OMBU Grill — Restaurant in Salt Lake City

Went in for Lunch, Prices now are updated to about 16.99$ for 11-3 pm on mon-Fri and like 22-23$ for Dinner or all day on Saturday.

They used to let you get saturday lunch prices when we came last time a few years ago, but still with a menu that includes ayce steak and items that seem house made with lots of preparation, Like curry rice and Bimbap rice bowls, it really did kinda feel more restaurant than buffet.

Last time we went, it was very good (though the meat was a bit unseasoned/unsalted at times, but very good dipped into soy and the sauces).

It's still pretty good, but it's a little bit worse than it used to be. More items are duds but it's still a pretty fun place. Some of the meat seems very hit and miss and even varies wildly on trips. Sometimes it's fresh and tastes very good and has a bright red vibrant color, other times it tastes like it's a bit old.

Some parts feel like a ingredient issue vs chef preparation issue. The takoyaki looked wonderful and the frying looked wonderful but the bonito flakes tasted years old and some of the condiment plates that were a sidenote last time, tasted noticeably older than the last time we came. I think some of the stuff here might be getting used even when it's old, though the brisket we ordered this time was good.

You kind of seem to play portion size guessing roulette here though. We've been here 3 times, and often times the size of meat you're served varies from paper thin plates to like 1-2 lbs of meat chunks to like 1-2 oz.

Then you order a bowl of rice and you're served like a 4 oz scoop of rice or 16 oz scoop of rice on one dish and then like a head sized 20-40 oz feeling sized scoop of rice on like salmon. Then the portion sizes of the tonkotsu ramen had a wonderful broth and egg, but the noodles seemed to be 2-3x packs of plain nissin instant ramen noodles (possibly tonkotsu flavor). Excellent flavor, but was slightly hoping for different noodles than the instant stuff for a restaurant experience.

But the miso bowl was 1/8th the size of the ramen bowl, and while the broth was wonderful, we had just gotten through like 40 oz of rice and 2-4 oz of meat and now we had like 2 lb of just instant ramen noodles in a bowl. I think i would have been happier with maybe 1 packs worth as a side to get more variety. But it seems like a common theme is, the food tastes better with one side, but the portion sizes are all over the place to keep you guessing.

Every order of meat will be like 2-4 oz of meat, every order of rice or noodles or carb can feel like family sized portions for 1 person that make you feel pressured to eat head sized portions of rice and chopstick sized portions of meat.

It's still tasty and i'd definitely order at least one, perhaps the chicken curry or kimchi rice are my favorites, but you might be wanting to share some of the frankly ridicolous portion sizes considering meat is often for the whole table, but 20-30 oz feeling portion sizes of rice/noodles is often coming for one person!

Of course, after the customary restaurant tax and 12-18% tip, it usually ends up like 30% more, so you probably will expect to see 16.99$ - 22$ for lunch and 22.99$ - 30$ for dinner.

Still it's fun to come here once in a while and for waiters that actually deliver many food dishes and set up the grill, the tip is more reasonable feeling than most places where you tip for a person to deliver unrefilled water and charge a 40$ group tip. Though i've heard this store has had frequent mentions of waiters screaming or yelling over 10% or missed tips. So your...

I used to love coming to this location Ombu has always been one of my favorite places to eat, but I’ve noticed the treatment of customers has been really bad recently…. A couple of months ago I went there to eat with my family and I noticed a commotion across the restaurant a waitress, was going back-and-forth with a customer trying to force them to give her a tip… I didn’t know exactly what led up to that and what their interactions where before this so I minded my business but i noted the waitress seemed kind of rude and her tone of voice, and the way that she was speaking to them … and then a few weeks ago I made a reservation to show some of my friends the restaurant and I was really excited because they have never been there before but when we got there, we ended up having the same waitress and she was rude from the moment that we sat down she was trying to rush us to order, and then kept coming back to our table to ask us if we were finished which was less than 10 minutes after we received our food and some of it was still cooking on the grill… I felt so embarrassed because I was telling them how great the food was I did not expect them to have a horrible experience…. When it was time for us to go, she came back and slammed a receipt on the table and demanded for us to give her a tip. We were sitting at a booth and could not move around her, and she refused to move until we wrote a tip down for her on the receipt….. personally if I have a great experience somewhere and the food is amazing I would love to give someone a tip because I really feel like they work hard and deserve it but after receiving really bad service, getting our food a little late and then being rushed to cook it and eat it not even giving us time to enjoy anything and then being forced to give a tip I will never come back here again. This was literally the worst experience I’ve ever had at a restaurant to add to this by the time we came out. There were a lot of sketchy people in the back checking out the cars and they were two homeless people trying to break into my car. The restaurant is in a horrible area and not secure at all…. if you ever go to a Ombu, do not waste your time coming to this location it was truly one bad thing...

This is an excellent all you can eat Korean BBQ place. It’s incredibly reasonably priced at just $21 for the dinner option that includes 50 items.

They also have excellent boba that you can get as well. I got the traditional boba and it was sweetened perfectly with nice, chewy, fresh boba.

On to the meal itself. The banchan (side dishes) are very limited. There is kimchi, cucumbers, seaweed salad, and a potato in sweet sauce.

The items on the menu include a huge variety of appetizers, meats, and rice/noodle dishes. You can find the full menu on their website.

We started off with your standard beef brisket and pork belly. The quality of meat was actually much higher than I was expecting. The meat was very flavorful, and there were a few sauces to dip them in.

The pork belly was extremely fatty and melted as you ate it.

We then moved on to the marinated items - beef bulgogi, beef tenderloin in a sweet sauce, and bone-in beef galbi. The beef galbi was amazing. A huge strip was brought to us and was easy to cut once it started cooking. It was extremely tender and the galbi sauce was sweet and fragrant.

The beef bulgogi was solid as I expected - the meat was tender since it had been marinated.

We tried the beef tenderloin which was surprisingly great. Cubes of beef were grilled to a perfect medium rare consistency, with a nice charred exterior.

Final meat we had was beef tongue. This was so flavorful and tender, and I highly recommend getting this and not skipping out on it.

We got an excellent kimchi fried rice that was filled with egg and spices. The vinegar-y, crunchy kimchi was a nice juxtaposition to the oily, hardy eggs and rice.

The soft tofu and kimchi soup had great flavor and was nice to sip on throughout.

We never made it to their other appetizers and meats as we were stuffed, but we were very pleased overall.

Staff were extremely friendly and helpful throughout, changing our grill multiple times.

Parking is a little tough. There is a lot behind the building with probably a dozen or so spots. This does fill up fast during peak hours. There is plenty of free street parking all around the area, however, so you can park on the...