Jinju Korean Grill and Sushi — Restaurant in Saint Petersburg

Ok, where to start? I wanted to go into this experience loving it, but it fell short on the food side of things. Now that I am saying this, I am willing to give it another go and see if they change my mind. I lived in South Korea and have visited over 50 Korean BBQ locations. So, let me break things up so you can see why I rated this the way I did. My overall rating was heavily influenced by the food. Rating 1-10 Scale

Food Quality: 5 I felt that the meat was of a lower quantity meat. I may be wrong, but that's what I felt. The meat was kinda tough.

Service: 10 Service was impeccable. The staff was so friendly and willing to help and made sure things were taken care of immediately. I was very impressed.

Atmosphere: 9

The environment in the restaurant wasn't overly loud; I could chat with my wife. And it felt welcoming. Also, being a BBQ I didn't notice any smoke in the place, which is nice. Well ventilated.

Flavor of the food: 5

The food was lacking in flavor. The meats were not marinated like they should be. The sauce was just drizzled over the top of the meat only when ordered and brought out. I will break down the foods later.

Meal prep time: 8

Food came out relatively fast, so I was impressed we were not waiting around awkwardly while our stuff was being prepped and prepared.

Cost: 8

I would say they are on par with other restaurants.

Freshness of the food: 9

Everything seemed to come out fresh. I only had one lettuce leaf that was starting to turn, but it was not a big deal.

Cleanliness: 10 They kept the place clean.

On to the food.

Galbi (BBQ I cooked) : 6. There is not much flavor to the sauce it was supposed to be marinated in. When BBQ, this marinade crystalizes and creates a candy-like outer shell. Which is super yummy at BBQ places. This will make or break the Galbi. When I got to the end of the galbi, I turned the plate over, dumped the sauce on the gabi, and let the grill caramelize it. It was delicious after that.

Bulgogi (BBQ I cooked): 4, same as Galbi, but I felt like they were sliced way too thin and hard to get the nice sear while still having a juicy inside.

Kimchi pork or beef dumpling can't remember: 7 I'm not much of a fan of Kimchi and would have preferred the same thing as just pork or beef. It wasn't bad, just not a favorite. It was homemade, and the interior of the dumpling was different than what you usually get. This has potential.

Japchae: 7 It was ok, like other stuff; I feel like it was missing something. The thin Beef that was added had 0 flavor.

Susi Chicken tempura roll: 7

It was good but missing something. It lacked a little bit of flavor.

Firecracker (Mofiied) roll. 10

This was super Yummy to me. I loved it, and they were very willing to modify it for me. I changed the following things in the roll. Tuna to shrimp. No roe. No spicy mayo changed to non-spicy or yum yum. I'm not sure which one ended up on the roll. Then I asked for a side of EEL sauce. I'm drooling thinking about this.

Please don't think I'm being overly critical of this review I just want to point things out from my opinion so you can look into these things. I want this place to succeed.

Will I try this place again? Absolutely! I will give it some time for them to work some things out. This place has potential and headed in the right direction. So I am rooting for you. I always give places a 2nd chance unless they cross the line, and this...

I have never written a one-star review but Jinju left VERY little to be desired. My sister and I have been waiting a long time for this spot to open since we've seen this sign but we ended up being super disappointed with everything.

I wanted to give our server the benefit of the doubt and figured it was her first day working but oh my, she may need to find a new day job. We first walked in with no one to greet us and then let a server know we have 3 in our party. She looked confused almost when we said that.

We were ravenous so we decided to try the sushi as well as the Korean BBQ. We ordered crab rangoon, tuna tataki, salmon onigiri, the spicy scallop roll, and yellowtail sashimi to start. The crab rangoon had some curry seasoning in it, which was kind of strange and there was barely no imitation crab in them. Tuna tataki was okay. The spicy scallop roll was terrible. I don't even think there was scallop in it. It was very mushy. She forgot to put in our salmon onigiri and the yellowtail sashimi was sliced WAY too thick. Did not look appetizing at all.

We ordered from the a la carte menu and got the pork belly, brisket, and galbi. The quality of the meat was okay and yep, the server forgot to put in our galbi. The meat kept sticking to our grill. The server put the heat way too high and never came by to check and see that the flames were going crazy. We ended up turning it down ourselves. All the while, we had to ask for plates, sauce bowls (didn't bring the right amount the first time around).

What really confused us was that we didn't get the ban chan (side dishes) that are always given when you order Korean BBQ items. Another server was trying to explain that only side dishes were given for pre-cooked meats and not the raw meats to be grilled but yet, looking at these other reviews, it seems everyone else got it. We also had to ask for sauces.

It was just a mess. Even if you're not an expert in Korean cuisine and BBQ, there are some basics to it and Jinju does not have it down. Never coming back here. Prices are more than competitors, food quality sucked, service sucked, I could go on and on. Only thing they got going for them is the marinade on the galbi (which they forgot to give us and we had to remind them). Oh! Another thing, my sister said she wanted the side dishes and would even pay for them even though they don't come with a la carte items (wth) and they STILL never brought it out to us. It was a super slow night with just 3 tables and 3 servers. I can't imagine how they'll do on a busy night. All in all, SUPER...

I only went for K-BBQ so I can't speak on the sushi side of the business.

The meat was of pretty decent quality and was seasoned decently, but the options were meager overall. That's the only good side.

-Absolutely terrible kimchee. It tasted un-fermented. Like it was wet kinda spiced cabbage. Honestly the worst I have ever had from a restaurant.

-Banchan in total was terrible. The kimchee was awful and nearly inedible, but the seaweed salad was from a bag, daikon pickles were bad and the pickle fishcake melange was bad. Banchan is imo a very good way to know a Korean restaurants quality and care in the kitchen. Truly abysmally bad and very few offerings. I have had much much better at a buffet restaurant

-Value terrible. This place does have any of the "unlimited" or the type where you keep selecting cuts or styles of meat. They had a few set meals posted for groups of 4-5 people. Very expensive, but it could have been worth it. But even in this they made weird options like bringing 2 or 3 of an item to a table of 4. It only would have been worse if there was another person there. The set meal also comes with a deepfried bluebunny ice cream. The ice cream was the type that you get in gradeschool that isn't ice cream but a frozen dairy dessert that tastes like sugary vanilla icemilk.

The sushi might be good I don't know and probably won't find out after what happened with the bbq. If you go just order a single plate of something. Bulgogi was the best I tried.

Overall just go somewhere else for K-BBQ this place is trying to do two very different things at the same time and thus couldn't do...