Top Pot & KBBQ Pittsburgh — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

I want to preface this with saying the food was great and all the ingredients were super fresh, but this might not be the place to go if you are someone that doesn’t do well in overstimulating environments especially when it comes to food. I will give them the benefit of the doubt since they just opened and are definitely still figuring some things out but it’s a huge restaurant with a lot of smells, sounds, lights, hot soup/grills (obviously) and it all just made for a bit of sensory overload.

Also, they recommend to order 5 things per person and it ended up being WAY too much food and our whole table was filled with plates which only adds to the overstim. I recommend start with 2-3 and add if you need more. Also def order things to share if possible - for example, one portion of bok choy ended up being a whole big bowl of it (which to each their own, but that’s more than I would ever want). Additionally, doing hot pot and the bbq at the same time was pretty stressful - if it’s your first time I would pick one or the other. It’s just too much to have both/pick ingredients for each and then man the grill and your soup pot at the same time.

Also, BIG thing to note, if you order the spicy Szechuan broth, it gets spicier as it simmers! Makes sense, but this was my first time and I didn’t think of it. I could handle it just fine in the beginning, but halfway through the meal I was choking on the spice and it ended up being way too spicy for me.

Additionally, someone else mentioned that their server didn’t do a great job of explaining the process. I was lucky I’ve seen enough if reels to know how to do it, but this was my first time and our server didn’t mention much about how to do hot pot, the sauce bar, etc. the staff was all obviously very stressed and overstimulated so I don’t want to throw them under the bus for that, but if I was someone going into the experience blind, it def would’ve been super confusing!! If it’s your first time, maybe do some research first and don’t be afraid to ask the server for more detail!

Overall, the food was good - ended up being was spicier and more stressful than I would’ve thought haha. I would give the restaurant/the workers grace and maybe wait a bit to check it out before going especially if you are new to hot pot. It’s an experience to say the least, and it might not be for you, but it’s def worth checking out if you are looking for a...

GF review: Bubble tea section on the drinks menu but they didn't have any. No boba tea? Fine. I'll take a coke then, waiter asks "Pepsi?" The menu says coke but they only have Pepsi... As a coke person, wish they would have just written Pepsi instead of coke. Sauce bar was unsanitary, there was a fly flying above the sauces and landing on the bar. Some of the covers for the sauces weren't even closed. Place was loud, couldn't hear waiter clearly. The salmon tasted terrible, not good salmon. Multiple trips to the bathroom after we got home for both of us.

Ice cream was good tho :)

Me: It was very confusing. To start the waiter told us multiple things on the menus are wrong. I got lemonade to drink because I didn't want to go through the confusion my partner did just for the drink. There's no mention of the appetizer bar on the menu. I asked the waiter about appetisers since I had seen something about endless appetisers online. He first made it seem like we were allowed to go make our own sauces at the unsanitary sauce station but couldn't go get appetisers because we got bbq. That didn't make sense so I asked again after they brought the meat and the other waiter said we could help ourselves to the appetizer bar. The appetizer bar was cleaner than the sauce bar. The beef at the bar looked good until I ate the first bite and found they all were bone. The chicken wings had good breading like tempura but the meat hung onto the bone for dear life. The fried rice is okay. Not to sure on the quality of the meats. The "spicy beef bulgogi" tasted off. Partner thought they were going to vomit. I forced it down due to the $13.99/lb fee for uneaten food.

The ice cream was the best part. Hard to screw up soft-serve ice cream 🍦. It tastes like every Asian buffet soft-serve.

If you're going to spend a lot of money per person to eat meat, I recommend going to a Brazilian steakhouse or another reputable kbbq/hotpot establishment. This...

⚠️⚠️⚠️ READ THIS REVIEW ⚠️⚠️⚠️ Beware, this place is awful! ⚠️⚠️⚠️ The fact that it has so many good reviews just makes me realize how many of them were bought.

We waited over 2.5 hours for a table and when we came in, my friends and I quickly realized why—despite the restaurant being clearly busy, there seemed to be a huge disconnect in how the staff operated.

There were plenty of servers standing around chatting with each other, while there were only 1 or 2 people were actually clearing tables. I get that roles may be divided, but when you have 7–8 dirty tables just sitting there and a 3-hour waitlist, you’d think more of the staff would at least care enough to help turn things over.

Service aside, the food was also mid at best. The hot bar was barely stocked, and when they did restock stuff, most of it tasted terrible and borderline inedible. 💀 Same goes for the sauce bar, which was also missing a bunch of sauces. Also, the sugar had these unknown black crusties in it? I don't even want to think about what the other sauces had in them that I couldn't even see.

The KBBQ itself was also underwhelming. Their so-called “garlic” meats were literally just plain cuts with raw garlic chunks thrown on top—no real marinade, no flavor infusion. The rest of the meat options were similarly bland and unseasoned. Even the “spicy” meats were just the same plain cuts covered in a watered-down gochujang sauce. And once again, they were out of stock of a bunch of options!

Honestly, it wouldn't have even mattered how mid the KBBQ was had the service was even halfway decent. It's AYCE! But waiting 20 min every time after we placed an order—only for the meats to show up and be an off-putting greyish color? Would anyone be happy with that kind of experience?

Seriously, do yourself a favor and just choose another place. Hong BBQ and Hotpot is only a 20 min drive away, and if that's too far for you, even the Qdoba next...