Arirang Korean BBQ — Restaurant in Lynnwood

I have no idea what happened but I love it. Arirang has stepped up big time from the old, basically serviceless KBBQ I once knew. I placed this place at 1-2 stars in the past but am happy with how things are after COVID made them change up. Glad to share I had a much better experience as I avoided this place for a long time. Obviously, you need to have expectations as this is one of the cheaper AYCE KBBQ options and you can't expect amazing food or quality or anything. This rating was originally a solid 4 stars but then I considered the price and how much they increased which dropped me to 3.5ish but still rounding up. I think my higher rating is because of my previous expectations so I was pleasantly surprised.

Service here used to be embarrassing. You were never checked on, they'd forget requests, and everyone would get full from just waiting. Thing is, in the past you would flag down a server for everything from meats to a grill change to water to side dishes to rice. Now it's only meats, grill change, and water that you need to request. All the sides and rice are nicely placed in a corner (maybe not so nice if you're super skeptical of COVID). With the reduced cognitive load, servers are more likely to remember what you request and get back to you in a timely manner. I know in the past I could ask for multiple bowls of rice for the table and they'd come back 20 minutes later to tell us that they're cooking rice. Then they'd completely forget. Now, there's a huge rice cooker ready with all the rice in the world and they check on it often.

Now, the staff are extremely friendly and willing to help out. They try to check on you very little until they notice you're missing meats which I respect because they don't want to constantly interrupt any conversations or whatever. It's really easy to flag one down by looking for them and they'll come ask if you need anything. Change in staff definitely helped improve the place.

I swear the menu's changed a bit but not too sure. I recall always ordering the E2 AYCE option among others and now there's only 3 options (K1 K2 K3). Maybe it was a simple name change from E2 to K2 but I can't recall. I do know that the price was like $18.99 or just under $20 before COVID. Now it's $25 so definitely heftier. This is comparing the cheapest option, there are more expensive ones with slight more variety but I genuinely don't think the extra choices validate the price points as they're not that amazing.

Happy with the way things operate now (finally) but disappointed with the...

Where do I begin?

TL;DR: Go to Mill Creek

Overall: We got the cook-it-yourself option reminiscent of almost every restaurant back in South Korea. With unseasoned meat, the only issue would be if the meat wasn't fresh. Well, the meat was all fresh, so there's that. But the seasoned meats... I've had better. The place is bigger feeling than the Mill Creek restaurant, but the Mill Creek location is much more amenable to both handicapped persons (like me) and selective eaters.

Positive: The service was Swift and friendly. The building itself looks newish with the inside being spacious with standard dark wood furnishings and typical ads for soju and meat everywhere. The kimchi bar was clean. Its variety was moderate (as with the chain) with the familiar tastes of mild kimchis being satisfactory.

Negative: Unlike the Mill Creek location, this one does not bother asking you which meats you want and brought us the entire ensemble of their K1 all-you-can-eat. The LA Kalbi and bulgogi tasted like Cinnabon, the chicken had a strange after taste, and we got a portion of brisket that was for more than just two people. We ended up eating most of the brisket but the bulgogi and kalbi were virtually inedible. We were so disappointed that we didn't bother with the samgyeopsal that we were given but neither asked for nor wanted. The small containers for the kireum-sogeum were too small to satisfactorily fit both oil and salt at...

This was my first Korean BBQ ever and it was delicious. I ordered the E8 combination which was $18.99. The service was not impressive but the food was good. If you are okay with bad service, I would definitely go here for Korean BBQ. What happened with the service is that they would take forever to give us water. We had to ask like two times and they still would not get us any water. The waiter would just talk chitchatting away with each other and laughing. It was really bad in almost a... "Are they forced to work here?" It threw us off, but my friend who took me there warned me about their service. Even if we looked and waved at them, they make it seem like they're about the get water, but they still just DON'T. It made us so confused and so thirsty. I felt like just going up and getting it myself. I don't know how they can keep this up. BUT regardless of this situation, I would still go because of the food. Just bring your own water or go with a Korean person who can get you better service! Also at the end, they didn't charge us for tax. Right when we were almost out the door, they come running to us and said they forgot to charge us the 10% tax. They collected their 1 dollar 25 cents from us at the door. Bazaar service. They definitely should learn how to treat customers, but then again, maybe they just feel protected since they have good food... It really is delicious. I would still go... but don't expect the...