Mililani BBQ — Restaurant in Oʻahu

My coworkers and I wanted to try some place new in Mililani for lunch, so after Yelping the best rated places in Mililani, we found this place. If this is one of the best rated places in this town, I'm glad I don't live in this area.

First, this place is more "traditional" Korean. So they give you your meal, and the sides are served to the table. I don't mind it like that, but some of my coworkers weren't too thrilled with the idea saying how Tasty's is so much better because you get your own sides. Sigh... So if you like the local plate lunch Korea style, I would not suggest coming here.

We walked in and the place was packed. A good sign. They opened up the table in the back to accommodate our large group. One of the Korean ladies was very rude in her tone, and spoke to us almost like we were an inconvenience. Automatic 2 star review right there. You should never treat your customers like they are a bother. They are the whole reason you are employed.

A note on drinks... they are not refillable. If you are the type that drinks 3 or 4 sodas while you are there, you will be very upset as one of my co-workers was. Each soda is $1.75. After they took our drink order, we waited for a while to get our food ordered. They were kind of busy, but still. We ordered and a little bit before our food came out they brought our rice and the sides. I think out of everything, I really liked the tofu and pancake. The rest of the table liked the sautéed cabbage and kim chee, which was good but I felt I had better elsewhere. They also offered seaweed, daikon, and that aburagi tofu strip thing. For a table of 6, it was not a lot, but we asked and they brought more sides as we completed them. For the taste of the sides, I raise my rating by a half point.

I ordered what I always get, meat jun and kalbi. After recently eating at Youngs Kalbee, that meat jun just could not compare. The meat didn't really have too much flavor, and it was on though side and was fairly thin. Also, the egg was just egg... I know that sounds weird but some places mix a little something into the egg mixture... maybe some salt, sesame oil, something. But this place tasted like beef seasoned with a salt/pepper and then dipped in egg and fried. I want some depth to my meat jun, and this was not it. The kalbi was okay. It was soft and had some flavor, but still there was something missing. One of my coworkers said their food tasted like it was cooked before, and then just warmed up on the stove when ordered. I agree.

All in all, I give this place a 2.5 star rating, but I guess for Mililani it can be a 3 star. I would much rather take the drive to get some better tasting Korean. My coworkers weren't thrilled either so I doubt we will ever be back during one of our...

After living Korea for three years (1990 and 2000, Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Pyeongtaek and Ulsan), we have a pretty good idea of what is considered authentic Korean food. Mililani BBQ gets a good shot at making the grade but forgets about customer satisfaction. Korean food has an major emphasis on treating the customer as almost a family member. In Korea, you are respected and treated with the highest level of care from the time you enter the restaurant to the time you leave. Mililani BBQ has been in the states too long and won't even answer their phone when called. This is a disgrace to the Korean people. Perhaps they are overwhelmed with people wanting their food but that is no reason to forget about the experience of serving Korean food. The food is good but the experience is lacking in so many ways. Over the years they have increased their prices while reducing their quality of service. I'm not even sure they speak Hangul anymore. When we try and speak in Korean dialect at Mililani BBQ, we get blank stares (probably since we haven't needed to speak Hangul in years). Overall. the food is good but their attitude, service and customer care is worse than a fast food joint. Answer your damn phone please or publish the number your owner always seems to answer...

I was excited to get here since my local friend told me about this place. But I was disappointed with the flavor. Everything is a bit salty and tangy. Maybe I was comparing this with Young's Kalbee which is on the sweeter side of flavor.

But after finishing the whole dishes and I was really hungry at that time, I still couldn't say that this is comparable to Young's Kalbee. The meet jun in this place is not juicy enough. It's a bit dry to me. Their Kalbi is not bad but like I said, salty and tangy. Not impressive with the taste to be honest. One annoying thing is though the lady boss is very friendly but she only had 1 tone when she's speaking English, which everything is in a form of question. Anyway, I can't say that this is my favorite place to eat Korean food.

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