Keum Ho Garden Korean BBQ — Restaurant in Edison

TLDR: The experience, food quality, and weird atmosphere do not justify the extreme prices.

Last week myself and a group of friends wanted a nice Korean BBQ experience. Looking nearby us, we chose to check out Keum Ho Garden.

Being the last car to arrive, I was immediately struck by the strange placement of my party, as we were not placed in the main dinning area with grills at the table (something I would say is one of the main appeals of KBBQ). Instead we had been moved into a bad table with no grill. I should note that it was not packed, and there were open grill tables. After asking (and needing to reiterate that we would prefer to sit at a grill table) we are moved to a normal table.

Once at our actual table, I was secondly hit by the noticeably large prices. For the prices you'll be paying for actual KBBQ meats (anywhere from $25 to $55 a plate) I would expect either generous portions or high quality product. While placing our orders, our waitress, without warning, had to immediately check on another table for something we couldn't see. From what we understood, there was no pressing emergency that needed to be resolved by her, or couldn't be handled by one of the other waitresses. After several minutes, another waitress comes over and we begin to give our order again before the original comes over and hurriedly gives her our already communicated orders before letting her continue.

Eventually we do place our food and drink orders. What happened next is one of the single funniest things I can recall while dining. As every member of our table ordered ice water, we were all surprised when a nice man came over with 6 full glasses of steaming of tea water. What made this so funny was, as the final glass of absolutely-not-ice water was being handed to a friend, steam clearly pouring off the top, the man politely says "Enjoy your ice water". Excellent comedic timing.

The sides for our meals were all brought out first before the actual meats, which was fine but did clutter up our table considerably.

Just as we wondered why the grill at our table was not hot, another gentleman came over with a small hot coal grill fresh out of whatever they had used to heat it. Our grill was opened up, the hot coals lifted directly in front of our faces (featuring a pop or two of embers from the flames), and placed into the grill slot. I've never had something like that happen at a KBBQ place I've attended, and it has stuck out to me since we went.

Our meats are finally brought to the table. We had ordered 3 dishes to grill at the table and 3 from the kitchen (although one had not been clear on that and caused a bit of confusion). I noticed as they were being brought that our pork order was splashing about in it's juice (totally fine) so much that it was spilling onto our other orders. Seeing what should've been a quality cut of steak splashed with raw juices of other meats did not sit well with me. Additionally, the portions and quality are not what we were expecting for the prices. The portions were all less than what I would expect for a more reasonably priced range of meats to be, with the 6 of us getting about 1-1.5 pieces to eat from the orders. And to our surprise, we were not the ones cooking these meats. Having all expected to actually be grilling at this KBBQ place, we were all quietly disappointed as the now third waitress grilled our food for us. The taste and quality thereof was fine, nothing exceptional and nothing worth the price point we were paying. As the cherry on top, the still hot coals and embers for our grill were plucked from our table shortly after all the grilling had concluded and we were still eating. We paid our bill, and left soon after.

Our group was somewhat skeptical about this place due to the dotted one star reviews. Do yourself a favor and believe them, lest your ice water burns your tongue too. I'm sure a good experience is possible at a place like Keum Ho Garden, but it was anything but that...

