COBRA — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

We ordered the oysters, caviar, wagyu beef fried rice, and two of the omakase 2. I would save your money on the caviar which I think was overpriced and didn't really fit the vibe, it was the same caviar presentation you'd see anywhere else. The oysters were really good and it was cool seeing their take on a mignonette and cocktail sauce, but whoever shucked the oysters wasn't perfect and I found two bits in the oyster shells. The wagyu fried rice was extremely good and was a fairly generous portion. I would say that it was a good value, and it was nice having something additional to the meat and banchan to always have different flavors rotating around. The Omakase 2 was expensive, but I think was also a really good value and was the star of the show. There was a moderate amount of A5 wagyu, a significant amount of two other beef cuts, a marinated beef (galbi) that while tougher was one of the most flavor packed. It also came with several kinds of mushrooms and some spring onion that really get transformed by the grill. The trumpet mushrooms were one of my favorites. There were 5 banchan sides which I think were kimchi, a potato side, a bean sprout side, a spicy zucchini side, and a daikon side as well as a very good sauce. I do recommend dipping everything in either that sauce or soy and salting the meat as you prepare it. I don't recommend only cooking one side of the meat as we were advised to try as even though I can appreciate carpaccio and tartare I found the texture on that to not be great.

I also tried the Suntory Toki Highball, Euphoria, and Soju Flight. The highball was far too sweet and one noted for me, but the Euphoria reminded me of a prickly pair margarita and was quite good. The soju flights I could have gone either way on, but they weren't bad by any means. Their whiskeys are absurdly priced, and I think similarly to the caviar are essentially showing off tax. I am fairly sure you could buy a whole bottle of some of them at a state store for the price of a single drink there.

The atmosphere was interesting. It appears (and I guess does function as) a dance club at the door. There's a sort of ticket booth for a hostess stand, and a black neon lit kind of smallish dance floor. Around the corner is a cool looking little bar with restrooms down a hall past that. Restrooms were unisex with stalls which was kind of cool I guess, but I know ppl get weird with this so worth mentioning. There was some kind of Korean? quarter game outside the bathroom, but who in the US carries quarters...also kind of ick right beside bathroom... Tables have bench seating, are in a private dark area behind and hidden from the dance floor. Obviously there is a rounded mesh grill in the table which did make fitting all the food and drinks on the table a little clumsy, but not sure how they could have made that any better.

I interacted with three staff members. The lady at the door asked us if we were there for "Japanese BBQ", which I agreed, but felt confused as it's Korean BBQ. A younger guy took our orders and seemed quite nice, but had to source others for questions reharding whiskey, but he did get the answers we needed. A middle aged gentleman who brought the food and had a very chef like aurap and answered our questions and described what to do. Overall fairly good staff.

Parking was a bit of a mess, so maybe between that and the Soju flights, just Uber. The location also had some other restaurants around, but is in a weird traffic situation and there were a couple shady people roaming around. It must not be that bad as the doors were open to walk right in, but I...

The place is a great night club. However, the KBBQ/JBBQ (which is it? lol) is well below average even for Pittsburgh. The food is clearly not catered to an Asian audience.

I went to the AYCE J/KBBQ they offer every Wednesday which at the time was $48/person.

There is no doubt that Cobra is one of the best night clubs in Pittsburgh. The inside is absolutely beautiful and spacious. DJ Bamboo is an amazing DJ. The music is great. Karaoke is an amazing experience.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the JBBQ/KBBQ. While the venue was packed for the BBQ, the food quality isn't even good. There's no reasonable way to justify the high price. I don't even know if the food is JBBQ or KBBQ.

First, the JBBQ/KBBQ advertising is confusing. They clearly have yakiniku cuts and a legitimate yakiniku grill, but they also serve Korean banchan with the meal. While the yakiniku grill is top quality, it's just weird to combine Korean and Japanese food with the BBQ. As a result, I feel because the focus is on too many elements, the BBQ quality takes a severe hit.

Second, the banchan is by no means good. It felt like the banchan was made by a non-Korean still learning how to make them. The kimchi was sweet and lacked the fermented flavor. The cucumber banchan wasn't pickled. The list goes on. For a restaurant charging $48/person, the minimum expectation is good banchan passes a certain bar of flavor and it fails to deliver.

