Honey Pig Hot Pot + Korean BBQ — Restaurant in Manassas

The restaurant is set up a bit different from most other kbbq and hotpot restaurants in the area, where they have a buffet section as well. The buffet section has 2 parts. The first part is the sauce bar (normal at hot pot restaurants) which has all your normal sauce selections along with some house sauces. The second part is where you can get all the fruit, veggies, fish cakes, eggs, ect... Minus the sliced and marinated meats. They also have a rice cooker out for all the white rice you would like or fried rice if that's your jam. This bar is excellent with a wide range of selections.

On to the hotpot soups. My husband got the mala soup. It was spicy, but the flavor seemed strange to me. I grew up eating a lot of Sichuan dishes and hot pot since that's where my maternal side of the family is from. In addition, I have gotten mala from other hot pot places like Hot Spot and 99C hotpot. So far Honey Pig has the worst Mala flavoring. The base soup or seasoning they used is a bit off, but if spicy is all you care about, they got you covered. However, my husband, on the other hand, loved it so don't take this review as gospel. Try it yourself.

I got the bone broth soup for my hotpot. For those that don't know, Korean bone broth is a milky looking soup that has a mild flavor. This soup just noped flavor out of existence. I even added more salt to the soup to give it some flavor and it still didn't work. My husband tried the soup as well and he didn't know where the flavor went. The broth only tasted of boiled bones with no other flavor. Yea yea, for all you that think, "well duh it's bone soup". It usually has salt and pepper or something else that makes it kinda taste good not just bone. Cooking meats and other accoutrements to the soup should add more flavor to the soup, but it didn't. I am not sure if it's because it might be an off day where the bone soup is a bit lacking, but I 100% would not recommend this soup.

The meat quality is pretty good for all you can eat. Chicken bulgogi was pretty tasty.

Veggie and friends looked pretty good overall. The seafood looks pretty fresh and didn't have a fishy smell signaling that it's been left out too long. If you are allergic to seafood, please be careful. The tongs could be cross contaminated. If you have a vegetarian family/friend, that also likes seafood, they would enjoy the spread.

Service... I think our situation was a bit special so I won't dock too many points for this, but take this review as you will. We went the day after Christmas around 5pm, so it wasn't too busy when we showed up, but it was starting to pick up. Our waitress came around and after some holiday small talk, got our soup orders. She didn't ask us for our drink orders at this time. When she came back with our soups, she then took our meat order, but still did not ask us for drinks. We were almost finished with our first order of kbbq meat (we have been seated for about 15-20 min at this time) before we stopped her to ask for water she said okay, but after passing us 10 more times (about another 5 min went by) we could guess that she was not getting us water. We ended up asking one of the meat runners/busboys for water. For location context. Our booth was connected to the waitress station where all the water is located. We didn't just grab our own water because there weren't any cups available. They used disposable cups and I didn't locate them at a quick glance. When we needed a new water bottle a different waitress had to get another bottle for us. For the kbbq cooking. Normally your waitress or another staff member cooks the meat for you, but your waitress only came over 2 times to cook the meat for us. I ended up cooking the meat since it was burning on the grill (I'm not stubborn enough to waste good food to prove a point).I could see our waitress talking to a table that was diagonal from us the entire time. Overall, it didn't seem like other tables were having this problem so it might have been this 1 time.

I wrote a lot more initially but I hit the...

Quickly becoming one of my favorite Korean barbecue places in the area. it’s really the buffet that set it off for me. I personally like more veggies with my Korean barbecue and the fact that I can just get up and go grab the things that I’m running out of is instant gratification.

It’s the little things that matter to me at this point since I’ve been eating Korean barbecue since I was a baby . Overtime my palette has shifted towards a healthier balance of Korean barbecue prioritizing the fermented foods, then meat and if I have space rice. Many of these options for me are readily available at the buffet. I think you have more control of your diet using the buffet. Typically in most Korean BBQ restaurants the service is so overwhelmed it takes forever for side dishes to be refilled. The buffet offloads this task.

Then the customer service now with the assistance of the robot honey is still top-notch and very tentative, which is a much better experience when eating Korean barbecue.

The vibe of this place feels very much like the original one in Centerville but it’s much bigger and more welcoming . There is tons of space. You know how when you go into most Korean barbecues, you instantly start smelling all of the grill meats, and all of the caramelize smells of the sauces. Yeah you don’t get that here which is a blessing. The restaurant is always clean and smells amazing.

