Gangnam Bar BBQ & Hot Pot — Restaurant in New York

I went on a date here. Me and my date are both BIPOC and I don’t normally assume prejudice from people but it was pretty blatant here.

In a restaurant that had many open tables and seating areas they say us all the way in the back where we could not be seen by other guests.

Before coming here I looked up the menu and everything. On their menu there is a 2 hour time limit for the all you can eat hot pot and barbecue. We got there around 5pm.

1. they didn’t let us choose from the menu they just asked us if we were allergic to anything then just brought the whole menu out to us. 30 minutes we take a small break from eating, not even a 5 minutes went by and a hostess/server comes up to us and says if we can’t eat it all there will be a fine.

2. when we tried to take small breaks between eating they would try rush us to finish. Even to a point where two hosts were cooking the meat for us and putting stuff in our pots.

3. as it gets closer to 6pm we are starting to near the end of our meal, we took another small break from eating. A complete different host from the other two comes over and asks us if we like soju and if we ever had it. We said we had and didn’t really want soju and he said no problem. He leaves and comes back and basically tells us that they need our table because there was a reservation that had showed up. He said he would be happy to take us to the bar downstairs for some soju on the house. We hadn’t even been there for more than an hour and on top of that there were plenty of free tables in our section.

I was not only uncomfortable but upset that they were trying to push us out so I just asked for the bill and me and my date left just to see that the the whole front half of the restaurant was filled with only Asian customers and the reason they wanted to move us to the bar (which was downstairs) was because they didn’t want other customers seeing us. Considering we were the only 2 in that section at the time.

It’s a shame cause we just wanted to enjoy the food and we had just an unpleasant interaction with the hosts/servers. I don’t think I’ll be coming here again or directing people...

⭐ 1 STAR — Never again. WORST dining experience of the year.

I went to this restaurant with my family on a quiet Tuesday night, hoping for a relaxing hotpot dinner. What we got instead was a front-row seat to chaos, confusion, and tiny portions disguised as meals.

Let me start with the food — if you can even call it that. The meat portions? Paper-thin slices that looked like they were shaved off with a razor. Seafood? One lonely shrimp per order. One. We had to stack up multiple orders just to fill a single plate. I genuinely felt bad for the dishwasher — not because of the mess, but because there was hardly anything to wash. That’s how little food they serve.

Then came the service. Our waitress was kind and tried her best, but the whole time she was being TRAINED — in front of us, as we were ordering. Yes, they turned our table into a live training session. We came to eat, not to witness an employee onboarding program. And the other waitress, the one with golden hair? She insisted we didn’t need to order more meat or seafood. Excuse me — have you seen your own portions? A rabbit would starve.

To make things worse, we were there only for hotpot, but the grill was still on — and it was heating up under the glass like it was prepping for lift-off. Dangerous doesn’t even begin to cover it. We asked them to turn it off, and the waitress and busser tried, but it went back on again with no reason. If that thing exploded, what then? Zero safety awareness. Not a shred of concern.

And just when we thought the chaos was winding down, the host or maybe he was the manager? (No one really knew) yelled at the poor new waitress RIGHT next to our table. Loud, humiliating, totally unprofessional. At that point, none of us had the appetite to keep eating. We came for a warm meal and a calm night — we left annoyed, worried, and more stressed than when we arrived.

Never again. Not worth the time, not worth the money, not worth the...

As this restaurant recently opened up, my family and I wanted to try it out. We came here for a bday celebration and had the BBQ AYCE. The decor is very nice and the seats/layout were very comfortable. We were greeted by the hostess in the front and our table was served by Jess who was very attentive to our needs. In fact, ALL the staff were very attentive, always ready to take our used plates away and offering clean ones. The bathroom was clean and overall the place is very nice. Upon sitting down, we were offered aprons and hand wipes so that was nice. Now for the review of the food. As mentioned, we had the BBQ so didn't get to try the hot pot. The veggies were kept in several fridges so it was help yourself to what you want which I kinda like so that I could visually see all that was available to me. The meats you have to put in the order with your server. There were a good selection of beef, chicken, pork and seafood. While the portion size was a bit small, it does help with waste and that's a good thing. As this is a AYCE place, you can just order as many rounds as you want. The best part I loved about this is that there is also a complementary selection of food that comes with your AYCE BBQ or hot pot. They have a selection of sushi, crab legs, crabs, fried dumplings, fruits, ice cream and drinks like soda, bottle tea etc. All of this is part of your ACYE experience so it's not an extra charge which is great. As I was watching the workers, I saw another staff member Lindsey explaining to another guest about this so I can tell that she was also attentive to the guests. We were offered a slice of cheesecake as a bday celebration by the restaurant so that was a nice touch. Overall loved the place and...