MOA Korean BBQ & Bar - Charlotte — Restaurant in Charlotte

Super disappointed with my experience here. The restaurant itself is very nice looking however it's kind of weird for the dress code to be smart casual yet the staff is wearing track pants.

My coworker and I booked our reservation online directly using their website which lead us to Open Table. This is not my first time using it as Fahrenheit also uses this. I specifically listed in the reservations that there are allergies to mushrooms. Fahrenheit took good care of that to make sure there was no mushrooms or cross contamination. MOA did not.

For our meal we got the $90 combo #1.

Our Banchans came out which although were good, there didn't feel to be a good variety. Everything had a very similar texture and profile.

The meats themselves were decent however I'm incredibly disappointed that we are not allowed to cook it ourselves. That's the whole fun aspect of it. I'm disappointed to not have lettuce to make wraps with my rice, sauce and meat. The pork belly was not good. Bulgogi was delicious and my favorite meat. The marinade on it was delicious.

Speaking of the bulgogi, it was one of the last dishes of meat we were to eat. I notice two white slices on it and question it, saying it kinda looked like mushrooms, and after feeling them and they were very squishy, I was pretty sure they were. After some prodding and questioning I flagged someone who went to go ask and yes, they were.

This is where I'm extremely upset. We weren't offered a new plate. It seemed like a huge inconvenience to even get a new set of tongs as I had touched the mushrooms with the ones we were cooking with. Our waitress kept insisting that the grill would kill off the germs. An allergy isn't germs. It's not something that can be killed off. My friend had to take some Benadryl when we got home as she was a little swollen. I'm thankful I noticed it and caught it. She avoided the rest of that plate and meat. And thankfully her allergy is not extreme life threatening but will just make her swell and become very uncomfortable. But an allergy is nothing to play around with.

We also had ordered a cake when we ordered our meal which I guess was forgotten about so we were asked about desserts at the end after waiting a bit so I had to reorder it. Probably the best part of the meal. Yuzu Citrus Cake is absolutely delicious.

Overall I don't really feel the value in what we had or that an allergy was taken seriously here. Was it even paid attention to? Clearly not. Should we have noticed it and question it earlier, probably. I assumed it was some sort of radish until I touched it and it was soft and then I looked closer.

My fiancé and I had a reservation for Dec but we cancelled it after my friend and I had this experience. I don't think...

I hate planning get togethers but for my a coworker of mine I was asked to plan her birthday dinner. She gave me a list of 10 people to invite to MOA. I called and asked for a 4 pm reservation and they said for large parties they required a $100 deposit. As long as 75% of the party showed they would I would get the money back. Co workers were flaky, 1 said she couldn't come the day of, 2 said they would be late (spoiler: EVERYONE was late). MOA was super accommodating. My SO, her sister and I were 15 minutes early. I told them we had a reservation but we were early and just checking in since they weren't even open yet. They let us sit in their comfortable lounge area. The decor is VERY nice. At 4 they promptly asked if just the 3 of us would like to sit at our table. We declined and said we'd like to wait for at least a couple of my coworkers to show up. As someone who works in the industry this would've annoyed me greatly but they were very polite about it. My coworkers started showing up about 15 minutes late. They sat us at our table and our server took our drink orders. Once most of our party got there she explained the menu. Most of our party ordered entrees or just apps. My SO, her sister and went for the Korean bbq. Everything was delicious and our server did most of the work. We just had to flip the meat around and pull it when it was done to our liking. Cocktails and the BBQ were definitely the highlights. Our server graciously split our checks for us and divided the birthday girls bill onto all of us. For a party of 10 gratuity was already added (totally expected and fine). As we were leaving I asked the host when the deposit would be refunded. He pointed out that the entire party hadn't arrived. We had 9 people show up (more than 75%) and when I noted that he said I could see the deposit refunded in a couple days (it came). Again as someone who works in the industry I felt like a jerk for my party not showing up and probably not spending as much as they would have expected for a 10 top.

TLDR: We had a great time. The food and drinks were on point and I will definitely be returning without my late coworkers.

Oh and they...

The food and restaurant was great, would give them 5 stars, see below why I gave them 3. Decor inside was good, they have everyone spaced out and they even have plastic shields in between tables. Which was very nice to see. The food was so good! My husband and I came for our anniversary dinner, we started with the Kimchi Bulgogi Nachos and had Combo #2. At first I was skeptical about it being enough but I was completely WRONG, we were so stuffed at the end and skipped dessert. The meat was such good quality and the ribeye was def our favorite, it was so tender and juicy. The owner Sean came by and helped us so much, since our server was useless! Great to see, like the other reviews, Sean was great. My only and biggest complaint and the reason they didn't get 5 stars is our terrible server. (honestly would give our server Karissa zero stars) When we got there she simply asked what we wanted to drink and order. She didn't ask if we had any questions about the menu or if we were new to KBBQ, nothing. Legit nothing to say to us and seemed unhappy to even be there (or at least unhappy to serve us). The person that brought our meat out was pleasant and more helpful telling us that we could cook ourselves or they could cook it for us for the full experience. However, once our meat arrived Karissa simply placed our meat onto the grill (no mention of what the previous person just told us about cooking). Again she did not explaining anything like your meat will be ready in x minutes or what we needed to do. Since we're newer to KBBQ we could've used some extra explanations on how things went. Karissa barely said much and didn't want to serve us and I know that for a fact because she seemed much more pleasant and talkative to the other table she helped. The only thing saving this experience honestly was Sean. He stepped in and helped us with the other meats, explaining what he was doing and the sauces they had and brought us more sides. Honestly wish we had someone just as helpful as the owner! Considering this being a more upscale restaurant I expected better service from our waitress.

Would definitely come again but with a...