마루 Maru Korean Bistro — Restaurant in Milwaukee

First of all, I ate here maybe 3 years ago and enjoyed my food. I came here thinking it would be the same experience. Much has changed. We walked in at quarter to 7 and the waitress kept telling us the kitchen closed at 8:15. On their website it says they’re open till 9. Didn’t think too much of it we sat down and I told the waitress of my food allergies and how I wanted the bibimbap bowl. She told me that everything is premade and she wouldn’t recommend that for the allergy. Yikes. So I ordered beef bulgogi and my sister ordered tofu stew. We didn’t even get our food and our waitress was pressuring us to pay for our dinner dropped off the bill at 8:15. It’s a little pushy considering the fact that they were open for another hour. We got our food and the beef bulgogi was flavorless fatty and probably some of the worst I’ve ever had. Normally and Korean restaurants I’ve dinned at they bring you all the toppings like kimchi and such. When I asked for it I was charged $3 for it! I remember last time I came they gave it to you weird. Anyways my sisters tofu stew tasted off spoiled tofu and absolutely no flavor from the soup besides the sour tofu. she didn’t want to eat it. We brought it to our waitress attention that it tasted off she ignored us walked away. When it came time to paying I kindly asked her what we should do about the tofu since I felt bad for sending it back but I didn’t want my sister to get food poisoning it tasted very off. She finally hesitated and then took it to the kitchen. She said they have a policy they don’t take anything off. I understand this but my sisters didn’t even eat two bites it was definitely not fresh. I could hear the chef yell at her and she took it off. Anyways next day later I got food poisoning terrible stomach pain from beef bulgogi. This place is poorly ran and has bad management of their restaurant. The fact I could hear the boss/chef yell at her in front of the customers is very unprofessional. The up chargers will impact your restaurant compared to the other restaurants nearby that sell similar food and...

Maru will hit the spot when you're craving Korean and are limited to Milwaukee's very sad, ethnic food options. Maru serves casual, home style Korean food - not elevated but are simple meals you can share with friends.

Pros: Thank you for being the only MOSTLY authentic Korean restaurant in the entire Great Milwaukee Area It's not fusion Portion sizes are large and good for sharing Attentive service

Cons: Only two banchan (tiny side dishes) were served, a spicy pickled bok choy dish (which I'm not sure is even an authentic dish??) and a potato dish. Traditional Korean restaurants will give you at least 5-6. I guess this might be their way of cutting costs. But c'mon, how could you not even include kimchi as one of the Banchan?? Price is steep for what you're paying for.

Onto the food:

Food here will satisfy the craving, but it's definitely not the best Korean restaurant I've been to by FAR. Tteokbokki was actually pretty good! My fave thing that we got. The tteok (rice cake) was cooked well (chewy, not soggy or undercooked) and sauce was yummy. Sauce wasn't too sweet and had a nice kick. I liked that it was actually spicy.

Bulgogi: Flavor was pretty good - tasted like bulgogi. Some pieces were huge and difficult to chew. The option to add egg is definitely not traditional. This was alright -- not the best meat quality. I'm guessing they probably have to import it or freeze the meat because this is Milwaukee and it's hard to get a hold of Asian ingredients. Sigh, am I being too picky?

Budae Jigae: Broth lacked real flavor or depth and just tasted like I was drinking kimchi juice. I'd skip on this. Also, I think they forgot to put tofu in it because I don't think I saw any in the soup.

I think I'm being harsh on Maru because I'm from California and have had Korean food 20x better. Sorry Maru. For what you can get in Milwaukee, Maru is so, so great! For bringing mostly authentic Korean dishes to the Milwaukee food scene,...

Great food, TERRIBLE Service

I went out to Maru with a group of 7 people for a friend's birthday. While the food was great, the night was filled with disorganization, missing items from our orders, and an overall weird vibe.

It took us asking multiple times to get everybody at our table waters and plates. When we finally placed our starter, drink, and main orders they all came out at completely random times and were often missing something somebody requested.

Even worse, I ordered the Black Bean Ramen. When my order came out I placed my USED chopsticks into the bowl and continued chatting with my friends. Shortly after it was given to me, our server came to me and told me they had brought the order to the wrong table, asking if I had already started eating. I told him that I haven't had a bite but that my chopsticks had been used. The server proceeded to take the food he had given me and bring it, WITH MY USED CHOPSTICKS, to the table it was supposed to go to. I was AGAST. The table, rightfully, refused the food and asked for the kitchen to not make it again.

By the end of the night we had to ask the server to not even bother bringing out the rest of the drinks and missing foods, as we had been there long enough and folks had nearly finished their meals anyway. We were all so irritated with the service that we intended to adjust the tip to reflect it, only for us to find out after the fact that a 20% gratuity was automatically added to our bill.

To be honest, the blame cannot fully go onto the server. He is new at the restaurant and was clearly not ready for being the only server to handle all of the tables. I have heard from plenty of servers there that the owner frequently runs them on a skeleton crew and isn't always consistent with paying servers on time. I even heard servers have to fight to get their tips from card payments!!!!

It's truly terrible how this place is run and it is only getting worse as...