Road to Seoul Korean BBQ (Western) 추풍령 — Restaurant in Los Angeles

The restaurant is terrific! Great food, fun music; lively, delicious and fun. A wonderful mix of people - all ages, different types of dress from t-shirts & shorts to nightclub clothes. I'd go back again for the food.

But...

The valet is HORRIBLE. It's cheap - only $2.50. I guess you get what you pay for.

I'd gone with a friend who drove her car. I'd left my car at her house and left my keys in her cupholder. We parked with the valet, they're busy but it didn't take too long. We went into the restaurant and had a great meal. We left and the car was returned to us promptly but my keys were missing from the cupholder. We thought that the valet probably just saw the keys and picked them up & put them on the board without thinking.

So, I went to the valet and said, "my keys are missing. I left them in the cup holder." He said, "if you left them there, then they are there". He went back to the car and proceeded to search the car - looking in the glove compartment, moving things out of the console, looking under the seats, etc. He didn't find the keys. He radioed another valet who came a few minutes later and told me, "if I parked the car, they would still be in the cup holder. If you left them in the car then they're still in the car". I said, "they're not in the car, the other guy just searched for them". This guy searched the car too. He couldn't find them either.

I asked if I could look in their key locker and they allowed me but my keys weren't there. The first guy said, "why would we take your keys? If you left them in the car they are still there". I was getting frustrated now, I didn't think that they were stolen, I thought that they had been misplaced/inadvertently removed from the car. I just needed my keys so that I could get home and get into my home.

The first guy told me again, "they're in your car" and asked if he could search the car. I said that he could but he'd already searched it once, his colleague searched it once, and my friend & I searched it as well. He searched again and didn't find them.

The second guy came back and said, "if I parked your car they would be here". I said, "Who parked the car? Can you ask whomever it was?" He said, "there are so many cars and so many people - I don't know". I asked what I should do, I couldn't leave without my keys, I'd left them in the car and now they were gone. He said, "why would I want your keys?".

None of this was useful. I just wanted to figure out who took my keys out of the car. I was assuming that it was an accident. I just wanted to get home. I asked what I should do. He said, "I don't know".

I didn't know what to do. Someone suggested that I call the police. I asked the second guy if I should. He said, "sure, call the police" and walked away. I called the non-emergency number and got a recording, I stayed on the line for about 5 minutes waiting to talk to someone and the first guy came running up to me. "Are these your keys?", he said. They were. He said that he found them in the parking lot. They'd clearly been run over by at least one car. The key ring was mangled and the plastic had popped off of the remote. One house key was missing. Luckily the plastic popped back into place and the remote didn't seem otherwise damaged. I hadn't gotten through to the police so just hung up.

No one figured out how the key got out of the cupholder and onto the ground of the parking lot. The first guy said to me, "I apologize for this". I said, "the keys are damaged". He said again, "I apologize" and walked away.

In all, it took over 25 minutes. The car was searched three times and we were told several times, "if you left them there, then they're still there".

A very frustrating experience.

Lesson learned - don't leave anything in your car at all when using a valet. Accidents happen but I was almost stranded because I trusted that an item left in the car...

I honestly didn't go in with any expectations, overall my experience was much less than great, I brought someone to this place hoping that this would be a great place for us to get to know each other over some food, i was wrong, the wait staff was extremely distracting and even quite rude to me, and i can see if i was somehow rude back but i never said a word really except trying to send the signals they were distracting lol Advise: a little self control can go a long way when your at work, They checked up on us way to often and constantly came and did things to our table without notifying us first like taking things and im fine with that but i mean i just dont think your suppose to enter the customers space while there eating without permission, its kind of like making the experience about you instead of letting the customer have there own experience but maybe its a cultural thing? im not sure it was my first time eating in one of these types of places and there are manythings that could have prompted this behavior (and thats where self control comes in handy) but i can honestly say i wont be going back if im the one to pay. I didn't like my conversations being interrupted constantly(like 5 times), i work in a restaurant so i do try my best to move around without being seen if that makes since, i mean i dont think its necessary for customers to constantly be aware of your presence as a worker unless its positive, or your trying to improve their conditions (water, taking plates..ect but even then your still polite about it) maybe i have it wrong and your not suppose to be nice to the guess, maybe my heads messed up lol i just didn't feel valued in any way as if they didn't want me to return in witch case i would say goal accomplished i didn't enjoy myself. I'm sure the people that work there are good people at heart, i'm also sure they work hard but last night (10/8/19) none of those things really stood out to me, There was a nice lady that seemed to be very kind to my friend which was nice but i mean. I really cant see myself returning here. You go out to places and spend money in my opinion to take a break from the world (a little) at least that what i do and last night instead of being able to focus on the person i brought, the world was right there, in the restaurant just as present and distracting and then said now that thats over its time for you to pay, i get somethings i just feel this could have been slightly different. Like i said its my first time at one of these places, many people like them, im sure i just wasn't the right fit for this kind of place. The food was much better then my experience but not good enough to get me to...

We celebrated our friend’s birthday on New Year’s Eve at Road to Seoul Korean AYCE BBQ Restaurant in Korea town, LA. There were parkings in the back of the restaurant. Self parked. A parking attendant collected a nominal $2.50 parking fee.

Typical AYCE Korean BBQ restaurant set up, lively and loud hip hop music. The restaurant looked a bit outdated. Reasonable AYCE pricing in LA. There were three menu tiers to choose from. We selected the middle tier, option B for $36.99 per person. Quality of the meat was good, better than most AYCE Korean BBQ places. We liked the beef galbi, bulgogi, spicy chicken and octopus. Did not care for the lamb steak. The fried pancake was a hit for us. We were not impressed with their banchan (side dishes), especially the japchae. Most Korean restaurants have a lot more banchan to offer. The steamed egg (deflated), whole squid and soft tofu soup (unflavored) need some work.

Service was excellent despite how busy the servers were on a long holiday weekend. One of the servers even brought us more warm teas and napkins without us even asking for them. However, we didn’t like the house rules regarding ordering from the menu. We ordered the first round of meat/food and in 10 minutes, we tried to place another order of meat but the waitstaff informed us that we couldn’t place the order until all the meats ordered before were grilled. Also, we were allowed to order only 3 bowls of steamed eggs and 3 bowls of soft tofu soup each round of order. Everything must be ordered in 3’s. Since there were 11 people in our group, many of us had to wait to place our order for additional soup and steamed eggs. We have never experienced this at any AYCE Korean BBQ Restaurants. Also, if you like veggies with your meal, the only veggie they have was the mushrooms. You could order a plate of lettuce to do the traditional wraps but at a cost of about $3.50. We thought lettuce should have been included on the menu like rice bowl.

Overall, this was a fun place for a large group and to celebrate birthdays. To set the mood, the restaurant turned off all the lights and switched to the flickering lights with a designated birthday song played overhead and everyone joined in the BD celebration. Waitstaff then brought our friend the birthday treat. A great place to...