The SOJU — Restaurant in Reading

EDIT NOV 2023: Visited again. Service has gone down. Food is still good quality, but portions are smaller. New system to place orders is a pain. Downgraded my rating.

We arrived and sat down. After 15 mins of waiting for someone to take our order, a person came and pointed to the QR codes on the table, and asked us to place orders through there. Should've informed us when we were seated at our table. Secondly I had 4G signals but the website was not loading well for me. I told them I was having problems and showed them the spinning 'loading' animation on the website, but the person didn't seem bothered and asked me to keep trying. No alternatives offered. To top it off, a 'service charge' option is offered before we have even placed our order. I don't get that, why would I pay a service charge up front, before I've even been given any service?

Finally once order was placed, they brought our drinks and one of them was the wrong drink. After all that hassle with online ordering, I was not impressed. Waved over a staff member who was close by and asked them to change the drink. They did, and then asked me to press the buzzer on the table if I need service. That really put off my evening.

When bringing food to our table, they brought the correct ones. For one of the orders, they came to our table and asked if we had ordered it. Again, what's the point of the online ordering system if you still need to come to our table to ask us about it?

Overall experience on this visit was very poor, especially the staff service. I don't expect to visit a restaurant to be told what buttons to press and codes to scan for my order, especially when staff don't tell you when they sit you down. It's as if they're doing me a favour my letting me eat there! Restaurants should focus on customer service and food quality, and both appear to have been negatively affected recently at The Soju.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: Food was excellent, service was decent and, atmosphere left a bit to be desired.

There's a button on each table which rings a bell to summon your waiter. We weren't informed about this so it rang accidentally, and someone came to ask if everything is l look. It's a good feature to have but inform the customers first!

Food was very good in general. I'd highly recommend trying out the Korean table BBQ, a novel activity for most. Again, zero instructions given by staff about how to use it etc. This is important and should at least be offered. Summary: place your BBQ meat strips on the hot plate, should be cooked in about 30 servings or so. Remove from hot plate with tongs and enjoy.

Atmosphere could be improved a lot. Dark decor overall. Too many tables for a 'quality' feel. Felt more like they crammed as many tables as possible in there. Tables seem a bit randomly placed e.g we were sat next to the counter which led to the bathroom. We could see everyone walking into and out of there, not something desirable.

Overall I'd recommend for the excellent food, but they need to improve their average service...

Worst dining out experience I’ve had in a while. Service was non-existent. Only one guy working, pointed us to an empty table - no menus handed to us, nothing to guide us and let us know to order from the table. Just pointed and let us make our own way there. Fine, not a big deal. When ordering via the QR code it asked if we wanted to pay 12.5% service charge (or more). We declined, as we didn’t get any initial service/welcome when we entered the restaurant and now we’re ordering from the table via a QR code online. So, it would be fair to say, we received no service as such. There was note to say, they’ve added the service charge as they’ve had “outrageous reviews” recently, and, essentially, it’s fair to pay service charge and them be held accountable if the service turns out to be bad (not those exact words, but something along those lines). Having ate there and experienced it for myself, I’m thinking the “outrageous” reviews might have some truth to them. And, I’m also thinking because we didn’t pay the service charge, they decided to give us crap service (for want of a better word). Two ladies were sat at a table in front of us, the gentleman who was waiting was more than pleasant to them. I also noticed he offered a friendly goodbye to a different group as they left - we did not get that courtesy. While waiting for our food, another table in front of us finished and left. Their dirty plates, cutlery etc. were sat there for a good half hour before the waiter’s colleague from the kitchen came and cleared it. The environment generally felt meh. We were surrounded by refrigerators. Not to mention, the smokiness from the bbqs were causing us to cough. Some ventilation wouldn’t go amiss. Onto our food; basic, bland, not worth it. We had no cutlery on our table except a spoon each (how you’re meant to eat noodles with a spoon, I have no idea). Numerous times I tried to get the waiter’s attention to request some cutlery. It’s almost like we were being purposely ignored. I then took it upon myself to grab them myself (I guess that’s what not paying service charge gets you?) In addition to that, we had ordered table water via the online platform - we did not receive any water. Again, tried to flag the waiter but, in the end, with no success so we ate our meals without a drink. At this point, we were fed up and decided to leave (didn’t finish the food). As mentioned, no acknowledgment when leaving. I don’t usually post reviews unless I’ve had a really great experience or a really bad one. Unfortunately, this one was the latter. I usually associate asian restaurants with tasty food and great hospitality, but this restaurant...

We just left this restaurant today 21/06/19, probably the worst customer service ever. The old guy who is in fact the owner is so money minded. Food was okay but service was awful. We ordered korean assorted bbq - all the meat and it came quick. The waitress put the grill on when we ordered and that was it. First time in that restaurant and we were left by ourself. Asked the waitress whether we should remove the black cover on the grill, she said no, that’s was it. Put the meat on the grill and waited for 25mins to get it warm, even on high. Nobody approached us to ask us about whether you are okay. The manager was watching from the counter as our table was very close to it but he didnt even approached us. We complained and the manager came and found out our grill was faulty. Only one bar was working on the grill which is made up of two halo type heater. He apologised and move us to another table. It was 10.20 by then. We moved to the other table, put the food on the grill and waited for 10 more mins for it to cook and we were starving.

As a good well gesture and without knowing the manager brought a small bowl of rice to our table, which we didn’t order. He mentioned ‘I give you this’ in a abrupt way. We ordered more than 40 pounds worth of food and for him to bring a bowl of white rice at random was nice but rude as well in a way. The waitress should have notice the grill wasn’t working and not 25 minutes later after we had to complain. The manager remained careless and we could see that he just wanted his payment. He doesn’t have any customer service. He even said that we should have informed him that we were not happy before eating, not after. Seriously???? It was already late, we waited for so long and were so hungry. We are not complaining abt the food but mostly the lack of customer service. I have never seen a manager so money minded, stay bless and hope you prosper but no place for egoist and...