Chuan BBQ 串门烧烤轰趴馆&Karaoke Lounge — Restaurant in Seattle

I was excited to try Chuan BBQ from looking at the positive reviews, and I quickly realized during my meal that all the positive reviews were fake, and the negative reviews were truthful about this restaurant. The owner is an asian UW graduate, and you can notice that all the glowing reviews are from asian reviewers, which are likely the owner's friends doing tons of reviews to falsely prop up the business. None the less, I gave it a go, and bought quite a large variety of items (screenshot of order provided).

For starters, it looks like the little "grills" on the table would contribute to grilling/cooking the food, but unfortunately its just for show to keep your food warm - under the foil, are 2 wax small candles. This was clearly communicated when you are seated.

There are a few pros to this restaurant, but the cons far outweigh the pros. For that reason, I give it a 2/5. This place did not initially offer karaoke, but im assuming this was implemented to help get more people into the door.

Pros: The owner is super nice & friendly, and pretty attentive to the tables The spicy cumin flavor that was used is quite tasty and balanced well - sweet/salty/spicy When they grill the items, they were cooked well, and not over/under cooked Karaoke room is free for customers if it is not occupied.

Cons: The price for what you get & portions are not the best Almost every single grilled item on the menu uses the exact same seasoning, and a little too liberally. Proof in the pictures The repitive seasoning overpowers the taste of the actual ingredient, and it borderline hides the quality/freshness of what was cooked. Most of the items seemed like it was from frozen and not fresh, except for the grilled mushrooms I ordered 10 different grilled items, and they all had the exact same taste/seasoning, with some items with way too much seasoning - Beef Tongue, Beef Tendon, Pork Belly, Hot Iron Squid, grilled yellow croaker, bullfrog leg, grilled fish tofu, japanese grilled fish (mackrel), Grilled muishrooms, grilled beef meatball When serving water, there was no matching cups, and while its not a big deal for me, it can be for others.

While most reviews are 5 stars here, look at the lower rated reviews, as they will provide an actual unbaised glimpse into what you're getting yourself into. I'm glad to have tried it, but i will not be...

Chuan BBQ was a complete disappointment, far from what the glowing Google reviews might suggest. Despite the inviting photos I took, this restaurant turned out to be one of the worst dining experiences I’ve ever had. I took my wife on a Friday night, it was the worst date night experience ever.

Ambiance: 1/5 The restaurant had a strange, unpleasant smell upon arrival, which was a major turn-off. It’s hard to tell if this is a barbecue joint or a karaoke lounge, as the boss kept pushing karaoke services on us during the meal.

Authenticity: 1.5/5 The dishes were heavily seasoned—likely to mask the lack of freshness. The chicken gristle, which should have been grilled, was inexplicably fried. We asked for extra spicy but never asked for extra salty. The grilled fish was $19 and it was unacceptable salty. I couldn’t have second bite of it . The grilled squid came last because we heard the owner talking to herself that the squid was not defrosted quick enough. When the grilled squid came , it had no grill flavor but only some sweet sauce. We have been many BBQ places in LA and China since me and my wife are both grow up there , never had such bad experiences for BBQ.

Flavor: 1/5 If you’re into excessively salty food, this might be your spot. For me, it was unbearable—easily the saltiest meal I’ve ever encountered. The lukewarm barbecue didn’t help the situation either.

Cost: 2/5 Considering the low quality of the food and the odd experience, this place is overpriced.

Service: 2/5 The only redeeming factor was the awkwardly friendly boss, who seemed determined to upsell every dish and push karaoke. Despite that, the service pace was decent, possibly because I was visibly checking in on Yelp.

Final Thoughts: Chuan BBQ is a hard pass. Between the overpowering salt, questionable food freshness, weird atmosphere, and karaoke confusion, I can’t recommend this place. Skip it and save...

Spent 2019 New Year Eve here but got awful service. The restaurant were full of temporary helpers that night. We arrived as the first 3 groups of guests and placed order fast. Our order for meat were served in normal speed. However after wait for more than half an hour and the restaurant was filled up with customers, our order for veges like leek were still missing. The waitress explained this in a rude attitude and sounded like a boss. She said the kitchen had its own rule to serve food, it's not what she can solve, and we should "BE CONSIDERABLE” for them when asking for in-time service. Not only to this, she even tried to sell us something like pancakes which apparently no customer wanted to order and they just wanted to get rid of. We can tell she just wanted us to cancel our rest of orders and leave early.

We are pretty sure about the reason behind: they didn't want to cook veges because they are low-value orders and took more room on grill racks than meat. That's why customers after us can get their meat order earlier than us but we never got ours. They made us sick for DISCRIMINATING CUSTOMERS ON VALUE OF ORDERS.

Here are my pieces of advice to them for free: learn how to smile, learn how to say something properly as a waitress rather than boss, train your people well even when short-handed, and treat every customer equally. Yeah you got it right,...