Gaju Gimbap — Restaurant in Los Angeles

TLDR: great gimbap for a reasonable price, extremely rude and borderline shady practice.

For a long time I've actually been recommending Gaju Gimbap a lot. However, my last visit as well as those by friends and family were severely disappointing.

The food is great as always. They have a whole crew in the back that makes some of the most amazing kimbaps ever. Very little rice, which is always a plus, and full of the ingredients. Not too salty at all, and the rice is perfectly fluffy without being too wet. FYI, all of the kimbaps go through the same cutting machine from what I was able to see, so if you're someone who's vegetarian or vegan I'd keep that in mind.

The service, or lack thereof. As a Korean I'm acutely familiar with and am fully immersed in the culture. However, this was just not it. The cashiers were having some issues with the person checking out just before me with their card or something, and the issue seemed to go on for well around 10 or so minutes. I wasn't in a rush for anything and although I saw my food ready I didn't want to bother them. One of the ladies (one who wears her glasses all the way down the bridge of her nose) then looked at the order sheet multiple times and seemed to go back and fourth with adding and then removing the kimbaps. But I figured they probably had a whole system and knew what they were doing so I just waited until they were ready. She then called up my number and I just verified that this was the 4 kimbaps and 1 noodle I ordered. I asked because they were split into two containers and one singular roll, so I wanted to make sure there wasn't one missing or something. She then got quite short with me, then said in a rather sharp and purposefully slowed voice "do you see this one, this one, and this one? huh? they're all in here, jeez!". I was taken aback but having seen the card altercation they had 10 minutes prior I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, thanked her for verifying, and requested 5 pairs of chopsticks (we ordered enough for 5 people and were going to share).

She then goes "FIVE? FIVE CHOPSTICKS? Why do you need FIVE chopsticks to eat this?" and at this point I got really annoyed because I felt like requesting five sets of utensils for a large order of this size was completely reasonable (I mean, otherwise how does one eat the noodles?) and it's quite literally written on their wall "Utensils for to-go orders will not be provided unless requested". So for being respectful of their policy and following their directions I was told off.

I then explained that we had five people total that were sharing and that we planned to eat using chopsticks. She then continued to comment "I just don't understand why you'd even need FIVE chopsticks but whatever". She then asked if I was buying anything from the Gaju market. I wasn't, and it was such a random question that I asked her "No, but how is this relevant?" and she said "well if you are, then you can ask the cashiers for utensils when you check out. that way it doesn't come out of OUR supply and it just goes out from the market's". So I told her, "well but I would still be buying the kimbap to eat from your store and not the market itself, so the need for a utensil would come as a result of the items that your store sells rather than other unrelated products I might be buying from the market". Then she put on a very condescending face and said "Hahaha I'm trying to teach you that when you DO buy from the market you need to do that so the chopsticks won't be coming out from our shop, okay? Like do you get it now?"

I couldn't believe that this lady was trying to school me into saving like what - 7 cents at most for her shop? by exploiting the market they were renting out of. All that for five chopsticks like please. It was such a ridiculous experience and in good conscience I cannot recommend this place to others anymore, unfortunately. Great good is one thing, but being treated even remotely as a person who deserves an inkling of respect is something you won't be able to find in this...

I had the absolute worst service here today. I usually don’t bother writing yelp reviews, but the service I received here was really offensive and something I hope nobody else ever receives, I want to let future customers know. I was there to order 2 rolls of gimbap to-go. It was busy there, so when my order didn’t seem ready after 20 minutes, I still waited patiently and did not even bother them. After 30 minutes and noticing that they were calling out order numbers 10 after mine, I went up to ask. Politely. The lady at the cashier told me to wait, it’s coming. I waited 5 more minutes and when I was sure they had lost my order I confronted her more. There was no apologizing at all, but she was murmuring that she’s really annoyed in Korean and told me ‘do you want your money back?’. No apology, at all and she only showed more frustration at me and even faulted the ladies busy making the gimbap that they lost the order. She even said she only got there not too long ago so she did not take my order— but the truth is she was the one who took my order. I will never ever return here, I was so disgusted by how I was treated here. I don’t care how good their food is, if the service is terrible, they do not deserve...

In just about 3 weeks ago, a lady in front of me was shouting to me, look at that, and I watched it clearly that a lady dropped pieces of spinach on the very filthy dirty floor and she picked it up and put it on the roll. The lady in front of me was shouting and what the cashier or maybe the owner said to her unbelieveable words " If you don't like go to expensive restaurant's." The lady called the California Market manager to compliant about the situation and I left. I am a regular customer there but as I witnessed the situation a will never go there again. If I happened to video the incident I would have reported to health organization, but unfortunely, incident...