Hwaro 1 AYCE KBBQ & SUSHI — Restaurant in Spring Valley

TLDR; Used to be a good and affordable place for big parties without sacrificing quality. They are now expensive, skimp on the meat, and have shoddy service. Our party will not be back, and we’ll be sure to let others we know to do the same.

I used to come here quite a bit for a good balance of price, meat quality & variety, and seating flexibility, but after this most recent visit, I will no longer be coming back. It’s not worth the $34/person price point if you come on a weekend or anytime after 4:00 PM. There’s many better options now to choose from within a 5 minute drive.

Their interior used to have several long tables that could accommodate up to 10 people. The recent remodel has nixed those tables in favor of 4 and 6-seater booths. We came in with a party of 8 at 12:30 PM on a Saturday and wanted to be close together. We got seated in two 4-person booths with an aisle in between, making it hard to feel like we’re all eating together. We asked to move our friends to the booth adjacent to us, on the opposite side of a low wall. It’s not the same as the old long table but at least we wouldn’t have 4 feet between us. We were told that they would not accommodate us as they were keeping that open in case a larger party of 10 came and wanted to be seated with each other - aka across from each other separated by an aisle. Mind you, the restaurant was only half full at this time.

Menu-wise, they’ve nixed a number of banchan. No more fish cake or radish paper. Their servers skimp on the portion sizes. We noticed at one point their brisket and tongue plates were significantly smaller than the portions they used to bring out, so we asked for more orders at once. They still only brought out one at a time. The kicker was ordering the shimeji wrapped in pork belly. They came out with a plate that had one piece on it. For a table of four. Five rounds of this later, we’re told that it’s our last order. We’re used to being stuffed after eating KBBQ, having to negotiate with each other on who has room to finish the rest and avoid food waste. We werent even full this time. They also did not refill our water. I was letting ice cubes melt in my mouth for water at one point.

They were great about changing out the grill. That’s about it. The finishes are nicer, but every other aspect of why I used to come to Hwaro is gone. There’s plenty of competition now, especially at $34/person....

We used to like this place. We even recommended it to a LOT of our families and friends whether they were locals or out of state but today will be the last time we will ever set foot in this restaurant! With so many better, cleaner and much friendlier staff AYCE K-BBQ expanding in our town e.g. Master Kim’s, Gen and 888, we will never miss this place at all! We had to walk out of this restaurant today after Sunday Mass. Restaurant is not even busy (no lines when we walked in) and they gave us a booth at the far left side as you walk into the restaurant (elevated booth). We are a family of 5, all full grown adults. These booths are not comfortable for 5 people. I’ve been to Hwaro numerous times so I know the layout of this restaurant. We asked the female wait staff if we can move to the long table since it’s empty. She refused saying it’s reserved and spoke with another female wait staff discussing our issue. Then the female wait staff changed the story saying it’s only for party of 7 or more in order to occupy the long table and by reservations only. What? Since when did you guys start taking reservations? The whole family dined here before and there were approximately 20 of us but they refused to take reservations and we waited for over an hour just to be seated. I looked at the other long table and there were only 2 people seated on one side (since it’s a double burner) and 3 on the opposite end. I asked to speak with a Manager and the cashier who doubled as wait staff - the one who was helping us originally told me that there was no manager on site and it’s useless to talk to one since that was the Manager’s policy about the long table so we left vowing not to...

2021.12-22/1330-1500: From the minute we walked in, the reviews from Mikey Chen and others were true! We happened to show up at 1:30 p.m. and figured it was after the lunch rush. It was perfect timing. It was great because it's off the strip and you know the service will be primo. Our wait wasn't long at all. The person that greeted us was so sweet. We had a couple servers that were tending to us. Either way, anyone that came to us was super sweet, funny and friendly. We had Reno as one of our servers and he was excellent! We always had plenty of water, Soju, the sides, and meat. We were never waiting for a server to come by to take our meat order. They were on top of it like flies on poop. They also let you know ahead of time when your time is up and you'll need to place your last meat order.

Today we had Soju. I'm not familiar with it so we decided to get a bottle. It was fantastic! Our first bottle was peach Soju and our second bottle was strawberry. Holy moly. I liked it so much that I tried to see where I can find it back home in LA.

All the meats that came out were exactly like the reviews said. The quality of the meat was primo and we had gotten better and bigger portions of the steak here than the other KBBQ place we went to yesterday. It was carnivore heaven. When we visit Vegas again, we'll hit this place up each visit!! Guaranteed!

All of their sides were delicious, too. They just kept everything coming and they mean business with a lovely smile EACH time. Everyone that assisted us were so gracious and friendly. We live it here!

Please stop in and pay them a visit, you...