Baekjeong Buena Park — Restaurant in Buena Park

TLDR: terrible service, meat portion got cut in half, takes 40 min for rice and water, no apology, $114.20

Got seated at 6:25pm on a Friday night. Typical Covid19 setup where tables are apparently maintaining 6ft apart. My party has 7+2 (7 adults and 2 kids). Apparently we can't put the tables together because we have to maintain 6' distance. With each other. But the seats are 1' from each other. Okay. Not a big deal. We get our menu and order by 6:35 (our table of 4+1 ordered a large beef). Of course water and side dishes were already present.

Timeline - Friday - 85 degrees outside 6:25 - got seated 6:35 - ordered 6:50 - meat came out (btw meat portion got cut in half). We asked for 5 bowls of rice and container of water from waiter #1. "It'll be out soon" 7:00 - asked waiter #2 for 5 bowls of rice and container of water. "I'll check on it" 7:10 - asked waitress #3 for 5 bowls of rice and container of water. "Let me ask your waiter. It shouldn't take long now". Other table finished eating completely. 7:20 - asked waiter #4 for 5 bowls of rice and container of water. "I'm not sure what can be taking so long. Let me check" meanwhile other table starts bringing food to us 7:30 - waiter brings in 5 bowls of rice and water. "Here's your rice and water. Anything else i can get for you?" Nothing said or done to apease me of waiting 40 min for rice and water (oh but here's the funny part, all the other tables in my tent were getting all that they ask for... wait for it... within a minute) 7:33 - we finished eating and bounced. Unanimously agreed no tip (even the guy who pays 25% normal tip).

In my home, you can cook rice in 30 min. What was kanghodong doing? Cooking rice exactly when i ordered it? Were you growing the rice and waiting for fall? Or were you sending someone to go to a river and get some water? Or were you waiting for me to starve to death? AND more than the wait, where was the apology or courtesy of saying sorry and explaining why rice was delayed? Is it my fault that i asked for the most staple food in all Asian countries... rice? Is this situation somehow my fault? Was i ordering a burger or something off the menu? Or maybe rice isn't common just like courtesy.

All in all, im gonna start telling EVERYONE i know to avoid kanghodong. I've been to several dine out restaurants but this was the worst experience ever. Probably top 5. In my life. I truly regret...

2024 Eats; OC #2, Korean #5: second time coming here and mostly same opinion as my first experience (except prices have gone up #inflation).

We ordered samgyeopsal (삼겹살, $37), marinated short ribs (꽃살 냠냠, $49), and yuhkoe (육회, $23) to start. We then added an order of boneless short ribs (꽃살* $56), and went through three bottles of soju throughout the meal $15/ea (beers are $9/ea).

The standout dish is definitely the boneless short ribs (꽃살). We ordered this both times here, and it did not disappoint either time. While it's far from cheap, you definitely get what you pay for.

While the samgyeopsal was good, it's quite small in my opinion. Samgyeopsal and pork are quite inexpensive at the nearby H Mart, so I'd suggest just grilling it at home and focussing on beef if you want to come here. My FIL thought that samgyeopsal was too fatty (but that's a positive for me).

Overall, I'd say the food is very good and high quality here. However, prices are starting to get pretty steep here IMO. Not sure what folks are ordering here to get out for

I'd seen their original location in LA's ktown and their CRAZY lines so I'd always steered clear, but when a friend invited me to this location and mentioned the times weren't as bad, I decided to give it a go. We met up there at 8pm with a couple of more friends, and all told, we probably waited about 30 minutes or so, which isn't too bad, but we were all VERY hungry and totally ready to mow by the time we got seated. We decided to get the Beef Combo and the Pork Combo since we were so hungry, but by the meal's end we ended up taking much of the pork combo home, because we were that full. They may not be AYCE, but they don't skimp on the portions! They also cook it for you and can cook it to your liking, especially for things like the rib eye. We got the bonus of having one of the managers help out our table, and he gave us some helpful hints, like if we hadn't tried their boneless short ribs (we hadn't) we should really try them. He gave us a few pieces to sample and OH MY GOD--rich, marbled goodness like I'd never experienced before. My favorite beef cuts were the brisket and the boneless short rib.

We were starting to get pretty full at the end of the Beef Combo, but the Pork Combo was still coming! My favorites from this combo were the spicy pork (which they cook in the kitchen and bring out) and the pork belly--so, so good. Their banchan is good too, and a little different from the traditional places. They give you cut red radish instead of the white ones, and they don't give you the little rice cake sheets. The dip for the cooked meats is a little different too, but they give you like three different kinds of salad and that was really good. The way they do the steamed egg is interesting and different also: instead of bringing it out in a little stone bowl like they do at most other places, they pour the egg mixture from a kettle into curved narrow pans placed along the edge of the grill, letting the egg cook slowly over the course of the meal. I don't know what they put in that egg mixture, but it's like Korean Krack, lol. We asked for two helpings of that stuff. At the end of the meal we all agreed that 2 combos for four was a little too much--it would've been perfect with six people, we thought. But I'm glad we got to sample as many different things...