Koen Japanese BBQ and Izakaya — Restaurant in Omaha

I was fully prepared to walk-away feeling like we had a 5-star meal and then a bizarre experience occurred. We came Saturday night 7/19, and decided on the premium BBQ experience. The main reason we selected it was because it included bibimbap and lemon cheesecake. The other option we looked at came with a tempura icecream but we had already had icecream earlier in the day. Waitress was super sweet, meal went great and then they brought out our desert.

At first glance it didn't look right but we thought maybe because it's Japanese they cut and present differently? It was white with a "Crust." We each took a bite an immediately knew it was the tempura ice cream. Seconds later the waitress came, apologizing for putting in the wrong desert ticket. No worries we said, can we just get maybe one slice of the cheesecake? That's what we were really looking forward to we said, mistakes happen! She said she'd ask her manager. She never took the ice cream back and with it melting, my husband decided he'd just eat that and let me have the cheesecake. She comes back and informs us that - NO. Her manager would not be giving us the cheesecake we ordered... nor did they offer a discount I honestly felt bad for her, she looked nearly in tears. We suspected the manager was not easy to talk to. Odd we thought, but whatever. We're not curing cancer here, it's desert but then...

As we leave, they stop us at the front door and ask if we'd like a bag for our leftovers. Sure we say. As we wait, a lady... whom I presume is the manager, asks about our meal. We say it was delicious but I mention the disappointment over desert. And then she responds bizarrely. She goes "Isn't it so much food!?" Completely gaslit us. As if the large amount of food THAT WE PAID FOR and TIPPED WELL FOR makes up for the fact that it was not all correct. Super rude. Super Strange. Then she asked how we liked Lincoln which was super confusing as we're in Omaha... Then proceeded to try to smooth it over by bragging about the Lincoln Koen.. very strange..Just wished she would've have initially righted the wrong instead of...

(THIS RESTAURANT CHARGES A 3% CREDIT CARD SURCHARGE ON TOP OF YOUR MEAL/TIP!) Koen = Unhappy and Unsatisfied. I am happy to have tried this place, but I see no reason to go again. My party tried the table top grill and I am very unsatisfied with our experience. The best part was our server and another lady who cleaned up our dishes. Our server was nice enough to take my disgust of seafood into account when bringing out dishes, so my partner could enjoy them. It took an insanely long time to bring a bottle of Soji, after informing me they were out of the flavor I ordered. It also came pre-opened which I personally dislike. We ordered the Korean BBQ set, and while you get a lot of food, 70% of it is extremely bland. I really appreciate our server taking the time to separate anything seafood related, but it was almost all bland and underwhelming, even the kimchi tasted weird, it was sort of sweet and not spicy. While the marinated galbi was stellar, the other 2 meats weren’t great. They were both flavorless and hard to chew. One of them was actually so bad I had to cut it into baby sized pieces because it was so hard to chew. As for the dessert, I can’t tell you because I didn’t realize the Hotteok was stuffed with black bean paste, not listed anywhere, and I find all sweet bean paste disgusting. Also, I haven’t heard of one being filled with bean-paste. Overall, I am upset to have spent any amount of money for what we got, and would have rather spent more money for better...

10/27/2025 Very nice signage looks very inviting on the outside and we went disappointed when we went in. Used Yelp to get placed on the waiting list but the place wasn’t busy. A casual Monday with 5 adults and one highchair. We waited at the bar while the rest of our party was making their way. The bar was out of a few things including one of the beers we wanted to try and lemonade for the the dirty lemonade. We were seated with plenty of room this restaurant is great for groups/parties. We got the Koen premium, sweet chili Mili roll, and the taste of sashimi. The miso soup was much flavorful than everywhere else. The shrimp was light, crispy and perfect with the dipping sauce. Loved the crab and lobster ragoons not so much the sauce that comes with it. The rice was filling but a bit sweet wasn’t much of a fan. The sashimi was very fresh I liked it indeed. All of the Bonchon was good and so was the sweet chili Mili roll. I loved the addition of the fat on the tray is so much better with out the grill plate change every 2 minutes. All meats were well marinated and the veggies were juicy. The lemon cheesecake was absolutely to die for so light and creamy and the lemon was such a great...