Seoul Korean BBQ & Hotpot — Restaurant in Deerfield Township

While we wanted a fun experience for us and our adult children & their dates for a Christmas Eve early dinner, it was far from the dinner we expected. I had asked upon making reservations several days before to have a table with 2 grills and they told me then, it would be too busy and we could not. Then, the day we arrived (at 4pm) there was no one in the restaurant and we were showing up for our reservations and again asked for 2 grills, knowing someone else that went with 6 people needed more time on the grill to get all their food done. Again denied. There were not more than 5 people in the whole restaurant. WTH. Then we were seated at a crowded booth with the grill on the end of the table not accessible to the 4 on the inner corners. Not fun. The meat was sub par, the vegetables were raw and we were not able to get them done in the 2 hour limit which we were informed of at 1.5 hrs, mind you we had ordered and waited the few minutes for the arrival of the food before we started cooking so we are probably actually an hour in at this point. :/ Not sure we got the pork done. Half of us were sick the next day probably from undercooked food. The grill never really got hot enough. It was small, and would be incredible for 2 people trying to grill their selections in a 2 hour period. Much of our food didn’t get cooked due to small grill, and not enough heat (thus we wanted another grill), and i took some home to the dog since i paid for all this meat we didn’t get to cook or partially cooked, who was also sick w diarrhea the next day. I will never go back to this place. Nor will I ever recommend it to anyone. If you have 6 plus people do not go here. I paid over $300 for this garbage meal. Don’t forget about the no waste policy they will charge you for if you order food you don’t eat as well, $13.99/lb The only thing we got from it was a few laughs and my kids went to the grocery and grilled steaks when they got home. Service was terrible as she was gossiping w another coworker and we could tell it was about our table. :/ sadly we will not go back. We wanted to love it but never again....

I thought this place was really good. they have both hotpot and korean bbq. I had hotpot because it was raining outside, and I got the spicy tom yum soup and it was delicious on its own, and also, it was actually a little spicy! most of the time when you get "spicy" items from restaurants in the US, they aren't spicy at all... but this broth was actually a bit spicy for me (I have an ultra high spice tolerance so the average person would likely find this broth very spicy). I thought the thin sliced lamb and beef were both good, not too gamey at all. all the hotpot ingredients you'd expect, and they also have a free appetizer menu included with the all you can eat, which includes korean staples like mandu, seafood jeon, and seaweed salad, amongst others, and they have a self service sauce bar with all the old standbys - chinese bbq sauce, sesame sauce, a house sauce, gochugaru, soy sauce, raw garlic, raw scallions, ect. however, they also have some cold items on their sauce bar, like tongbaechu kimchi ("regular" cabbage kimchi), radish water kimchi and oi muchim (spicy cucumber salad) and they were all very good; clearly made in house, and not too sour for those who dislike sour kimchi. I thought those cold kimchi items were exceptionally good. I also thought that the cocktails were exceptionally good; leaps and bounds better than cocktails I've had at other all you can eat places, and the cocktail menu is huge as well, so you have a lot of options. this place also serves bubble tea! that was a nice surprise. so although they don't serve dessert (which is traditional), they do have fruit on the cold salad bar and they have bubble tea of several varieties on the a la carte menu. I also thought that the service was top notch here. much better service than other all you can eat places. my server was cute too! so shout out to him. speaking of cute, they have little cute cat robots with trays that go around and serve items to customers when they're busy, so look out for those while you're there. overall, I had a great experience and I'm looking forward to coming back with my friends....

Liked pretty much everything about this place. Price of $30/person is standard for this type of place.

Quality on the whole is quite good. One cut of beef seemed to be a bit disappointing but on the whole the meat was the high quality I've come to expect from Korean BBQ. Short ribs were excellent, pork belly was excellent, calamari was excellent. Appetizers are included. I got a seafood pancake, which was also very nice. Seaweed salad was excellent, had two portions. Mushrooms and vegetables were all fresh. All around high quality.

The service was perfect. Showed up 15 minutes before my reservation and was seated immediately. When food was ordered (of course at a Korean BBQ ordering is done on sort of a rolling, continuous basis) , it came out insanely quickly - usually within 2 or 3 minutes. Our waiter (I believe his name was Chris) could not have been better. Very personable, very friendly. Checked in regularly but not too frequently. Got the orders perfect, read the room to see what level of rapport people wanted to engage in.

Extra perks: There's a rolling robot that delivers your drinks, which might seem a bit kitschy but was a fun little surprise. There's a "sauce bar" with probably a dozen or so dipping sauces that you can get at your leisure. The "sauce bar" also includes self-serve kimchi and fresh fruit. The decor is tasteful and warm. It makes a big place feel more home-y than you'd expect.

All around I highly recommend this place to anyone who likes hotpot or Korean BBQ, or who is interested in exploring a new kind of dining. Great for dates and other fun nights out on the town.

Only caution is I would not particularly recommend this place if you have kids with you. The menu isn't really designed for kids, there's either a hot grill or a pot of boiling broth in the center of the table, and I imagine it would be disproportionately...