H Pot Korean BBQ & Hot Pot — Restaurant in Herndon

Me and my bestie came here after he got a coupon in the mail. When we arrived, we were immediately impressed by the interior decorations and overall atmosphere. Our server was kind and chatted with us, and he gave a good overview of how the restaurant worked. However, the ordering system is through a tablet, so we didn't see him too many times after that, which was a shame. I think they were busy. All the cooking was completely independent. We ended up doing the hot pot and KBBQ combo, which was overwhelming. I'd recommend not doing them at the same time, at least not for your first visit.

I'll talk about the hot pot first. We were surprised that the lineup of broths doesn't include a Shabu Shabu. I got the Tom Yum, which was really good! My friend got the Chutney Gold, which he said wasn't very flavorful but was fine. The selection of vegetables was superb. We also enjoyed the options for noodles and dumplings. The pots seemed a little shallow, and there is not a broth refill request option on the tablet menu, which I think would be a good idea to add. We were unfortunately disappointed by the sauce bar as it wasn't to our taste. I'm sure lots of people would enjoy their options, but personally, I did not like the sesame paste they had available. It seemed too overpowering/bitter to me. I'm accustomed to other places where they offer a sesame sauce that already has some other ingredients in it, so the sesame flavor is more balanced. After we failed to make a delicious sauce ourselves, we did try one of the posted recipes, but we didn't really like it either.

The KBBQ experience was not as good as I had hoped. It makes sense that the layout of the table needs to be different to accommodate both the KBBQ and hot pot options, but the lack of a hood directly over the grill was definitely a negative aspect for me. The smoke was excessive and made our dining experience worse. We would have turned off the grill ourselves, but we didn't quite know how it worked. A mayday button on the tablet for help with the grill might be a good idea to add for the future! The meats were mostly fine, but the beef tasted somewhat low quality to us. The grill vegetable options were nice. My friend isn't really a seafood guy, but he liked the garlic shrimp. We were disappointed that the sauce bar lacked some options we are accustomed to having at a KBBQ spot. It seems mostly geared for the hot pot.

There were some snacking foods like fruit available, but the whole serving bar was quite sticky, which made it undesirable. The ice cream was fun, and we were happy to end our meal with some dessert. This is a bit random, but the booth I was sitting at wasn't bolted to the floor or anything, which caused it to shift and move anytime I stood up. It also moved when the people sitting on the other side did, which was awkward. Overall, this place wasn't necessarily bad. We know it's new and will continue to improve as they get feedback. Today though, due to our tastes and expectations based on prior dining experiences, we found our meal wasn't quite what we...

We are huge fans of hot pot & Korean BBQ and go often to these type of places. We walked in at 4pm on a Tuesday and there was no wait. Restaurant was pretty empty but that's to be expected at that time of day. It pains me to give this place a bad review but I hope management and owners will take heed of my honest review. Feel free to contact me as well if you would like additional feedback. It is my hope that this place succeeds:

PROS: -Beautiful decor. Everything was new and you can tell a lot of money was spent to ready the restaurant. -Friendly and fast service. -Clean (it's brand new)

CONS: -Meat quality is extremely poor. Rough, chewy and improperly marinated. Tastes bad -Hot pot broth is okay. I would rate it a 6/10. It wasn't the greatest . -The buffet/bar was okay. No appetizers like fried foods (chicken wings, fried rice, French fries etc or additional foods that you can eat while waiting for food to cook ) -Missing things that we are accustomed to on a hot pot/bbq place such as proper spices to add to meats. They only had salt and pepper. -All tables have 6 individual soup burners but one very small circular grill for table. You would definitely be waiting time to eat for a bigger group. Might not get full by the time your 2 hours are up . -Food ordering was slow and often missed or wrong . -Make sure you use oil before adding meat to grill or it will burn and stick . -Vents not that strong causing you to walk out of restaurant smelling like BBQ (the bad smelling kind and not a delicious smell) -Complete copy of K Pot restaurants down to the ordering system, set up.

We wanted badly to love this place because it is in great convenient location. We will give them a chance to read reviews and hope they take heed of the advices people are giving and improve . It is clear a lot of money have been spent so I hope the owner is wise enough to take care of their investment and improve . We won't be coming back for a while to give them time to adjust . We will try again a few months later and if they improve, I will be more than happy to...

I’m extremely disappointed with my recent experience here and would like to understand how this could be fixed. My partner and I have been to many KBBQ and hot pot restaurants, but this was by far the worst. From the start, our server made us feel incompetent, even though we’re familiar with how to cook and take our time to enjoy KBBQ. She insisted on ‘helping,’ and proceeded to dump all the raw meat next to our cooked meat, then asked how we preferred it cooked, only to walk away immediately after.

Only an hour into our meal, she asked with a tone, ‘You guys aren’t going to order more KBBQ, right?’—a question that made us uncomfortable. It seemed like she didn’t want to continue replacing our grill tray, which kept burning due to the overly high temperature settings she used from the start. Her irritation with having to replace the tray made things worse, even though it was her error with the settings that caused the tray and food to burn so quickly.

Additionally, she was not attentive with our hot pot. My broth boiled down until my noodles started burning, and by the time I finally managed to ask for more, she made it seem like it was my fault for not asking sooner. This isn’t typical for a hot pot experience, where staff usually monitor broth levels.

My drinking water situation was also frustrating. I left my empty cup at the edge of the table for 40 minutes, hoping for a refill, but eventually had to ask because I was parched by this point. This was truly unnecessary.

The final disappointment was during payment. She turned the payment screen around with a preset 25% tip option and simply asked me to ‘sign my name,’ clearly hoping I wouldn’t notice. Tipping guidelines aside, I found it outrageous to preset a high tip after providing such inattentive and uncomfortable service.

I’ve never had such a bad experience at KBBQ and hot pot, and I’m left wondering how or why this happened. I hope management can address these issues to prevent others from going through a...