Chosun Korean BBQ — Restaurant in Federal Way

First of all, If you're thinking of coming here for BBQ, note that the prices for the BBQ combos on their website are not accurate. Check my menu pictures for the current prices (as of August 2023). I usually don't bother about small price changes, but these are significant enough, so I thought I’d mention it.

This was our family’s first time here. We requested seating in the non-BBQ section. About a minute after we sat down, a waitress approached us and asked if we were ready to order. I told her no and politely asked for about 10 minutes to look through the menu.

The waitress gave me an odd look and chuckled, making it seem like I had asked for something absurd. As she walked away, she spoke to another waitress who was nearby in Korean. The way she spoke and the chuckling suggested it wasn't something nice. Fortunately, my daughter is fluent in Korean (lol). She explained that our waitress was mocking me to her co-worker for requesting 10 minutes to decide.

Two minutes later, our waitress returned and asked if we were ready to order. We said no. She chuckled and walked away. About a minute later, she returned and pointed at the Chosun Combo dish section on the menu that I was holding and suggested that if we couldn't decide what to order, we could simply order the combos and share them. I thanked her for her suggestion but declined, told her that those dishes weren't what we had in mind. At this point, some of my family members were feeling increasingly uncomfortable and considered leaving but we decided to stay.

About five minutes later, a lady dressed in black who didn’t look like a waitress came to ask us if we were ready to place an order. She was significantly more patient and friendly. We were ready and we placed our order.

When our waitress brought the food, you could tell she wasn't in the best mood by the way she put down the dishes. We had ordered several dishes, most of which were our go-to Korean favorites that we usually order. Every single dish was delicious. I've been to many Korean restaurants in the US, and if I were to make a list, this place would easily be in my top 5. Sadly, our experience was spoiled by the service. We didn't see our waitress again until we were ready for a check. We paid and left.

It's unfortunate. The food was great but we won’t be returning. We are food enthusiasts, who dine out regularly to enjoy good meals and spend quality time together. We don’t need a side of negativity with our food. While it's possible our waitress had a bad day or personal issues affecting her behavior; we would rather not risk another...

You know its a bad sign and a restuarant would fail if that place serves more than one type of food in one resturant... i knew this place was not going to be good but gave it try anyway. They serve korean bbq, tofu soups, terriyaki, and regular korean traditional foods. That is a lot to have in one menu... not typical to have a korean resturant to serve so many differnet types (terriyaki is not even korean)...

Anyway, We came between lunch and dinner time so there were not a lot of people... when we came in none of the workers there did not know what to do (where to seat us, including other customers who came after us).... eventually seated... since this place does both tofu soup and korean bbq as their main speciality, they should have asked us which one are we having so they can seat us at the right type of table. But they never asked... when we ordered, we can tell the waiter was still new at all of this because there were may things missed... turned out the manager and the waiter's communication was horrible, she literally was scolding them what they were doing wrong in front of us and other customers...

My food came out first with the side dishes (I ordered sangae tang chicken soup), and my parents food (tofu soup), the waiter said will come out soon... but almost 40ish min later, their soup came out, but not only that, whoever made the soup, forgot to put eggs in the soups... but my parents were starving at that point so we just mentioned to them and just ate.. the rice on stone bowl that comes with the soup was not made correctly, very watery.... and didn't provide side bowls that come with all this... we know this because we're korean and we've been to other tofu houses before. Other customers around us were still waiting for a long time, too....

I'm really suprised my their unprofessionalism of this place, the owners are known to have experience in running other korean resturants but they could not even handle nor communicate with their staff correctly, and their food... they apoligized for any mishap as they recently hired a different staff at the kitchen but still this was really horiible experience. They were only serving maybe around 6 tables at the time (including us) and they couldnt even handle that...

Also a bad sign for a Korean bbq if you come and notice they don t even have a vent for each table for the bbq tables... its...

We ate dinner last night for our first time here and we did the ayce which was $44.99 per adult. Our party had 4 adults and a 1 year old baby. Beware, you will get charge 20% on top of your bill for 5 people or more even if the other person in your party is a 1 year old who barely even eats!

I really didnt like the vibe as soon as we entered, i felt like the male working/serving was very rude. My sister's husband told him there was 4 adults because he didnt want to count my 1 year old neice as the 5th person because we know she BARELY eats. But the server/hostess still insisted we had 5 people and began to say you told me theres 4 people but there's 5 over and over over again which was sort of frustrating.

Tbh their meat quality was good ill give them that. We really liked their marinated beef short ribs the most. Its unlimited, but they make you choose 3 meats per order until you finish the meat till you can pick again. Their size portion per order is really small unlike other kbbq places I've been too so we had to keep asking for more meat. They have alot of meat options and the ayce kbbq also includes an all you can eat ramen/soup and all you can eat Appetizer. The male serving/hostess kept rushing everytime we had to pick meat so we didnt even get a chance to try their ramen/soup and their appetizers because as soon as we picked our meat he would leave and we would barely get a chance to order other stuff that was included in their ayce menu so i had to ask another person. Tbh we would of tried more of the items that were included in the ayce menu if they would of actually gave us a chance to order them instead of rushing and leaving after we picked meats so we didnt bother asking anymore.

Our total bill was $244 with the gratuity for 4 adults and a 1 year old.

Would I come back again? Maybe.. if they had better service and friendly workers who weren't rushing...