E.M. Bop Korean BBQ — Restaurant in Duluth

The service is insanely bad here. So our group divided up into 2 tables and one side ordered everything you can eat and the other side ordered their individual meals. I was on the side with individual meals and then after I finished my meal, I went over to the other table where my boyfriend was at, and started chatting with him. He offered me the meat he was eating and I just ate without even thinking since my focus was on the conversation. Then, this female server comes in and sees me putting in a piece of meat in my mouth and immediately goes to charge me for the everything you can eat. I was flabbergasted because I had no idea what was going on and I asked the people in the table, and then I went up to her to explain the situation. The people in the table were like she only ate a piece, she just came here to talk with her boyfriend. However, she kept repeating that I went over to their table and put a piece in my mouth, which is not allowed and therefore I should be charged for that. I was the only one who got “caught” by her, and other people in my original table were also doing the same thing to talk to the people in the other table. The host and the server said they told me a couple times that I can’t do that and it’s really annoying that I did that. However, apparently people in the all you can eat table all told me that the server only told THEM the policy in KOREAN. My boyfriend is white, he does not understand Korean and there were so many people there who were either Asian or Korean but could not understand Korean. So I didn’t even hear about it (neither did the people who were sitting near me) and my boyfriend was completely unaware since he had no idea what was even being talked in front of him. I thought the table thing was just for convenience. I acknowledge the fact that it’s technically not allowed for me to go over to their table but I just was not aware of the whole thing since people were all just sitting there mingling with each other since we were a huge group. People can make mistakes regarding food, especially if the atmosphere is mainly focused on socialization. I understand they could feel “annoyed,” but there are a lot of ways to handle that situation. She could have said “oh, can you go back to your seat? This is not allowed” or “I’ll have to charge you from next time since this is like a policy.” But no, she just goes to charge me without even telling me anything. I call that stinginess, not being a policy keeper. Went up to the host to explain since I didn’t wanna pay THIRTY DOLLARS for a piece of meat, and I’m telling y’all, I wasn’t being rude, I tried to hide my frustration and be polite, but the way he talked to me made me feel like I was being lectured and scolded in the worst way possible. He ultimately did let me “get away” with it, and I do appreciate that they didn’t charge 30 bucks for that meat😂. It wasn’t just me, all the people were complaining about the server and the host’s attitude even during the car ride back home. Also, if the policy is that strict, and you won’t get a single warning before getting charged, why don’t they just put that on the menu lol. Oh, and one more thing, I memorized the final cost for me, which was 36.70 dollars, but it says that I got charged 38.15 dollars in my account. I did not tip because the service was bad and I already had to pay a 20% gratuity fee because I was in a group, so I have no idea where that extra 1.45 dollars got added up from!😂 The first time I came here was a fairly pleasant experience and I liked it because they were opened until 3 am, but I won’t be going back anymore.

Edit: Thanks for missing all the points that I listed. Didn’t talk about the changed cost at the end, the tone and manner you all had which you called a “service,” and the instructions in Korean. My focus was on the people in your place’s attitude and the lack of consideration and hospitality. It is confirmed that we won’t...

TLDR: yes, this review is based on corn cheese and plates. We’ve really enjoyed this place in the past. The meats were good and tasty, but this time, we felt disappointed and deceived when the servers flat out told us they ran out of plates and corn - and we saw plates and corn being brought to other tables right after. It appeared like they just didn’t want to give us any. We were expecting a little better especially coming in with a big party.

We’ve been to E.M. BOP many times and have always enjoyed their food. But during our last visit, we were disappointed and confused with their service. We came as a big party for a birthday celebration. Our group really liked the steamed eggs, dumplings, and corn cheese that were included in AYCE so we tried to order more than once (since it was unlimited). They were really slow with these items and, out of the five - six times we ordered, only two were fully fulfilled.

We ordered four corn cheeses during the first round. Then we tried to order three more plates, but they never came. We asked about them each time we would see our servers and they would say OK. We felt like they never put in the order, and after asking about it several times, they simply came back and told us they ran out of corn after we waited for ~30 minutes. However, we saw them bring out more corn cheese orders to the table next to us right after…… We also noticed that they gave fewer dumplings on our second order of dumplings.

We also brought a birthday cake there. When I asked if they could help store the cake, they said “of course” so it seemed like they were welcoming of birthday celebrations. When they brought the cake out to our table, we asked for some plates, as our plates were filled with grease and sauce from the KBBQ. To our surprise, they told us they ran out of plates and they had no more plates…… we were like “huhhh???” and then after a while, someone randomly dropped off some wet plates on our table and said nothing to us and walked away. We were confused. We were also left with no utensils to eat the cake so we had to grab them ourselves. Other KBBQ restaurants we’ve been to have kindly offered clean plates and utensils when they brought out the cake.

We were very surprised and confused a popular restaurant like this would run out of not only corn but plates when they automatically charge 20% for tips for a large party. It’s one thing if they were running low and had said “give us a few minutes and we can bring some later”, but they flat out just said “we don’t have anymore” and ended the conversation so it was pretty apparently that they just didn’t want to give us any corn or plates and they just walked away.

We would think twice about coming back anytime soon, especially...

So it could be that I'm in shock of all the rules and requirements that ATL area restaurants seem to enforce, but this is getting out of hand. How do they get away with this? Atlanta and the surrounding area restaurants need to do better. Simple bait and switch tactics. Before I dive in to my experience with this restaurant, let me tell you about the "contract" we had to agree to before dining.

1. If you want to dine AYCE, you can't dine by yourself. It has to be two or more.
2. If you dine by yourself, then you must order a la carte. Their a la carte items start around $20. I recall some items as high as $60. So it’s best to bring a friend. 3)There's an automatic 20% gratuity “switch” on your bill (typical ATL ish) and this negates their sign outside that says $24.99 AYCE. You'll end up owing another 20% in gratuity on top of their advertised price. Even if you are solo and order a la carte, you have to pay the automatic 20% gratuity!
3. We (6-person table) came for the lunch "bait" special of $24.99 AYCE but there's only certain items you can get for lunch. If you want other AYCE items like beef tartare, for example, it's considered a dinner item. So everyone at the table has to pay for a dinner AYCE price versus a lunch AYCE price just so that you can order beef tartare, as an example during lunch.
4. There's a 90-minute time limit from the first time the first order goes into their computer, not from the first time your order arrives. And that time limit is for EVERYONE at the table.
5. During your 90 minutes, they rarely come by to check on your table so you're more inclined to order a bunch of food that you and your table may not be able to eat.
6. But you better not order too much out of your concerns of them not visiting your table often. If you order over what your table can eat, they will charge you $5.99/oz (yes, ounce not pounds) of meat and seafood leftover on your table.

Crazy, huh? I don't think I need to add anything else. But I will...

They don't have the regular sauces that you would use for Korean BBQ such as gochujang (?), basic sesame oil, fresh garlic cloves, bok choy, etc. I asked the waiter for the Korean pepper sauce (gochujang - I think I'm jacking up the spelling. I apologize if so.) and they brought ground black pepper in a shaker to the table, like the ones from dried peppercorns.

Should we had left once we read the contract…I mean menu, yes. But we were tired and hungry. We didn’t want to roll the dice with another potential crappy restaurant. Having said all of this, I'll never go back there. Matter of fact, there's only a few restaurants my family and I will patronize in ATL and surrounding areas because of the bare minimum quality of food and ridiculously poor...