Cartersville BBQ — Restaurant in Cartersville

Preface: I am actually rounding this up to 3 when I shouldn't - They need to update all signage and make it clear this is aiming to be an authentic Korean BBQ Restaurant; Not a mix of American BBQ And Korean. I walked in thinking this would be some “fun” American / Korean fusion, or a multi-staged menu, but it wasn’t. Also, we went during some construction they were doing on the side room, so my noise review might not be normal. So do consider that I am ignoring that for this review:

We went at around noon on a Sunday, for understanding of why it’s confusing our wait times were so long. When we got there, we were told they "are on Korean menu" at the moment, and were taken to our seat. We were later handed a menu that was primarily in Korean, but everything except one section had English translation. The person who seated us, was also our waiter, was also our runner, was also our cashier. So I suspect they staff light.

We took about ~10 minutes before we were able to ask questions about our menu, to which we had a simple question - Is this pricing per person, is it typical KBBQ Style where we order a meat and cook it ourselves (Yes, our table had a single burner; still not sure why), etc. She then told us we order a fully cooked meal “in hotpot” per person (I still have no idea what she meant by that, as we were just brought a plate of cooked meat). On one side of the menu was the typical ‘rice’ dishes you’d expect. On the back (the main side) is where the individual meats were. There were 2 dishes - Bulgogi, and spicy bulgogi. There were 6 meats in Korean only, of which she said only 2 were available (There is a chance they were quasi white-washing the other 4 items assuming we wouldn't want them, but I assumed limited menu for Sunday). They said “all typical Korean sides and rice is included” but it was one of the weakest banchan spreads I’ve seen (5 small items, including Kimchi)- And 2 were extremely fishy; like drinking right from fish oil.

4 of the 5 people ended up getting regular Bulgogi, I got Spicy Bulgogi. Since it is obvious they’re aiming for authentic Korean, I expected my palette to be obliterated by the spicy, but it wasn’t at all? It was more of a sweet sauce. We asked for some soy sauce and “yum yum” for the table, to which they were confused what yum yum was, and then told me “That’s Japanese, not Korean” and walked away - Which is absolutely true. However, it is a very common sauce at korean BBQs; but again, authentic. Heard.

In the end, we waited about 20 more minutes for our check, I went to find the only person working to get our check, and paid. (This is actually one of my biggest triggers in a restaurant)

I left pretty disappointed by the food quality (4 pieces of my bulgogi was such grit that I just wouldn’t eat it), and the rest just wasn’t worth ~$23 per person. I left paying $120 for 3 people, for an individual meal for each, and a table appetizer. There are 3 other KBBQ places within the same distance of my house, where I can pay sub-$105 for 3 people for endless food.

Which leads me back to what I said earlier - I am THINKING the intent of this restaurant is for the people who want the authentic experience. However, I didn’t personally find the flavors in line with what I have had as authentic Korean before.

I wish them success, but I can say comfortably I will never come back unless I hear a lot of changes and want to take someone new. I think one of the smartest things they do early is figuring out if they’re Korean BBQ, or a Korean restaurant, replacing the confusing advertisement, and identifying how to support a light...

I want to update my review of Adams, as most of it below had to do with the pandemic, and their response. First of all, I did see the servers there begin to wear masks again after posting this review, so I appreciate that response. Beyond that, we continue to get food from Adams, as it's always fresh and delicious. We love that they opened on Sundays for four hours and often take advantage of that. You can't go wrong there.

We love the food at Adams; we've been eating there for decades. When the pandemic hit, I know it was hard on them, like it was for all restaurants, but to their credit, they took early precautions, shut the dining room down, and started serving curbside. As regulations loosened up from our ill-advised governor, they opened the dining room, and though I didn't witness much "distancing" which was prescribed by law, the employees all, at least, wore masks. Slowly but surely, we began to see the masks worn haphazardly by the servers, until they've come to the point where they just don't bother at all. I have no idea if the people who cook the food wear masks, or what kind of health precautions they take, but, quite honestly, the impression I get is not good. I don't care what your political leanings are, or what you believe or don't believe. Health laws are there for a reason. Just because the majority of your customers choose to scoff at the judicious health recommendations that are in place to protect their lives, and the lives of others, does not give employees who serve the public the right to do so, even if the owners, themselves, subscribe to this kind of laxness.

We had been getting our meals to go from Adams, and when ALL the servers stopped wearing masks, we decided that we were not going to expose ourselves to even ordering inside anymore. Our last order was over the phone, and when the server kindly brought our order out to the car, she was not wearing a mask. As much as we like Adams Restaurant and have supported it for over two decades, we can no longer bring ourselves to go there any longer, while they show such blatant disregard for our health and well being. I'm tempted to call the County Heath Service and report them. But the County Inspector probably eats there. Such is life in Bartow County, where people live in their own world of denial and...

To start with the service was fine, they gave us time to really look through the menu and even answered questions like the portion sizes, sides, and so on. Though i understand the info given was just based on there own experience I would say it wasn’t very fulfilling in terms of words translating into reality such as portion size. The menu was very hard to understand with strange headliners that didn’t specify where certain types of food were. For example there is a meat section and under it there is only pork and some beef options, but scattered throughout the menu there are other meat options that aren’t under the meat headliner. I just think it needs more clarification on what’s what.

Now for the food, we got the stir-fried pork and ramen and while it was good it honestly wasn’t worth the price. The pork was placed in this very fancy stone bowl that was being centered by a wooden box thing very asthenic but overall the flavor was the only exceeding aspect of the dish, the texture however was lacking compared to other Korean restaurants(hint hint Hansik). Not only was my dish lacking in quality so was the grilling pork belly. The ramen was alright.

The best aspect of the restaurant was building itself with plenty of seating for large parties and even private room for special guests I’m assuming. Though they have a beautiful outside area, I don’t think they...