GANGNAM KOREAN BBQ & HOTPOT AYCE — Restaurant in Greenville

After waiting a couple of weeks from the opening for any "kinks" to have a chance to be sorted out, my fiancée, a friend, and I were quite excited to try the place out. It's worth noting we're not strangers to the format of hot pot or Korean BBQ. There are many caveats people may have when dealing with these types of restaurants. Many people feel somehow slighted by having to cook their own food. I will not be considering these viewpoints in this review, as I am a fan of the format and am happy to be able to make things to my liking. Your enjoyment will mirror the effort and knowledge you bring; mishandle your ingredients, and your experience might not be so great. There are many types of ingredients, and therefore flavors. Use them!

Now, I feel there are 3 main topics worth talking about: the BBQ, the hotpot, and the overall experience.

Starting with the BBQ; this is my new favorite in NC. The ingredients were fresh and phenomenal. You can tell just by looking that quality is a top priority. I was very happy with the serve-yourself style of ingredients. Not having to wait for someone to come to you, and being able to take as much of whatever you'd like, is really something special. The only real reservation I have is the single grill per table. This works fine for 1-3, is a bit congested but manageable for 4, and anything 5 plus would need to be rotating with hotpot to be feasible. All told, I would give the BBQ a 9.75/10.

On to hot pot. The options for ingredients are the same as the BBQ, but here, there's more emphasis on the sauce and accessories bar, with a host of offerings to customize your meal. You can certainly use it for the BBQ as well, but it's definitely more for the hotpot. And, unfortunately, you will most likely need to utilize it to have a good experience. At least for the 2 broths I tried (classic chicken-based and bone broth), there was simply far less flavor than I am accustomed to. The broths at most hotpot restaurants are what make the format so special. So, even though there are fantastic ingredients, I found myself somewhat letdown with the results. I think with the right combo of ingredients from the sauce and accessories bar, this could absolutely be circumvented. Nevertheless, the default broth is just uninspired. Perhaps adding some sort of menu for flavor recommendations would be a good approach if a better broth offering isn't immediately available. That said, I would still give the hotpot a 7/10 in it's current state.

Now, for the overall experience.

Our group went fairly late, not seated until just after 8pm. We spent around 2 hours at the restaurant, and during that time, all ingredients were kept stocked and fresh. The photos you see were taken at about 9:50pm. I couldn't be happier with the attentiveness of the staff in cleaning, restocking, and keeping things presentable. Our waitress was similarly attentive, and the manager came by multiple times to check on us and gauge our experience. I have no negatives here at all. You'll very likely have to wait for a seat if you go on a weekend, but that's no fault of the restaurant. The restroom was clean, and no complaints come to mind. Perhaps the last thing of note was the beverage offerings. I didn't ask for a spirits menu, so I can't confirm if they sell alcohol. They did, however, have an open cooler setup for bottled beverages not unlike that at a grocery store. I quite liked this. For a very reasonable $2.99, you got access to basically unlimited bottled and canned beverages. There were sodas, but also tea, fruit beverages, and more.

All told, the overall experience at Burnin 99 was excellent, and I would absolutely recommend it to a friend, or fellow stranger on the Internet. If you're okay with the format, I see no reason not to like/love this place. I fear for my wallet and waistline, but am quite grateful to have an excellent Korean barbecue and hotpot restaurant nearby....

First and last time for me. From top to bottom this place was just bad. I hate it because I was really hoping this place would be somewhere that I could come often. They have a lot of kinks to work out if they want to stay open longer than 6 months to a year.

Food The food was very mid-quality and it is served buffet style with raw meet sitting out in the open. This raises concern for contamination between meats, meat juices getting into non-meat food, etc. If this is your cup of tea and you do not care about sanitation, you will be fine. (Every other Korean BBQ/Hotpot restaurant that I have been to, you order from the table and they bring the food to you from the kitchen). The buffet has food mislabeled and labels missing over some foods. They cover the grill in the center of the table with wax paper which takes away from the experience in my opinion. My guess is that this is due to them not wanting to have to clean the grill between parties.

Service The service was some of the worst that I have ever had. Our waitress was very nice but it seemed that she was too busy and working too many tables. Because you serve yourself at the buffet, their only job for the most part is to bring gallon containers of water to the table so that you can serve yourself water. We asked for water 4-5 times throughout the whole meal and did not have a single refill of water brought to our table.

Positives: The workers taking dirty plates to the back were very quick and did not let empty plates sit around. The general manager was nice and efficient. I watched him politely ask our server to focus on our table after he noticed we were waiting for things. The service somehow got worse after he said that though.

End note: They have containers of ice cream at the buffet for desert. They are frozen and they serve them with a plastic spoon. It looks like you are sword fighting your ice cream for the first 10 minutes before it warms up. A simple fix would be to give your customers real spoons.

The owners should go eat at So Hot in Cary, NC to see how one of these restaurants...

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience here last night. The food was fantastic! I got the spicy hotpot (it’s actually spicy) and my wife got the mushroom base hotpot. Both were delicious.

The selection of raw meats and vegetables are served buffet style and is self serve. To some this may be off-putting, but as someone who does not have a lot of experience with hotpot, I actually found it more approachable and less intimidating than ordering off of a menu. There was also a lot of visual aids for how to do hotpot or Korean bbq, which is really nice.

The service was actually quite good! It was quite busy but not on a wait when we arrived, yet our server was attentive and seemed to have good support from her colleagues. We always had everything we needed when we needed it, and I assume this will only get better as they continue to work out the kinks.

Finally the atmosphere is an absolute show stopper! They have tons of beautiful lights and decorations, along with a massive video wall that was playing episodes of a popular Japanese anime. I actually thought it was really appropriate, and made the wall sort of a work of moving art which I think even non anime fans would approve of.

The pricing I think is fair but may seem a little pricey if you aren’t familiar with the concept, expect to spend around $80-$100 dollars here for two.

At one point the core manager came speak to our table briefly. He was an incredible host who made us feel really welcome. We could tell he was hungry for feedback and really wanted to make this the best new dining experience in Greenville, and I think they are on the right track. We were told they are working on getting the necessary permits to serve alcohol, so we can expect to have a lovely dinner with drinks there again in the near future. If you haven’t tried hotpot or Korean barbecue, give this place a try, it’s different but have an open mind, and I think you will find this to be one of the most fun places to eat in...