K-Pub Korean Cuisine & Karaoke — Restaurant in Austin

This was honestly one of the strangest meals at a restaurant that I’ve ever had.

Upon entering, we sat at the bar. We were quickly greeted and our drink orders were taken. On the drink menu, it is noted which “cocktails” are considered a shot, with “shot” in parenthesis. After ordering a drink which was not labeled as a shot, we were brought about 1/2 of a shot. Not a huge deal. We then saw the bartender drink the other half from the mixing cup. Ok, a little off. After the shot was ordered, it took about ten minutes for him to circle back for an actual drink order. Meanwhile the bartender spent about 20 minutes making himself a drink behind the bar. The only other patrons were a few people at the bar who clearly worked there. This wasn’t a busy evening whatsoever and there were several other employees that were hanging out and talking in the back area. When he wasn’t talking with his coworkers, the bartender was on his phone, eating and drinking behind the bar.

Weird start to the meal, but we were excited to try this place out so we stuck around. We ordered the fried dumplings to start, but after biting into them we found them still cold in the center. They offered to remake them, noting that they were a frozen item and must not have cooked long enough. No apology, but they did replace them. They were overdone at this point, but we ate them.

We each ordered chicken tenders as an entree. They were pretty good! Large portion size for the price. Unfortunately we ordered rice with our meals, which wasn’t brought to us. It took about 15 minutes after the food was originally dropped off for us to flag down the bartender to remind him about the rice. Without an apology he rushed back to grab it. After this he left for about 20 minutes. We had empty glasses, wanted boxes for our food, we were hoping to grab a couple more drinks and enjoy some football, but he was nowhere to be found.

The bartender finally returned only to linger in the back of the restaurant, then return up front with food for himself and his friends. We were able to flag him down yet again to close our tab.

I understand that people have off nights, but it was so clearly a horrible experience for us. I hoped that he would offer to discount the meal for our troubles, or at the very least issue some sort of apology for the very obviously bad service. He did not.

To be honest I’m still in shock at how bad the service was. And there was no acknowledgement of it whatsoever. I really wanted to like the place, but we will...

We remembered this place being much better when it first opened. We recently revisited and didn't have a good experience. We started with the bolgogi fries which we really liked. Then things went downhill when we got an order of chicken tenders. They were overcooked by a mile (dry and stringy) and not crispy at all on the outside. We each only ate one and decided to send the rest back. This is the first time we've bothered to send food back in a restaurant in about 2 years - that's how bad they were.

Our server, also the manager, was really weird about the whole thing. He seemed annoyed that we'd dare send something back and was confrontational with us. He explained "That's just how it is." and "The kitchen said it was fine." He told us that they were overcooked and soggy only because we ordered a sauce on them. Why serve it that way, by default, if it makes your product bad? Other restaurants, including other korean fried chicken places nearby, are perfectly capable of serving crispy chicken with a sauce. I'm not sure why these guys can't figure it out.

We ended up ordering some wings instead because we were really hungry, with the hope that they would turn out better. The manager made sure to tell us that we would definitely be paying for the wings, whether we liked them or not. The wings did come out very crispy, but we were careful to order a sauce on the side to avoid excuses this time. Unfortunately, the wings were also overcooked but we weren't in the mood to deal with the manager again so we just ate them and left.

Due to the horrible service and subpar chicken, there's little reason to revisit Charm again...

This is just flat-out pathetic. I must have gotten unlucky and ordered food for pickup on a bad night. They weren't even busy. 6pm on Saturday night, and there was only 1 couple dining in. Basically an empty restaurant.

I've had Korean fried chicken from numerous places, and the wings I got from here are easily the #1 worst Korean fried chicken I've had.

What makes "Korean" fried chicken different than American fried chicken is that Korean fried chicken is fried 2x and is extra crispy, and the skin has texture to it. It is not supposed to be flat and smooth like Wing Stop.

Look at the picture I attached. I ordered Yangyeom & Honey Garlic. Both were dry, and so was the radish! The wings I got tonight looked like Wing Stop style wings. They did not have the crispy texture skin and didn't even look like they were fried 2x.

I was better off going to Wing Stop if I knew the wings were this terrible. At least Wing Stop wings are saucy and not dry!

The wings I picked up tonight look NOTHING like the wings other customers uploaded in previous years. I placed my order based on the images I saw uploaded by...