Seoul Korean BBQ 서울갈비 — Restaurant in Duluth

1 year later update 7/27/2024:

I'm not one to leave reviews but when I first tried this place I fell in love with their cold noodles and the customer service and felt like the place needed recognition so I left a very happy review.

Today? I was so DISSAPOINTED i just had to come back and update my review. I come here every other weekend spending $70 or more per visit since my original review. The customer service is now so terrible. Either speaking little to no english, orders are taken wrong with no apologies (my favoite host left. He knew my order by heart).

Today was the first time I've ever gotten an apology but not for getting my order wrong but becaus i complained for paying $34 for my cold noodles and galabi combo. The galbi literally had 4 peices of meat. I asked how are they expecting me to pay this much for 4 peices of meat. Im a loyal returning customer despite the terrible services and this has never happened before. The owner or manager whoever the hell she is who is ALWAYS there had the nerve to tell me its an expensive cut of meat and that it comes out like that and "they" dont eat the meat before bringing it out. Like wth? I never said you eat the meat before bringing it out. Im asking how are you expecting me to pay $34 freaking dollars for 4 peices of meat. She just said sorry. First apology ever and it wasn't even sincere. Stll left paying $77.

You can now disregard the original post below:

By far one of the best cold noodle I've ever had. This place is a 40 minute drive for me and it's worth the drive for this refreshing bowl of cold noodles! Can't wait...

Meats:

The meats were well seasoned and tasted pretty good. Not the best, not the worst.

Sides:

I actually enjoyed the sides a lot. The kimchi and the kimchi fried rice were really nice. If you get the corn cheese, eat it fast... it kind of solidifies after 10 minutes.

Portions:

The amount of meat they will bring you is not really seen at most kbbqs I've been to. They bring out a LOT. Be careful with what you order, because if you don't finish it all, you will be charged extra. (Thankfully, they made us wait long enough after the bulgogi to only be hungry for one more meat.)

Service:

When we arrived, I believe there were 2 "large" parties in the back. We were seated quickly and also ordered quickly. However, the first meat took a considerable amount of time to come out. Then we waited for the coals to come out. And again, we waited on our cook top to come out. Even after they brought out the cook top, we had the meat, we had the coals, they just left it on the other table. So, finally, one of us gets up to put the cook top over the coals... After cooking our first meat, we waited... and waited... for the brisket, and by that time, our coals went out... They put the brisket on a warm plate anyway, and walked by our table multiple times, carrying all kinds of things to the tables in the back. By the time the new coals came, the brisket looked... undesirable... So we asked for a new order. We were all still hungry after, but we left early because we didn't want to wait on...

I was really looking forward to trying a new to me place and this was a lil disappointing. The meats were pretty good but the brisket could've been better. The sauces were decent so that helped. They had a good selection of meat and even sides like kimichi fried rice and corn cheese and even a tofu soup. Even the presentation of the food was actually really nice. Now, here's where things went down. The service started out decent then dropped to worse after our first couple of meats. We got to the point where no one helped us on the grill, which is ok cuz me and my friends and I go regularly, but it felt super difficult to order additional stuff. I even initially ordered a soju and had to ask them a second time, and they still failed to bring it to me or acknowledge it. Fortunately, they didn't add it to my bill in the end. Looking around, it seemed they helped the other tables around us more, so maybe cuz the other tables were families, and we were a younger group and changed their priority. I'm willing to give it another try, but it really put me off, especially after we have to use the buzzer 4 times before anyone...