We were given 5 options for the AYCE, which is somewhat unexpected for the price. The menu was missing samgyupsal (pork belly) but had beef and chicken galbi as marinated options. As well as unmarinated beef along with miso flavored shrimp and mushrooms. For the first order, you can order all of the options on the menu per person, but after, it is one option per person for the rest of the 90 minutes.

When the meat came, it actually came in yakiniku sized slices. While this isn't a surprise because they also cater themselves as a JBBQ, this means that the Korean options aren't cut in the traditional Korean way. This here should raise multiple eyebrows.

One way to gauge the quality of KBBQ other than the banchan is the beef galbi flavor. The BBQ unfortunately fails the quality test. The beef galbi is the wrong cut of meat since they just marinated the unmarinated beef and called it galbi. In addition, the galbi wasn't even the traditional rib cut with the bones. And the sweetness of the meat was completely missing. I'm not sure if it is because it is AYCE, but it felt like there wasn't enough marination time, nor was there enough ingredients to actually flavor the galbi correctly. I do understand that perhaps the BBQ may not be the main focus of Cobra, but for $48/person, the galbi misses the bar by many marks.

Other than that, the ssamjang was on point and the mushrooms were AMAZING. The shrimp was also great. The tech around the yakiniku grill was also top notch. The vent is at the grill level so your clothes won't smell smoky after eating.

Would I come back to Cobra? 100000% Yes for the night club. For the food? Definitely not.

The J/KBBQ quality is so low here that even if it was $10 per person for AYCE, it's not even worth coming unless you're only here for a quick snack or are blackout drunk from the night club.

Regardless, the night club section is amazing and hopefully you guys don't ban me bc of my review T.T because the place is special regardless...

This is a tough one, we went at 5:45 as that's when we had reservations and the place had barely any people which was good because looking at the place and its wide drink menu I'm sure it's packed when the sun goes down.

Let's start with the positives

The service was excellent, we were well attended to for the most part and I do appreciate how they had non-alcoholic mocktails since my wife and I don't drink alcohol.

We were able to get a reservation same day I suspect because of how early in the day it was for what seems to be more of a nightclub.

Let's go into the so-so

The mocktail we had was good but it was pretty expensive for having no alcohol in it. Mine was $14 and my wife's was $12, our server never asked us if we wanted another, I would have said no due to the price but my drink was empty most of the time.

The meats were mostly good quality and the Wagu they have is genuine but it's the low end variety which isn't surprising given we are in Pittsburgh but it was still decent enough for the area.

The floor of the building was sticky, it's really dark inside with no windows and there is very little air moving around so it feels stuffy. The seating is also nothing more than a fancy wooden bench and after 30 or so minutes your bottom will let you know your sitting on a flat wooden board with no padding.

Now the not so great

Can't skirt around the price for what you are getting. My wife and I left spending over $200 after tip and we did not get a lot for that money. In fact we were still hungry after we left and went and got Thai. Considering two adults who only had a single non-acholic drink each and a prepackaged meal this is a bit much. The meats were good, don't get wrong but if I'm being honest I have had better cuts of meat at Texas Roadhouse for a more reasonable price. I know the experience is different but you do get way more variety at a better price at a place like the Roadhouse. I have also been to other restaurants like this in other cities and they were much better in terms of food and value. I know this is Pittsburgh and options are really limited but even being unique for the area still doesn't justify the prices.

All the sides that came with our meal plan were terrible, all the mushrooms we had tasted terrible, the kimchi was the worst I ever had and the pickled veggies were also very soar and rather unpleasant we had a single bite of each and pushed them to the side.

So overall what do I think, well I think a fair amount of the 5 stars is from the mentality that since the place is expensive it must be good or perhaps they were people there when it's late night and are drunk and having a good time. For a dinner date this place is not all that great and if that is your intent for coming you would be better served elsewhere.

My wife and I definitely won't be back and if someone were to ask me what I thought if they had been thinking about going I'd tell them the hype is not worth the price especially if they are...