LV Korean BBQ & Hot Pot — Restaurant in South Whitehall Township

Service: Our service was not great. We had to ask for water refills every time, even after the waitress walked by and didn’t notice empty cups. The different food bars weren’t explained (e.g., “skewer only” label was unclear). We finished our meal except for the crab but had no crackers. The server finally brought some after we asked, but it should have been noticed earlier. Our BBQ was off/low and took a while to heat up after we requested it. Even after dessert, the BBQ was still on, charring residue, and we had to ask to turn it off. When we asked about food items, the response was often, “I’m not sure,” so we had to Google it. We were never told we could adjust our soup temperature. The server was present, asking how the food was multiple times, but lacked awareness to notice what needed attention. Water glasses were constantly refilled full of ice, leaving little room for water.

This experience didn’t match the quality of other hotpot restaurants we’ve been to.

On the plus side, plates were cleared often, and staff were friendly when asked for things. Our server did check on a soup allergy. However, at other restaurants, we are usually provided additional allergy guidance, but here, only the one soup was addressed.

Atmosphere: Traffic around the bars was chaotic, making it hard to walk around. The dressing section was messy. A better flow system is needed, and a sign at the entrance should direct guests to the host stand. Unique items could use mini-descriptions. The "How to Cook" signs looked like a DIY Word document and could be more professional. The decor was beautiful, and the modern-pop music was nice—except for one random rap song that felt out of place.

Food: Many items were missing labels or mislabeled (e.g., “Snails” was in front of “Crabs”). There was a wide variety, including unique items like quail eggs, beef tongue, snails, crabs, lamb, lotus root, and animal intestine, alongside staples like chicken, noodles, beef, and veggies. The drink section included coconut and taro bubble teas. Soup bases were delicious, and the dessert section, while small, was pleasantly healthy and sweet, featuring fruit, pastries and four ice cream flavors.

Overall: We love Korean BBQ, and we think this location’s poor rating is due to bad service, possibly from undertraining or an off-night. The food was fresh and flavorful, though we cooked most of it ourselves. With a better server, this could have been 5 stars. Other reviews mention great service from different staff, so we hope to return and have a...

This was my first Hot Pot / Korean BBQ experience. For those like me who are new to the cuisine, and to this style of restaurant, I'd like to explain a couple of things that weren't intuitively obvious in reading the other Google reviews and seeing the online menu.

First -- the dine-in experience is intended as an immersive all-you-can-eat buffet, consisting of Hot Pot and Hibachi that you cook yourself at your own grill or at individual cooktops at your table. You select your meats and veggies from salad bar-style display cases and take them back to your table; they bring you stainless pots of broth for your hot pot.

The "Online Menu" that is at their website is considered to be a to-go menu, where you configure your hot pot ingredients or your hibachi meat(s) and they prepare them for you for carry-out. You miss out on the free beverages or the dessert, and you miss out on the experience of cooking at the table.

The beverage menu card they gave us in the restaurant is designed for the buffet - and lists basic beverages as free - but these are not free when you order from the to-go menu.

We didn't realize the "either-or" nature of the restaurant until we got there. They allowed us to order from the to-go menu, but the staff really isn't geared to serve you that way. Admittedly, we were there on Valentine's Day and they were quite busy.

I would recommend to the greeting staff that they be prepared to explain the fundamental difference between the dine-in experience and the to-go experience; I recognize the restaurant has been open for less than a month, so some of their processes and procedures need to be tweaked to accommodate newbies.

As Korean cuisine is somewhat new to us, some "intro to hot pot" content on their website would be useful, as well as detailed descriptions of the various broths - you really should have an understanding of them before you order, because once you select a broth, you're pretty much stuck with it.

Also, keep in mind that all the various meats, seafood, and veggies are all out in the open; this may be a problem for those with significant food allergies.

For me, this will be only a carry-out experience going forward - I don't do "all-you-can-eat' buffets nowadays.

But for a group of, say, 6 or more, or for a celebration of some type, this would be a...

This is the best hotpot/bbq place in the Lehigh Valley... 88 in Bethlehem has you order from a server and then they bring the food to you, and the new Kpot place in Whitehall has you ordering off an I pad, which for hotpot and bbq is very unhygienic, and what if the Ipad gets too close to the grille!

This is a phenomenal place ! The server that we had was Destiny, and it truly was a destiny to have such an amazing server!

The set up is remarkable! My family would go to the Outback that used to occupy the space, and is 100% unrecognisable from the Outback days.

This is set up like a gourmet market where you have a huge assortment of seafood/meats/marinated meats for the bbq/dumplings and seafood balls/and a gigantic selection of vegetables, and noodles.

One huge thing that separate them from the other 2 hotpot places in the valley...There is no dining time limit...you can relax take your time and enjoy! This is a very nice feature of this exceptional restaurant! All the others have time limits and when you have good friends, and family around the table and all of their delicious offerings, you don't want to rush this perfect experience!

One thing I have never seen in a BBQ/hotpot place is they have all you can drink Thai Teas/Ramune-Japanese Sodas/and Chinese Teas... YES THEY ARE ALL YOU CAN DRINK AS PART OF THE BUFFET!

My wife and I being the intrepid foodies we are tried all of them and learned how to drink Ramune. There is a cap on top and you have to break off the little inside cap, and pierce the bubble thingie, and make the glass ball go into the drink... took some practice with comedic effect!

Today was their very first day and they spent 6-7 months on this restaurant and the food is not only exceedingly delicious, but you are dining in a gorgeous place, with tv's descending from the ceiling.

They can't do enough to help you. The staff they have there is wonderful, and so helpful with everything!

Thank you LV hotpot for an amazing meal, congratulations on your opening, and a wonderful day one of 1,000,000,001! And I look forward to seeing my new LV hotpot friends again...