Seoul Garden Yakiniku — Restaurant in Honolulu

Happy with the food, love the ambiance and the decoration of the place. Service? Totally ruined my experience. They did not offer the "all you can eat" menu. Had to be told by our friendly neighbor seated next to us (party of two, me and my boyfriend) about the deal. Brushing that off, we took their advice and asked for the all you can eat menu. Everything was going ok and decent, just pressed the button of service once for more salad, miso paste and one more round of meat. All was good, up until the end of paying. Never in my entire life was I given back my receipt to add more "tip" because the written amount isn't what you hoped for.

Tip is a token of GRATITUDE, not something an establishment has immediate privilege to have. Truth I'm not a wow great big ol tip throw money left and right, but I give what I can within reason. To be given back the receipt and said "leave 10% you have to leave 10%" and then being asked if I was local and from here. First of all, what does my residency have to do with the amount of gratitude? Which I am, BUT TOTALLY BESIDES THE POINT. Locals know the point of cost of living in Oahu and to LOUDLY give back the receipt and COMPLAIN of the tip that was originally written by your customer ato complain "it's not enough" by your standards? Never coming here again.

If you have the money to blow + want to be submissive and have someone tell you the tip x amount. Sure I recommend this place. Knock yourself out, but as for me and other fellow customers who want to be serviced with RESPECT. Keep walking and skip this restaurant.

Update: I'm still extremely bothered and angry. Calculating again, how the lady server said "Leave at least 10%" Regrettably not calculating and my boyfriend adding cash more in the tip. my original tip was 10% anyway! SOMEONE REPORT THIS RESTAURANT TO THE CONSUMER PROTECTION OFFICE. THEIR RIDICULOUSLY RUDE, SHAMING AND BULLYING...

We came here on a Saturday, noon. There are couple of stalls in front of the restaurant. They have lunch specials for certain dishes and they also have an all-you-can-eat yakiniku. We ordered a bibimbap in hot stone bowl, spicy barbecue chicken with seaweed soup and small bowl of rice, and bulgogi with mixed rice in hot stone pot and spicy tofu soup. To start off, they gave five banchan (small dishes) of kimchi and veggies. They offer to refill two of them, if you ask. The bibimbap was delicious, they give bottle of bibimbap sauce where you can squirt as much of it onto the rice. The spicy barbecue chicken was good as well. Not sure if it is mixed with gochujang and other spices, but the spice level was more mild and sweet. This dish comes with a small bowl and seaweed soup and rice. The bulgogi with mixed rice in hot stone bowl and a choice of either seaweed or spicy tofu soup. The bulgogi dish was marinated well and wasn’t salty. Went with the spicy tofu soup, it came out piping hot! The spice level was a three out of ten, but it was favored well. I think they used half of a tofu. The mixed rice in stone pot came out last cause it is made to order - dip it in the tofu soup to soften it up. They gave a metal pitcher containing hot water for you to pour into the stone bowl and scrape off the hardened rice, if you like rice crackers then definitely do it. Each set was $15 - $20. The staff was friendly and super nice. Really prompted. There is also a call them on the table where to ask for them. They take all major credit cards and cash. Parking might be a little harder to come by at night cause there is a...

Let me start this off with I've been to this place a couple times and, food wise, it's one of the better Korean joints on Oahu. The bibimbap, bulgogi, and the soups are awesome. The decor isn't anything to write home about but it's better than most Korean joints here and both comfortable and private.

My main gripe here is service and price. Dinner is way overpriced (about $30 a person) though lunch is pretty affordable. Service-wise it's very abrupt and Korean oriented, i.e. haole's are expected to know what they want and questions are near impossible (given most of the staff barely speaks understandable English); they are also extremely abrupt and prone to ignoring you MID SENTENCE to chat with their girlfriends.

That being said I put up with it all as the food was pretty solid but I'm done after today; never again. Today was the second time in my life a waitress actually ran out to the parking lot and beat on my door window because I gave a less than expected (8% instead of expected 18%) tip even though she didn't do a damn thing the entire hour I was there other than bring the food, ignore my wife, start texiting her friends mid-sentence in an order, and make under-her-breath snorts and comments about the food we ordered. For example my daughter wanted some Oolang tee and she said, as she was writing it down, "Oolang not for kids, why the order that" in that just perceptible but deniable passive aggressive tone.

So basically food good, price about 25% to much, and service COMPLETE CRAP (even for an...