Cast Iron Pot Staten Island — Restaurant in New York

Firstly the service. Our server John, was very slow and not attuned to our needs. He left our meat cooking for too long where pieces were left burnt and crisp. There were also no tongs left on the table for us to cook ourselves, so we can only try to flip the food with our wooden chopsticks. Keep in mind you're only allowed to order three selections at a time, and when we tried to order more, John told us to wait as he went to take the check of one table, then cook for a few other tables before coming to put in our order, which then took time for them to prepare and made us wait even longer. Keep in mind they do have a good amount of staff, but for some reason some tables are better taken care of whereas others are tossed to the side, which unfortunately made us feel forgotten. We also had to repeat our order a few times for sometimes they forget to input it and sometimes brought us the wrong meat. The Mexican/spanish busboy staff were more diligent at their job and actually helped get us what we asked more often than the Korean staff that cooked the meat, so definitely ask the busboys if you need something!

Ambiance: restaurant is spacious and has television all around playing music videos of various Korean bands. Pretty comfortable so no complaints there at all.

Now onto the food: Beef brisket: like many other reviewers, the brisket was nothing special and since they left it cooking for a while without attending it, most of the pieces were overly charred which made it even less enjoyable. Hanger tender steak: also nothing special, for the texture was only somewhat tender and the sauce didn't really enhance its flavor profile. Garlic cube steak: lots of people recommend this and it is definitely very tender. But the garlic flavor was a bit off to me, kind of reminded me of the flavors of escargot. Not a bad pick so definitely worth a try. Top blade steak: chewy and not tender, don't get it. Cast iron steak: definitely one of the better selection, for it's tender and flavorful when combined with the sauces and spices of your choice. Get this if you like steak! Marinated pork rib: this is just mediocre for us, for its sweetness overpowered the flavor of the meat. It's tender but that's really it. Bulgogi: just a very sweetly marinated beef dish, too sweet in our opinion and doesn't taste that good. I'd skip it.

Sides: Japchae: overly peppered where it overpowered the entire dish. We really couldn't taste anything else asides from black pepper.. Rice cake: decent where it's chewy inside and crispy outside, not bad. Steamed egg: typical average steamed egg with lots of scallion. Bean paste soup: very salty where we needed to add water to dilute its saltiness, don't get it.

Overall, the only food that was remotely tasty, was the cast iron steak. Nothing else was that good and the service left a lot to be desired. They can definitely improve by having one server attend to only 3-4 tables and put a little more effort in their work, for a few of them just kept walking around leaving only one server to take care of 7 at times. Also, it would be nice to give customers tongs so they can cook themselves, and also tell diners when the food is ready, they often just cook it and leave it and it appears done but there's no interaction so it's just up to us to guess and try it ourselves. We've been to many KBBQ where the servers are very attentive and lets us know when it's done and even ask how we like it cooked. Thus, this experience was probably one of the worst I had in KBBQ and for its dinner price tag of 40 bucks per person, it's totally not worth it and I wouldn't recommend it. If you do give them a shot, best of luck and I wish them the best in improving the quality of their meat and the quality of their inattentive service. Thank you to the busboys (Carlos especially) for helping us get what we wanted, for I'm sure we would've been even more frustrated without their attentiveness!

Thank you for reading and...

My boyfriend and I recently went here for date night, we usually go to the KPot in the plaza but wanted to change things up by going to Cast Iron Pot.

Honestly, this was just disappointing. The food was wonderful, aside from a gnat/spider trying to crawl out of a slice of onion from the plate of vegetables they throw on the pot in the beginning. We just pushed the onion into the oil catcher. We were still hopeful that everything would be great though. It was not. Our service was meh. After we sat down, the server asked us if it was our first time (which it was, told us to scan the code on the table, said we could only order 3 proteins at a time and unlimited sides before leaving. When we opened the menu by scanning the code, neither of us were sure if we had to order through the website (like KPOT) or if we had to wait until he came back. He did come back 10 minutes later and we were able to order our food through him but we didn't like that no one had explained it properly especially since it was our first time here. It could've been easily rectified by saying "If you scan this code, it'll bring you to our menu and I'll be back to take your order" etc. We also had to ask for our own tongs because he was taking so long inbetween coming around after we got our order of food and we were trying to use our chopsticks to spread the meats on the pot to cook. No drinks were offered at any point, we did ask for sodas which is fine but it's the fact that no one asked if we wanted anything to drink. Also we didn't get any straws, which I could have asked for but I didn't. Throughout the entire service, I'm pretty sure we saw other servers more than ours because they came over to check on our food and cut up the pieces if it was too thick or too big to be cooked. Granted he did come around, not very often, but often enough that we were able to at least get 3 sides and 8 proteins I think? Our server seemed to spend more time with their boss chatting up this other table diagonal from us. I get it, you guys were having fun and they're some of your favorite customers, but please don't forget about the fact that you have other customers to attend to. We were originally going to order Tayoyaki Ice Cream before we left but since our server took about 4 songs worth to come back and spent it just laughing/talking and taking care of that table instead, we decided against it. He still ignored us and helped 2 other tables before my boyfriend got his attention for the check. I don't think I've felt as unwelcome in a restaurant as I did than when I came here. I love food, we both do and we love trying out other restaurants so that was a bit upsetting to be treated like our table was an inconvenience. Both of us have been in the restaurant industry and we understand that it gets busy, you're running all around trying to do everything, like we get it but neither of us felt truly welcome. I do appreciate the servers who did come over to help us as well as the ones who would come over to change out the pots for clean ones.

Food wise: • The calamari tasted like mozzarella sticks? Like the batter was very close to the one for mozzarella sticks • Pork Dumplings looked and felt like an empanada. It was good but...

Let me preface that I’ve been to a majority of AYCE kbbq spots particularly in north jersey.

The penny pinching here is unbelievable, and they make it outwardly obvious, which ruined the experience from the beginning. First off, they time you for 2 hours once you sit. Not entirely a big deal, I get it, with assumption that we’ll actually get a steady flow of meat (not the case).

The real issue is how they serve the food. We had a table of SIX. They would consistently serve 1 or 2 orders of brisket. Mind you we would only ask for this 1 meat, no steaks, nothing else. There would consistently be “waiting” periods where the food was finished and we’d have to wait for our next order to come in and cook. Now the “2 hour time limit” becomes an issue because they’re purposely slowly parsing out the flow of food and we never were able to get full due to all the waiting time before servings.

Never experienced this issue in the cast iron in little ferry, o2 bbq in Guttenberg, or the other cast irons in Fairview.

To top it all off, we’re 1 hour in and the waitress proactively asks if this is our “last order” on two instances. Really?

For 40-50 a person, this specific location is NOT worth it. Just drive the extra few minutes to O2 bbq in Guttenberg, NJ. The brisket is better, the service is better, you don’t have to wait 10 minutes before orders, and you actually get your money’s worth. Oh yeah, and no time limit that they hound you on.

Oh and good luck...