KPOT Korean BBQ & Hot Pot — Restaurant in Ocala

For starters, please excuse my apple. My sugar was low.

I frequent another Korean restaurant, and I love it, so I was very excited to hear about this place opening up.

I showed up late so I didn't get our server's name, but I think I heard someone say Katrina. She was outstanding, always smiling, and genuinely kind - so thank you for that.

My number one complaint is coating the grill before you cook. Everything else made sense but that. The olive oil (or any other oils) is supposed to be what defends our meat from sticking? It's good for one thing; magic. You pour it on the grill and then it vanishes right before your eyes. We found that butter worked better, but I'm not a fan of cooking meat in butter. Fat. Big chunks of fat works the best. That's what you should be giving out.

The grills get way too hot. Even on low, everything stuck. If you get scallops, beware. They stick the most and ended up ripping to shreds before making it onto my plate. I wouldn't be surprised if servers spend more time changing out grills than anything else.

For the prices this place charges, why are we doing everything? Buffet style is awkward. Pretty, but awkward. Desserts, if you want to call it that, are cheap. The only thing missing from the ice cream cups are the wooden spoon.

I feel like there's too many sauces but no description of what they are. What kind of sauce? What kind of flavor? It's all overwhelming to tell your the truth. What you can pick from. What you can't. What does this mean? How do you say that? Where's this? This isn't the size plate I wanted. I need a fork. My face is burning off.

The marinades for the meats were delicious. I found the meat to be tender and had plenty of different cuts to choose from. Quite a few cuts were extremely fatty and I'll never understand the shaved cuts of anything. You can't taste it!

I found the alcoholic beverages to be profoundly overpriced. A small glass of a mixed drink with the glass being about 4 inches high was $12. Two were ordered. $30 for the dinner. $24 for two cocktails. Tip. You're looking at over $60 for just one person to dine. This is Ocala, not Miami.

I just want to touch on this.. Here's a place where it's an easy $40 for one person and your staff is announcing and singing for birthdays? That was incredibly tacky and quite irritating.

I really like the design and style of the restaurant. The lighting in the walls are nice, but the booths are less than desirable. It's like sitting on a concrete slab. I remember sitting down, not expecting my backside to connect with hard. I was expecting cushion, but there was none.

Not that this bothered me, but it was something I noticed.. The music. It wasn't too loud, but it was loud enough to definitely hear it. It went from pop music, to k-pop, to gangster rap. I happen to enjoy all three but I can't say the same for my 69 year old mother. 😐

I honestly don't...

Travis was our server and he was perfect, he explained everything perfectly, made us a custom amazing sauce, and was there when we needed him. He was really the highlight of the whole visit. But the restaurant itself was a little disappointing. Yes we understand the rules that a buffet such as this must have to make money , such as the two hour eating limit the no to go boxes and the being charged for leftovers. The fact that the whole table has to agree and order the same type of meal though irritating is also understandable for them to make money. What is not understandable, and what could explain the high prices is the fact that while we were there during a not very busy time, I counted 24 servers and employees on standby. It was almost laughable. Travis and about three other servers were very busy making sure their customers were happy and doing a good job. Well another 20 something other employees just paced around and stood in corners. The food was very fresh and good and the options were enough to keep one satisfied in the two hour time limit. The price was a little high for what we opted for but we can understand some others consume more high-priced items that make the price justified. It was a good first experience for us for only because Travis the server was such a good help, we will not be returning again. The ridiculous amount of servers and employees on standby they have which I am sure increases prices was laughable to the point that I almost took pictures of the groups of employees standing in different corners literally doing nothing, or the few in the group That obviously feel guilty of doing nothing and in our hour and a half there paced around pretending to work before they once again went and stood in the corner for 20 minutes. I do not know if this is the way it is all the time as we arrived during lunch time on a Saturday afternoon. Maybe they are still working out how many people they need during what they consider rush hours but the amount of employees on standby literally doing nothing was just laughable. Not only that, but because of the number of employees sitting around doing nothing, our waiter Travis constantly had to squeeze around groups of other employees trying to clear tables, a task he could easily have done himself if there weren't 20 other employees waiting in the wings to jump at the chance. All in all a great experience only because of the waiter travis and the freshness of the food. The reasons we will not be returning again is because of the price which I am sure is inflated by the number of employees they have, and the fact that the whole table has to order the same type of meal, I understand why they all have to order the same type of meal but at the same time it makes the dining experience less desirable, again, Travis our waiter and the freshness of the food were the only positive points...

We visited here for something different. We had a party of 5 plus a baby. At first, this place was loud, crowded at our table and I hated it. (I think I was just hangry) The waitress was AMAZING. I wouldn't classify this restaurant as "Korean." I'll give you the good and bad once I checked my attitude. The good: They have an amazing variety of mushrooms! They also have plenty of delicious meats and sauces to use for the meats. They have a smaller variety of greens and veggies. Everything I had, I loved. They had ponzu sauce, brisket something sauce, olive oil, and a bunch of other sauces to choose from.

The cons: We decided to go all out and do the soup and the BBQ. We had 5 large bowls of soup on the table. There are 6 burners and the 2 in the middle were not working properly. They also had the grill part in the table as well. It wasn't very centered and was very small. If you have people who are allergic to certain foods or don't like certain flavors, this grill is going to be a whole fiasco. Well had almost no room on the table. That was the most miserable part. Trying to get something raw off your plate and then get to the grill to cook it, then trying to find room to bring your clean plate so you can put your cooked food on it. Those tables should have been round with the grill in the middle and the soup burners up by the grill. The food was good but with a 2 hour time limit and so many people trying to use the grill and others waiting on a clean grill to use, it was just not the experience I was expecting. The other great thing about this restaurant was our waitress. Now, she came over and changed our grill often. I was so thankful for that. She also kept our drinks full and just did a very good job overall. It wasn't at all her fault the table was so crowded and we had to almost fight over grill room. Ha ha! Anyways, if you are looking at going here on a date night or out with one other person, HIGHLY recommend. For a group of people though, never again. Let me clarify that, our group was very respectful and we all got along great, so we made it work, it just took a...