Mr.Kimchi Korean AYCE BBQ Niles — Restaurant in Maine Township

7:30pm 02/21/25 - Came here with a group of 5 and waited roughly an hour for a seat, definitely not one of their busy nights because I can see right now 6 open tables. Hopefully it’s as good as the one in Randhurst!

(Typing throughout the night btw)

We were at the bar waiting for our seats and PAID for a couple of Soju bottles. When we had our seats ready we had one bottle left which we were bringing to our table, that we PAID for, and we got accused of stealing the Soju bottle. Where we were seated was really cold, a consistent draft from the outside felt like was coming the back of the place.

Jackson was our waiter for the night and he was really nice up until he brought our table something we didn’t order. I simply just said that “this isn’t something that we ordered, could you take it back” then he replies, with attitude. “If you guys don’t want it then that’s fine” storming away from our table. I don’t understand what we did to warrant this behavior we were quite polite and I’m not one to make reviews about this but this was just a crap experience in general.

Around first round of meats we were allowed three meats to start. We got two orders of Brisket and one order of bulgolgi beef. We noticed the two orders of brisket looked really small in one bowl. We went in for round two and ordered one brisket and the size was the same as the first dish sent. Which means he didn’t get the two orders we wanted.

Quantity of meat is very low and the frequency in the waiter to come and check on us was really long especially since there wasn’t a lot of people in house. I understand it’s an AYCE KBBQ but I don’t feel like we got our moneys worth if we’re getting paced. Always forgot everything we requested, we had to tell our waiter 3 times to get what we wanted.

If you want kbbq that will take care of you and frequently check up on your table. Go to Iron Age or BBQ Garden. This definitely disappointed me for this being my first time here. The one in Randhurst is 100% the place to go if you want to go to a Mr. Kimchi.

We all left the spot hungry, waste of money… don’t come here unless you want to get meat every 20 plus minutes and frequently repeat yourself to get what you want. You can come here too if you want to be accused of not paying for something you ordered. The only redeeming thing out of this entire fiasco is the meat. Which we barely had any of.

I’m sure Jackson was just having a rough night, he was very civil near the end. I know this job takes a lot out of you. Definitely felt whatever was happening was taken out on us.

9:20pm What a really crappy...

I admit that I had high hope when I saw it was the No. 1 Korean BBQ in Chicago. The food was not bad. However, I really doubt whether that is my No. 1, considering there are not that many choices of dishes. If you really like Korean food, go to a different restaurant. If you like BBQ, it is a decent place. Now, let’s talk about service… I had a mix feeling. An elderly Korean lady served us. She speaks little English or probably no English. Maybe they think we speak Korean? So apparently, the communication was not perfect. We ordered teriyaki chicken, beef galbi, and garlic pork belly. Out of three dishes, she brought two wrong items. She brought plain, white, unseasoned chicken and pork belly with some weird powder on top. I should have questioned her but I did not. It took me some extra effort to order in the beginning. I did not want to make any big fuss! After the first round, we really liked the beef galbi because that was the only one that was seasoned well. I told her I wanted two more beef galbi and another meat dish. She only brought one beef galbi out. I told her immediately that we wanted two more beef galbi. And she nodded and claimed this was the second gaibi we got! I mean please we needed two more. Not two in total. She insisted that the second time she brought us was two sides of beef galbi using one plate. To be clear, the second time, she only brought us three slides of beef galbi as the first time. Apparently, she either did not understand English or she chose not to bring us more beef galbi bc it was a more expensive dish… We paid around 30 dollars per person plus 18% for tips. I expected some accuracy in delivering my food, not questioning me or challenging me for my order. If you do not speak Korean or if you are like me, an introverted person who does not like to argue. Please make sure you have someone who...

I wonder how could this restaurant get 4.9/5. The service and the food were disappointed. First of all, the service. Our server was Jackson and he was careless about his customers. We ordered 3 items and 3 sides for the first round. We’re finished eating the meats and we have not yet get our sides. I’ve to call him and reminded him that we didn’t get our sides yet, then only he rushed to the kitchen to get it. Again, I had to waive at him to get our orders for the 2nd round (the restaurant is only half full and he was not busy) When I put in my 2nd order of steamed egg (side dish), he told me that due to the increase price of the egg, there is a limit of 1 order of steamed eggs per table. I told him that the menu didn’t mention anything and he told me that there is a sign at the front of the restaurant. Hello, restaurant owner, if you think that the price of the eggs is too high, please remove the steamed eggs from the menu. Can you imagine 5 people sharing a small bowl of steamed eggs? SMH! My husband ordered 2 sides of Kimchi and guess what? They never came to the table!!! Probably the price of the cabbages are too high due to tax tariffs. LMAO! Is this what your restaurant so called ALL YOU CAN EAT and when your customers placed the order, everything is limited??? We also ordered 2 orders of the Kalbi and the server said ‘you can order 3 items per order BUT cannot be the same items’ What???? We only like the kalbi. The rest of the meat is not to my taste. Now, the food. The meat quality is so so only for the premium price that we paid. Seriously, there are many Korean BBQ restaurants in the area or city that have better meat quality, better service and cheaper than Mr Kimchi. Will I go back again? HELL...