Khói_ Hot Pot and Grills (AYCE buffet) — Restaurant in Lacey

Edit since the owner replied: Thank you for taking the time to reply. I appreciate responses from owners. I'm glad you were able to see footage and address that the table was properly set. I just wish the tongs weren't taken back from the table to move our cooked food..that still threw us off. The technical issue was, in fact, not rectified by any server. She did look at it and said it was a technical difficulty then walked away. We assumed she was getting someone.after several minutes we noticed it still was not cooking our food, I turned it off then on again and it fixed it. Your employees are extremely nice, i never complained about that, just the overall flow. Mainly because a used utensil from the next table was used to move our food. With that being said, I felt I should and could share our experience as first time customers. After asking for the correct soup base, the tongs incident, and fixing the technical issue myself, I did not feel comfortable enough to have anyone resolve anything. Also, thank you for clarifying about the rice. I'll be sure to ask next time. I just assumed there was none since not seeing any. I'll own that. My husband ended up saying it'll be too filling anyway. Hence why we didn't ask. There is absolutely no malicious intent behind my review, I apologize if it comes across that way. Also, thank you for clarifying the health department code. I'm not an inspector, and I don't expect to hear back from them, but hopefully they could clarify with you directly, not through me.

I'm really bummed to do this review. After seeing a TikTok of this restaurant, I was super excited to try it out. We went there tonight for dinner. The restaurant itself is nicely decorated. kind of small and probably needs better ventilation because the first thing I noticed was how smokey it was. The host was also our server. Everything started off great. She explained to us how it worked since it was our first time there. We ordered spicy broth and normal beef broth (we had our 2 kids with us). They don't have rice available btw. Which seemed odd to me. For the broth, I saw she had dropped it at a different table by accident I guess? , then brought it to us. (Red flag 1) She said it was tom yum. I had let her know we didn't order tom yum, but normal broth and spicy broth. She told me that I did order it then walked away. I just ignored it because I knew they were busy and the other table didn't touch it. It still was okay tasting. We also had the grill going, the older gentleman switched out our hot plates. They didn't give us tongs so we were using chopsticks the whole time. We didn't know there were tongs available. He didn't see our tongs, proceeded to grab the tongs from the table that was next to us, to move our food to a plate that had raw meat. Then switched the hot plates. I had ZERO time to react it happened so fast. The table next to us grabbed their tongs back...and I apologized to them and just sat there in disbelief. I was over it at that point. Then, our hot plates wasn't working. We had let the female server know. She apologized and said it was probably technical difficulties then walked away. We waited for little 5 minutes, thinking she would fix it or have someone help us. No one did. So I just fiddled with the buttons then it worked again. I was so annoyed at this point. We finished what we had and left. I'm not sure how long this place has been open, but I'll give it at least a year before I attempt to come here again. I'm giving the health dept a call in the morning so hopefully they can make sure the food and utensils handling process is being followed. Because I have never been to a place that uses a neighboring tables utensils to move food around.

Overall, the food was okay. The selection was quite smaller than I was expecting. Not having Rice was weird. And I feel like the serving utensils for the cold foods should be separated, not in the bin WITH the food. I'm gunna look that up cus that seems odd. But the whole experience was just.....not great....

Dec 2024 We came on a weekday night and they were pretty quiet. Note this is a cook it yourself place, the staff DO NOT cook the food for you. They offer both communal hot pot (up to 2 broths) and bbq at every table. Note the AYCE price includes both styles even if you only use one. They also have a minimum of 2 people required per party.

The place is decently lit, with four 4 people booths and five 4 people booth-chair tables. In the back are two 6 people booth-chair tables. Each table has insets for the communal hot pot and grill. The controls for those are under one side of the table. They provide each table with 2 soup spoons (one with holes) with hooks on the handles, 2 tongs (one longer than the other), scissors, a container of ice water, and napkins. All plates, bowls, and utensils are located by the food bar.

The food bar includes AYCE appetizers, sauces, meats, veggies, and desserts. Everything is neatly labeled and can be used in either the hot pot or the grill. The meats are kept cold or frozen. Some of them, particularly the squid, are frozen into very solid blocks you can't take apart. We were a little bit disgruntled by that.

Otherwise, they are sliced neatly and seem fresh. We were pleasantly pleased to see the angus eyeround had very little fat. The veggies were all very fresh. I am pretty sure the macarons are from Costco.

Note that noodles, certain meats, and all drinks (besides water and hot tea) are charged extra.

Service was very minimal. After delivering our hot pot, they left us alone unless taking away used plates or changing the grill. We did request a refill of the hot pot, but I think they either forgot or didn't understand. There were 2 staff that day, and their English did not seem very good. I am also pretty sure one of them didn't speak English at all. At least, I didn't notice them speaking. They were both polite.

There are 2 whatever gender bathrooms. They were both clean and dry. They had a little sign by the toilet paper that encouraged (but didn't outright state) you should not put the toilet paper in the toilet. The trashcan is located right next to the toilet.

Some last notes. No takeout on AYCE items, only items that you pay extra for. Any excessive leftovers is charged an additional $15/lb. If they are busy, they enforce a 90min time limit, and going over time could result in additional charges. If your party is 6 or more people, they charge an 18% service fee. They have a 15% discount for seniors, military, and veterans (not applicable to family and friends). Kids are charged based on height (they have a measuring stick by the door). Last seating is 60min before closing.

Overall, this was an ok hot pot & bbq place. Not as good as places that specialize in one or the other. The food selection was limited, but all the food quality was pretty good (minus the frozen clumps of food). The service was very minimal and could have...

added update due to resturant response

First to accuse us of causing a scene is insane. We were loading him into the car when I asked my husband what it cost. When he told me the price I said "I don't think that's right he should have been free" and my husband calmly walked in and asked about it. His shoes have nothing to do with anything. if you had a problem we could have put them back on. When loading him in the car we remove his shoes. You may be okay with kids putting dirty shoes on your seat but we don't. Not once was my husband or I rude in any manner nor confrontational. Asking a simple question after checking out isn't a crime. I also said we tried adding items to increase flavor and it did not work to our liking. Apparently us returning to communicate regarding the price is a problem in your eyes and speaking in a calm conversational tone is also an issue. I would love to see the footage of my husband making a scene that your rebuttal claims. You don't have to agree with our review but stooping to lies is an absolute low. You can paint us as the bad guy and we are not saying the work put into a buffet doesn't deserve credit but we are talking about less than half a cup of white rice that a toddler consumed. And you say had we communicated things could have been diffrent.... well again, the attempt to communicate was rebuttled as causing a scene and when my husband said he only ate the ride and MAYBE tried one bite of something else he was left with POLICY IS POLICY ITS BASED ON HEIGHT NOTHING MORE. sure as hell does sound like communication would be an option.

Broth was bland. We even did a half and half. The spicy had zero spice, we even tried to add to it to make it spicy. Check your kids height, our 3 year old was just over the height and we were charged the 20+ for him. He ate nothing but half a bowl of rice. He wouldn't even eat the meat, veggies or noodles (which we half expected he is 3 and we brought him under the impression he qualified for the free kid portion not realizing he was barely over the height chart they have by the register) but that half a bowl of rice made him cost full price. Meat options were okay. We travel all over the world to diffrent countries even and hot pots are our favorite. I think this is the worst we have been to, especially when it comes to flavor. 100$ for 2 adults and a 3 year old is insane for not even 1 star quality food. We regret going and don't think it was...