Gaja Korean BBQ — Restaurant in Oceanside

Mediocre food, terrible waitress, over crowded, long wait time and a manager that will yell at you "If you cannot afford it, you can leave!" Plus lots of paid advertising 5-star reviews! Went there as group of 5 with a 6 year old kid. Kid was 51 inch with shoes and hats on. They said the kid will be charging with full adult price. Tried talk with the manager then the manager told us "If you cannot afford it, you can leave." His orginal words. That's pretty much the gist, "If you cannot afford it, you can leave!" If you read those 5-star reviews they all say excellent food, good atmosphere and kind service. Went there before as group of 2, selected the mid-tier. Limited premium meat choices. One kind of meat is OK but not crazy, the rest meats are mediocre and kind of disappointing, really nothing special. The service is terrible, all the waitress are kind of ignorant and took really long to get the grill changed or get a water refilled. Place is overcrowded in a chaotic way, how can that be called good atmosphere, service and food??? Piece of advice, just ditch all the waiter/waitress as they are non-existent any way (and already are using tablets to order meat and robots to deliver meat), maybe solve the overcrowded issue a little bit (two birds with one stone), and customer save 18% tips. The waitlist system is kind of joke. Arrived on time as the system indicated but still waited almost a hour. Pretty sure those 5-star reviews are either paid reviews or they never experience any food or service that is really good. The waitress keeping a long face the whole time and expecting 18% tips is the nowadays standards. Plus tax and tips about $50 to $60 per person. Yeah not worth the money and the time. So many better options to spend the money or waste the time. My two cents opinion, to see if an resaurant is good or not, ignore all 5-star reviews and all those reviews that contains too many words like "excellent", "extremely",...

All in all, I can say that this Korean BBQ was delicious and well worth trying. I will be returning in the future with friends when we can stay much longer! I loved it but can only rate it 4 stars as I will list below. The entry price per person is pretty steep but the buffet style and delicious cuts of meats definitely make it worth it.

The experience is very nice. You order all of your food and drinks from a tablet at the table, and the chefs portion the food before it is brought out by a robot with the help of a waiter occasionally.

Unfortunately, part of the experience is that you can grab the food that you ordered off the robot on your own (which sounds amazing, until the robot stopped at another table and a lady thinking our meal was hers stuck her fingers into our food while holding the plate and then putting it back).

The store atmosphere is not fantastic. Pretty standard, at least where we were sitting, and the robots constantly sing a five second song on repeat - which gets irritating when three or four robots are all singing at separate times.

The best part of the dining experience however was the food. While some of the meat cuts were not great, almost all of them were fantastic and extremely delicious. The food comes with sides, however our sides looked like they had been sat out for a while and begun to dry due to the heat from other tables. You cook the food yourself to exactly how you would like it and there are tiny seasoning trays that you can use to flavor the entrees exactly how you want.

With all that said, I would suggest at least going here once to see if it is somewhere you can see yourself eating at again. It's a very fun experience and I can see it being a very good option for a group of people who want to talk and relax while eating very good food cooked by your own hand. Just make sure to cook your...

This is my favorite restaurant by far and I've eaten here several times. I absolutely love it. The food is delicious, the atmosphere is great, and the staff are always friendly. However, yesterday I visited with some friends to celebrate my husband and I's anniversary; we had friends driving pretty far just to join us. So I made a reservation in advance to ensure the restaurant would have enough space for our party of 8. I had assumed we would receive one of the long tables with the two burners. Instead we were sat in a small booth in the back. We were all sitting thigh to thigh. Now as the hostess pointed out, my reservation was for 8 people, and we had brought an extra person, a baby. Which I understand was my mistake but regardless of the baby or not the table we received would not have even fit 8 but i was told they usually sit parties of 8 there. We barely squeezed into the booth and our table space was already depleted by all the plates already on it. I can't even begin to imagine how we would've fit all our drinks and food. My husband spoke with the hostess and we were given the option of waiting for a table nearby to finish eating (20-30mins extra) or sit in separate tables. So we settled on waiting. We were given drinks and stood around waiting around the bar which I apologize as I felt we were in the way. Thankfully, one of the managers(I believe) spoke with my husband and we were given a longer table that fit all us just great. We were able to sit down and start ordering and the person tending our table was amazing. I truly appreciated him as he made sure we had everything we needed or wanted. Overall my experience was great but be warned. If you have a big party and come in, even with a reservation, you might end up in a small booth while a party of 2 enjoys the...