SAVE YOUR MONEY. BAD SERVICE. OVERPRICED. Our experience: My boyfriend and I stopped by for lunch on our way from Staten Island. The place was freezing so I kept my coat on as we sat down, there was only one older couple there besides us. The banchan was great and they gave us a lot so that started off well. We got the lunch special menus and I ordered 2 bulgogi bibimbap and sundubu. What they brought out were two piles of bulgogi and we immediately got confused. I told the waiter we had asked for the bibimbap, not just bulgogi. The waiter looked and me and actually said “You asked for bulgogi, if you said bibimbap then yes I would bring you bibimbap.” We were stunned, as he refused to have the right dish made (Mind you, we would have been okay if they just took the same meat back and put it in a bowl with vegetables for the bibimbap). At this point we could see we weren’t gonna get the right food but we felt like we couldn’t just leave, since we already ate the banchan dishes. So we took the food and began to eat it. I felt so bad because I picked the place specifically for the bibimbap that my boyfriend wanted. We also had to ask for more tea as the waiter never came to check on us again after that. Then the sundubu came. The soup tasted so…bland. I’ve eaten at Ktown in Manhattan and had more authentic sundubu. It was just tofu, zucchini, and overcooked beef cubes, which was so rubbery. No mushrooms? No spice? At this point I was pretty upset. We didn’t even finish the meal, didn’t ask for take out boxes and just asked for the check so we could leave. At this point, I knew I woukd leam them a small tip. Seeing the receipt, I immediately wanted to cry. $100 for two bulgogi meals and a horrible sundubu stew with hardly anything in it. I was LIVID. My boyfriend begged me to let him pay but it was supposed to be my treat so I simply paid, refused to leave any tip at all, and we left. We went to my car where I just cried. We’ve had BETTER LARGER quantities of Korean Food in MANHATTAN for less of a price than these guys charge. Did we have galbi? Did we have wagyu? KPOT literally charges $35 for all you can eat meat and bulgogi is on the bottom list of expensive meats! You could drive down to lotte Asian market down the road and get a giant bulgogi pack for $20 tops. But wait, want to know the funniest part? Sitting in my car for over 5 minutes, the waiter who gave us our check actually had the AUDACITY to step outside and find me to ask why I left no tip. He came up to my car and I told him we paid over $100 for food we didn’t even ask for and no one bothered to truly serve us or even try to address our concern. I barely touched the food at all, I left 70% of it. To which he said literally NOTHING and walked away. Not even an apology. You guys are literally robbing people of their money thinking they don’t know the price of Korean food? No wonder the place was so empty. Please, SAVE YOUR MONEY. You can go to Ktown Food Gallery 32 in Manhattan for a real lunch special, pay $20-30 tops, and have a more authentic meal. Shame...

VERY rude establishment. Experienced Discrimination. TERRIBLY RUDE Staff and VERY BAD service. I wish I read the earlier reviews. Let me start by saying that I rarely ever leave reviews but the disrespect and discriminating experience we felt, needs to be documented. They do not conceal their rudeness and are not welcoming at all.  I do not understand how they are even in the F&B industry. Came with my spouse and 2 kids at 3pm for a very light meal as we were just craving some BBQ pork and just wanted a light touch before our heavy dinner. Upon entry, Waiter 1 took a while before just pointing rudely to a table. We sat down and waited for a bit before he came back and we proceeded to order the BBQ pork which is by the way is over $32 (equivalent to 2 main entrees) as well as a steam egg. We said that would be all for now and he gave us a very weird and ugly look and told us to order more. I have never experienced any issues ever about waiters judging the portions I order. I usually over order and this leads to wastage and hence did not want to make that same mistake this time around. He was pissed and stomps off.... I notice a group of Koreans behind me having a lot of variety of Banchan and thought thank goodness we did not order another dish which we would probably not be able to finish.

Waiter 1 proceeds to come back after some time with our Banchan and i noticed it was half of the variety and portions that was given to the Koreans behind us. It was obvious that this was clear discrimination. My spouse asked for more Kimchi and Waiter 1 Scoffed.

Across from us, I saw Waiter 2 explaining the menu to another seated couple. I decided to signal to Waiter 2 to see if we could get more of the tofu skin cause the kids wanted more and all of a sudden he pretended he did not speak english!!! He was literally speaking perfect English a min ago and now he could not speak English. I was in shock and did not understand why they were doing this. We were literally super polite from the get go. Waiter 1 then shouts that if we wanted 1 more tofu skin banchan, there will be a "surcharge". I am happy to pay for the banchan but what I could not tolerate was the discrimination. There was no reason to do that and I had no space for that.

At this juncture, I had lost trust in them and the food they were cooking. We decided to leave due to this horrible treatment and Waiter 1 tried to make us pay for the meal they were "cooking". We declined and proceeded to walk out and he shouted to never come again (which is a resounding theme in the reviews below - it seems like other people have also experienced this!).

My advice would be to STAY AWAY from this restaurant. From where I come, if there is no basic respect, there is no respect for the business. There is another Korean restaurant just 5 mins from here called WOORAM and they are FANTASTIC. Their service and food is simply amazing. We made a mistake by coming to Keum Ho Garden Korean BBQ and I hope you will re-consider going after...