BBQ Garden — Restaurant in Houston

Saw this place on Tiktok and the woman was raving that it’s the best KBBQ in Houston. So we had to try it.

So, it’s on North Gessner, north of I-10, in a slightly beat up strip center. If I lived a block away and wasn’t told about it, I would have never gone in. We went late afternoon on a Saturday and it was pretty quiet.

We walked in and we were warmly greeted. It is a unique (to me) set up with private booths on both sides and tables in the middle. We were seated in a private booth, which is actually pretty cool and with the door open it’s not super secluded. A very nice server came in, gave us menus and after we looked a little we had questions and she suggested the Galbi for two, which we took. The Galbi has marinated short rib meat and a couple of other high end beef cuts.

Shortly after, a guy comes in and places a pot with burning wood/charcoal embers and then food starts coming from everywhere. All of the usual sides along with a very very good miso soup. Our server started the cooking and I asked if we take it off and she said yes. I’m not sure if I asked them to cook it if they would so I just went with it and cooked the meat. One note about that - we were cooking some and then eating it and near the end with about a third of our meat left, the embers were not as hot (still cooked but slowly). So my tip is, cook and eat as you go and put it on the side, don’t dally.

The beef was so good. The charcoal imparted a nice backyard grill flavor. And they have this little dip with salt and pepper (and soy and olive oil?) that made the meat so good. Everything was really fantastic. The kimchi had a unique spicy kick and I ate it all knowing it was good for me.

For dessert, they bring a little bowl of rice punch, which doesn’t look like much (looks like pasta water with some floating specks of rice) but since everything else was so good I knew this was good. And it was. Really just sweet starchy water but it was good.

So, I agree with the TikTok reviews - this is a top 3 place for KBBQ in Houston. ...

Family wanted to try this Korean restaurant. We came early (after 11am on Sun) and seated in a private room with a grill in the middle of the table. Upon observation, definitely a hole in the wall restaurant. The table and chairs were indeed a need of replacements. They were sticky and gross...prob from years of grilling. Anyway we ordered the following items from the menu:

Seafood pancake - the outside was crispy and there were small pieces of squid and shrimp maybe scallops in the thin pancake. Dipped it in a sweet jalapeno garlic soy sauce provided on the table which brought out the flavor of the pancake; I recommend ordering

Fried dumpling - entire dumpling was fried and the filling was a little dry to eat. I had to have sauce to eat with it. I think they over cooked as the outside was a bit chewy

Jokbal - it is a pork dish (pork trotter or pig feet) cooked in a soy sauce and spice broth. It was a subtle dish which comes with 2 sauces on the side (one salty and one sweet). If you like gelatinous pork skin then this is for you. For me there wasn't much flavor without dipping into the sauce

Fried chicken wings - crispy and sweet soy glaze on the outside, moist and juicy on the inside. Decent size wings. Definitely recommend this!

K army stew - disappointed with this dish, it had processed meat i.e. hot dog and bologna like meat with kimchi, bean sprouts and dry instant noodles. The broth lacked flavor and I thought this stew would have spam and beans but no it doesn't. It came with 2 small bowls of rice so we divided up with the 4 of us

The meals came with 6 or 7 types of banchan (small little side dishes such as kimchi, marinated cucumber, pickled diakon, etc). At the end the waitress brought us sweet and cold rice tea. As a note if you need to call the waitstaff you need to press the button on the back wall since we were sitting in a private room. The service was friendly and we didn't need to use the button to call as they checked up on us every so often. We may come back to try...

It makes me sad to put this rating because I make it a priority to come all the way from cypress just to eat this delicious food but last night I was highly disappointed in the service and staff/management .

We had multiple servers . It was like they were so busy but there were only a few family there . We were seated and waited 15 mins for our drinks . We had to push the service button

Then when our food arrived the gas for the burner was empty (a different server ) then comes and says he will bring a new one and will be right back We waited a additional 10 min and then see the gentleman serving a complete different family ... ( out raw food is just sitting on the hot plate by the way ) so we again push the service button and tell a female server the issue she says she will be back .... but never returns . Fed up we get the attention of the first server who said he would be getting us gas he says "oh yess I forgot hmm I think I have to get a new gas can " when the whole time that's what we have been waiting for him to bring us so we could o eat .After he brings us the gas we are not talked to by another server . Nobody asked us if we needed refills or anything else . We had to ring the service bill for the check after sitting at the table looking around the place for a open server to close us out. We even had to ask for the complimentary rice /water ......... To make matters worse when we leave the owner or one of the managers chases us out of the doors and yells " excuse me tip is not included ?!" At this point I'm outraged and explain to her the horrible service we experienced but even still you should NOT in any case chase down customers out the door for "a tip when first I didn't know who to give to because there was so many people coming to our table and nobody honestly deserved it. Sadly you will loose to faithful customers if the matter isn't resolved or future customers. Hopefully this review sheds some Light on the attitudes and likelihood...