Part of the reason why I’m not speaking too much about the barbecue meats is because there’s no change here. The meats are phenomenal. The spicy pork belly is well seasoned clearly overnight, so that the sauces penetrate. I think the harder part is getting the waitress or waiter to cook it correctly or you as an individual, knowing exactly how you like to eat your meats, and not being afraid to grab them when they are ready. Not letting them sit there on the grill so that the residual heat or low temperature continues to cook the meat and dries it out. Again, it’s the little things that matter.

I really like being able to grab a refill of rice whenever I need it they will frequently have different side dishes available besides just the rice . I think there was one time where they had fried chicken and I was very confused, but then I was like let me try one. It happened to be one of the best fried chickens I’ve ever had at a buffet. I haven’t seen it since but when you do see it, go after it I know you’re not there for fried chicken, but at least get a wing to taste the breading and the seasoning. Same can be said, for the hot pot side of the house. The buffet just makes it so easy to get up and go get the items that you want right away versus waiting for waiters to shuffle things things out and getting orders, correct. It becomes a focus on eating and the experience versus waiting for service constantly. Then getting full faster The food begins to expand as it breaks down.

Pro Tip: if your goal is to eat as many meats as possible to get the most bang for your buck, don’t drink any water and eat very little rice. You’ll be able to eat at least 25% more than you normally can.

The sauce is also very vibrant with many choices to create your own sauce, or use their sauces that they have pre-labeled .

I think the world can be very complex . There needs to be a strong understanding of salt, fat and acid in order to make things taste good. That being the case, many people don’t have these basic understandings. Therefore, I think people should begin sharing what sauces they like to eat with their meats, or their hot pot on social media.. whichever one becomes popular to be sure to add it to the list of sauces that the community has chosen as favorites. This might be way too far outside the box but with over 20 different ingredients at the sauce bar it’s easy to just grab Ponzo or soy sauce or sesame sauce when the experience can be elevated with different options.

Highly recommend this place definitely one of the cheaper, Korean barbecues, and one of the fastest serving...

K-BBQ and Hotpot are in the same spot! What a great idea!! I thought the price was reasonable for BBQ and Hotpot, and the atmosphere was spot on! And that’s all the compliments I can give. Let's get to the bottom of the restaurant:

Quality: Average, like all other all-you-can-eat restaurants. Nothing spectacular, just like what you can expect from a restaurant like this. The overall meat quality was low. All the meats were either too fatty or not fresh, although they looked fresh. When you cook the meat and take a bite, you can tell the freshness by its texture, juice, and tastefulness. Marinated Beef Bulgogi was too chewy to the point where I had to spit it out.

Taste: Hotpot soups (house, Mala, and Kimche) had no taste, so bland and almost tasteless. Meats/BBQ: Too greasy and fatty. Marinated Jumooluk was very chewy, like a rubber.

Service: Average. As a Korean, I know how to cook my meat; I don't need anyone to cook my meat. If it's what you insist on doing, I need you to be on point, as I don't want my meat to be overcooked or burnt. However, all staff members were kind.

Selection/Choice: It's ironic an all-you-can-eat restaurant only allows customers to order a particular type of meat only once per person for a portion throughout dining (and it's timed). They have a variety of vegetable and seafood selections, like a buffet style for your hotpot, but nothing special. It's all that you can expect from a restaurant like this. The only thing I like about it is that I can pick what I want to put in my hotpot anytime.

Misc: What's up with a payment system? When I requested a check, I wanted an itemized bill with the total price+tax on the bottom. However, the server brought a portable POS system and demanded to pay without showing me an itemized check. Ok, well, that's fine because we already know how much it was per person, but what's up with 10% sales tax? Since when did Virginia/Manassas change its tax rate to a whopping 10%? And why do I have to select the tip percentage right in front of a server while she's looking right at it? And was given 18, 20, and 25% tip selections. What if I want to give 15%? I felt extremely uncomfortable and pressured.

My overall experience would have Been great knowing this is an average all-you-can-eat restaurant like other places. However, not providing me with an itemized check/bill, charging 10% sales tax, and forced/pressured, extremely uncomfortable tipping system made my experience from 4 stars to two stars.

It's one try and done. Not...