Goku Korean BBQ & Hot Pot — Restaurant in San Jose

Goku is my family's go-to KBBQ spot in the South Bay. We love the iPad ordering system, the spaciousness of the restaurant, and of course, the sweet longans at the sauce bar. Recently, we had our first negative experience that was both unforgettable and bemusing.

Came here at 2:30 PM on a Sunday with my cousins for a family outing. We were a group of five. We went outside of peak meal hours to avoid a wait.

We realized there was a problem in the first five minutes that we sat down.

Before I dive in, I want to say that the experience with the food was good. The sauce bar was decently clean, there was always a fresh batch of new sauce bowls, the meat came out fast, and I think the only inconsistency was that the thickness of the meats varied throughout the meal. Sometimes we would have big pieces of tongue, and other times we would have tiny bits. The brisket was also inconsistent.

Another annoyance was that the iPads were lagging, but it's no biggie. Technology does that. A big group of 10 across from us were experiencing the same thing, and it can be hectic to address a problem like this for big groups.

The highlight of our meal was our server. I won't name him explicitly in this review in hopes (I really hope) it was a bad day for him due to personal reasons, but I genuinely felt like there was going to a fight or some other issue throughout the whole meal to the point where it made me anxious to even ask for help.

Our server was aggressive and rude in a toxic masculinity sort of way that reminded me of being in a gym. He gestured at us, rolled his eyes, and spoke in a needlessly sassy way about everything; we noticed it was particularly bad with my male cousins. They decided not to speak anymore as tensions rose over the smallest things. He seemed to take issue with anything we did, from the way we were browsing the iPad, to adjusting the heat, to grill changes and more. He tookthe plates away from our hands without even looking at us. When we asked for things, there wasn't a "yes" or "okay," just a stare before he walked away. We were doing nothing to provoke him either; we just wanted a drama-free family lunch and spent a lot of our time predicting what our server will do next.

Someone noticed our grill was smoking so they came by to change it for us, but I had a feeling he was going to be in big trouble with our server with the way he was glaring at our table afar.

The silver lining was that we got our food pretty quick each time we ordered lol.

We left baffled with...

Goku is a popular and affordable AYCE KBBQ and hot pot restaurant. The hot pots are personal while the KBBQ grill is shared with the entire table. My group chose the “only KBBQ” option which was $32 per person (so cheap!) but I would not recommend it for groups of 6-7 people. They did not allow us to sit at a table with two KBBQ grills unless we had a party of 8 or more. One small grill cooking for 6 persons was not enough and most of our time was spent waiting for meat to cook so we could divide the small portion among all of us.

In my opinion, there are a lot of aspects that Goku can improve on. Firstly, the cleanliness. The restaurant is just so…dirty. The tables, floors, sauce bars are sticky. The sauce bar bowls are presented, cluttered in a giant dish bin and still a little dirty. The first table we sat at had a huge pool of water on the floor and we had to flag a server down just to get it mopped up. The BATHROOM SINK HAD PUKE in it that was not cleaned up the entire time we had dinner.

I’m a bit puzzled as to why Goku is so popular. We ate at 5PM so we didn’t have to wait long but by the time we left there was a crowd of customers outside waiting. Is it the cheap price? Maybe.

When we asked to switch our group to a different table the server let us know that our eating time would be capped to 90min because there was a reservation coming in after us. But we asked to switch tables in the first place because of the pool of water and we literally could not fit into one side of the booth. The booths are movable, the tables with the KBBQ grills are not. The party sharing the booth behind us were bigger and had our booth pushed so close to the table. I am a 5’2” 106lb small girl and even I would’ve been uncomfortable sitting there. We HAD to move tables and then were penalized because of it? I don’t get it.

Another fault - the grills don’t have ventilation fans directly above them. So the entire restaurant is really smoky. This is the kind of KBBQ place where you WILL smell like meat after you eat here. It’s so bad that the air is like…hazy inside.

Okay…maybe time for some positives? I liked that the service was pretty fast. We ordered via touch screen which was great and our requests came to our table quickly. I also really like the kalbi, it was super good. That’s about it. I thought the other meats were pretty mid. The side dishes…mid and limited.

I don’t think I would come back again, personally. Goku...

Attended for a friends birthday. They don’t take reservations, so you’ll have to wait around for your table and they ask that all attendees be present when you’re seated. My friends hosting came about 40 minutes earlier than what they told us to put our names in. Our party of 6 was seated at a table with only 1 grill, which was a bit of a disappointment.

This place is very large and crowded, definitely a lot of hype built around it.

You order from a screen on one side of the table, which seems to make the wait staff want to avoid any conversation. I don’t have very good vision, and was sitting on the other end of the table from the screen, so I asked for a paper menu. It didn’t have any drinks or details. Just the meat list.

The service was slow to start, again, lots going on. The sauce & fruit bar were good, and I definitely recommend the popcorn chicken appetizer. We ordered 2 but only received 1.

Our first round of oysters didn’t smell right, so we received a second order which were Ok. However both orders weren’t shucked properly.

We ordered 2 different kinds of sake. One was sweet, one a little bitter. When we asked for a recommendation between the two, the waiter didn’t have any opinion. He said he asked the manager who recommended a very syrup-like plum wine.

My friends used to celebrate this birthday every year at this place, but they said there have been large changes since last year

Look - I love KBBQ as much as the next gal. We had a good time, but I think that says more about my friends than the restaurant. This place was impersonal, overpriced, and I don’t think we...