Meat Project Fairfax | Best All You Can Eat Korean BBQ Fairfax, VA — Restaurant in Merrifield

Our party of 5 came last night around 6pm and we were seated pretty quickly. The waiter came and to make things easier for him, we asked if we could receive larger portions of the sides (kimchi, potatoes, salad, etc) because we go through them pretty fast and didnt want to constantly overwhelm him with asking him to bring sides every time he came over. He flat out said “nope I’ll refill it if it’s empty”, which was fine, we understand if there are rules about that. But it was empty every time he came back because it’s smaller portions so 2 or 3 out of the 5 would finish it immediately.

The quality of meat was excellent, the sauces on the side paired well with all the meats and sides. BUT I will say that service could have been much better. I understand the whole “waiters don’t take notes of what we ordered and they try to memorize everything”, they do that at almost every kbbq place. Luckily, we did not have to remind him the meats, he brought everything out correctly every time. But it’s hard to eat the meat by itself when our waiter kept forgetting to bring sides and rice. We asked for the corn cheese (two) at the start, didn’t get it until half way through (45 minutes in) after we mentioned it to the waiter again (only brought out 1). Only 3/5 of our party would get some of the sides (pretty smaller portions) and the rest had to wait for the next side to come out but he kept forgetting to bring it (would’ve made their lives a lot easier if he just brought us the bigger portions from the beginning…just saying) so we had to constantly remind him and we had to remind him to bring rice and water a lot. He also forgot to bring one of our friends soda and only until we had 10 minutes left did he remember but at that point, my friend didn’t want it.

I understand that places might have rules about not wanting to bring bigger portions due to potential waste. I understand that kbbq gets super busy so our waiter can get overwhelmed with many tables. BUT there should be precautions to handle that such as taking notes to remember what’s been ordered and delivered, having bigger portions of sides for groups of 4 or more, etc. I don’t blame the waiter, but I can blame management for putting them in that position. Either way, we really enjoyed our food as the quality was great, the sides were delicious (whenever we got them), and the sauces (especially the green one!) paired well with any of the meats. We’ll definitely be back and will ask again for bigger portions of sides. If other kbbq places can do it,...

Warning: Not kid-friendly and extremely slow service

I took my family to this restaurant and brought my 2.5-year-old son with me. Shockingly, they charged $20 for my son, even though on our previous visit, they didn’t charge anything. This time, they claimed that because he could walk and run, he should be charged. There was no clear policy about age or height — just “if your kid can run, we’ll charge you.” That makes no sense at all.

Think about it: adults pay $35, and they charge $20 for a toddler who only ate a few bites of rice and egg. Totally unreasonable.

The service was painfully slow. Every time we ordered, it took at least 5 minutes for the food to arrive. I started to wonder if it’s their strategy to slow down service so customers get full faster and they save costs. Both times I visited, it was the same — even during lunch with only three tables occupied and two servers working. There’s no excuse for such a long wait.

I suggest if you go, tell the server not to grill for you — just bring the food quickly so you can do it yourself. Or better yet, go to another branch. The service there is much faster.

To be fair, the taste of the food is excellent — I’d give it 9 out of 10. But I won’t be returning because the pricing and service are just unacceptable.

For example, I ordered both the Galbi and Pork Belly at the same time, but they only brought the Pork Belly first. Then they waited until I almost finished grilling and eating that before bringing the Galbi. This happened every time — they never served both at once. It’s extremely frustrating and wastes so much time.

I hope the owner sees this and seriously improves the service speed and makes the child pricing policy clear and fair.

One star — only because the food tastes great. Everything...

We live across the street and thought we’d finally check out the new kbbq place rather than head to Annandale, but will not be returning. The service was very terrible here and I have never experienced something like this at a kbbq restaurant.

We had to remind the server 3 times that we ordered bulgogi, and reminded him twice that we ordered about four other items that he had forgotten about. It seemed that they were intentionally not bringing our items out or trying to delay our items.

The banchan and sides (corn cheese, 된장찌개) were a bit meh and the sauces that came in the dish were a bit strange too, not sure what they were but they were not traditional Korean barbecue sauces. The meats we ordered were decent though, however they were out of a few items on their menu.

We were still eating one of our rounds of meat when the server brought us our bill.. then he quickly comes back prompting us to get out our cards WHILE WE ARE STILL EATING (we were there for 1 hour and 10 minutes) He was too busy and forgetful to bring us food, but had no issue coming to our table multiple times for our payment.

They also charged us $12 for Terra even though the QR code website had one price— $8—and they only had one size of Terra in their fridge, which was just another small yet irritating addition to top off the bad experience.

We ended up paying $50+ per person and the service was unacceptable for that price. To be rushed out of an AYCE restaurant after one hour of being there (most of which consisted of our food orders being delayed or ignored after multiple reminders) is absurd to me. Will never return here and will tell everyone we know to just head...