? Be for real. Couldn't taste any seasoning in sight. Not even SALT.

My partner ordered the Korean Fried Chicken which he thoroughly enjoyed. He preferred the flavour of the chicken with sweet chilli sauce but he did like the honey butter and garlic chicken too. He enjoyed the beef teriyaki too.

The staff here are very helpful and provided accurate info on allergens which I really appreciated. However, as a person who doesn't eat meat, this place is not for me. It's clear that their focus is on the cook of the meat(s) and unfortunately, they miss the mark with easy-to-cook-and-season...