Seoul Food Meat Company — Restaurant in Charlotte

TLDR: Creative food concept located in a great space for casual social gatherings and large groups. Come with the expectation of American style BBQ with a hint of Korean flavors.

Vibe: 5/5. Located in the ever popular South End district of Charlotte, Seoul Food is perfectly nestled amongst several breweries and bars nearby. They offer both ample inside and outside seating for groups small and large. Taking a page from traditional BBQ joints, they utilize a order at the counter and pickup system instead of a traditional wait service. IMO this keeps things casual and makes dealing the check in large groups much easier. As a bonus, Seoul Food has several karaoke rooms available to rent which makes for the perfect addition to any group outing.

Service: 5/5. Since Seoul uses counter service, our interactions with the staff were limited, however very pleasant when they happened. We came at 11:30am on a Saturday and we're seated immediately by the host. The counter server was very nice and attentive at getting our order placed and brought our drinks out in a timely manner. When we received the bill, we noticed that there was an error for a drink (wanted a virgin cocktail but we're charged for the alcoholic version). The staff was quick to make the bill revision and we were on our way.

Food/Drink: 4/5. Everytime I visit Charlotte I make it a point to stop by Seoul food for a meal and it has never disappointed. The food menu has largely stayed the same over the years, offering diners a fun fusion take on American BBQ and Korean food. The meats are the main event, with offerings such as crispy pork belly, beef rib, pork spare ribs and pulled pork. The meats are mostly American style BBQ in how they are prepared (smoked). The beef rib was ginormous in size and smoked perfectly to a fall of the bone tenderness. The crispy pork belly was oozing with juices and had a hardened crispy shell of outside skin that reminded me of Filipino lechon. For the sides, this is where the American BBQ and Korean fusion becomes more apparent. They have offerings such as green tea cornbread, kimchi slaw, soy pickled deviled eggs, potato swirls, doenjang collard greens... list goes on. We found that each one we ordered was tasty in their own rights, but really lacked that full Korean food flavor punch that comes with some of the ingredients used. A very good example is the doenjang collard greens, which we could barely taste any of distintly salty, fermented taste of the soybean paste in the greens. As for drinks, Seoul Food offers a nice selection of Korean favorites such as flavored soju and makgeolli. They used to offer a nice cocktail program, using various Asian ingredients to ramp up traditional cocktails, however it seems post pandemic they are mostly unavailable due to not having the specialty ingredients (RIP Seoul Fashioned). Overall, I still enjoy Seoul food and it's tasty meats and fun atmosphere. Even though the Korean aspect is sometimes lost in the food, it still provides a memorable experience...

Horrible experience. Craziest part is that is wasn’t even the the bartender or the cooks… it was surprisingly the MANAGER of this location. We ordered about $100 worth of food and drinks unfortunately one of the drinks we had my partner was allergic to and the bartender decided to offer a different drink. The MANAGER shortly after decided to hound out the bartender about the drink in front of us. That alone made us feel super uncomfortable to enjoy our food. I still decided to continue to eat my food. My wings were very very dry and I had asked the cooks for more sauce in which there was ton of communication between them as if they have been ordered to not offer more wing sauce because of cost. I then asked for one of their pre packaged sauces in which they had to discuss further before the trying to provide me with packed ketchup because that indeed was the cheapest sauce they had. I wouldn’t have mind paying the difference. This was at their church street location.

THE MANAGER the decided to walk up and approach me behind my back. He then tried to make it seem as if there was a problem for asking for sauce. I informed him with consideration of paying close to $100 I didn’t understand why asking for honestly anything that night was a problem. He then went on to say he didn’t have to get sauce and that I could leave which was before we could even eat our food. I then asked for a refund because we couldn’t eat our food in which he RAISED his voice to say no and that I’d have no luck even if I tried to dispute with the transaction. He then walked away into his office and slammed the door on us in front of ALL the staff and the customers that were there.

In conclusion, he was pissed because I guess he felt they lost a total of $3.25 that night for remaking the drink and the providing a sauce when instead he now has lost $100 in total because of his horrible hospitality that didn’t exist and horrible customer service. Imagine telling your employees to penny nickle and dime with the 10 customers they had come in that night and now he himself has lost the company $100.

He never walked up to even ask if we were having a good experience in which that alone I would probably came back 3 more times after meaning they could’ve made $400 of me.

Good luck explaining to the owners how now you they’re -$100 and you’re losing more money than the employees here he suppose to manage and report to him.

UNACCEPTABLE. UNPROFESSIONAL. IRATE. DEMEANING....

We came to Seoul Food on a last minute Google search find and I am so happy that we did. With my LOVE for Korean food and the current Korean fusion trend, I have been all over looking for good Korea fusion and I've been disappointed in almost every place I've gone to. Seoul Food Meat Company has officially changed that for me.

I love the get in line to order, open seating, almost cafeteria style concept, with a walk up bar on the opposite side. The inside was open and inviting with a very cozy looking outside section.

It was almost hard to make our decision on what to order as the menu has so many good looking items. We decided to do what we normally do and order a bunch of different items to fully get the taste of what they are all about. Needless to say, there wasn't a single item that we ordered that didn't have good authentic Korean flavor with a hit of a delicious fusion twist to it. The brisket taco is by far the best Korean taco I've ever had, with the kimchee pork taco as a close second.

The pork belly threw me completely to left field as I've never had Korean pork belly with the crispy skin. Mix the juicy pork with the spicy dipping sauce...that was a game changer.

The kimchee cheese fries with bulgogi beef on top had such a great mixture of flavors and textures.

The fried chicken had the perfect crispiness to the outside like the traditional Korean fried chicken and the soy garlic sauce has the perfect balance of sweet and salty.

The fried chicken kimbop was my least favorite dish on the table but it was still a super delicious addition to our plate. I would gladly go back and eat the same exact meal again and know that I would be just as satisfied as the first time.

Washing the meal down with a Seouled Fashion and alcoholic Butter Beer was the perfect way to finish it off. I'm definitely going to be making a special trip back to Charlotte to try the rest of the menu. With the glimpse of the other items I saw on people's plates, I know I'm in for a completely different, yet still...