Brave Korean BBQ — Restaurant in Tempe

Happy to find this place that offers authentic Korean food Via Buffet Style and barbecue. I like that they have the addition of cold noodles although the time that I visited, they only had the spicy red paste cold noodle and not the broth version. I think maybe they serve either or seasonally? I'm not sure - maybe one wasn't so popular and they fazed it out. 🤔

Being Korean myself and having growing up on authentic Korean food, alongside many various K restaurants at many different states, LA, HI, you get to experience varying levels and qualities of Korean food, delivery, service, and atmosphere. I'm happy that over the years Korean BBQ has gained traction and have popped up more and more in Arizona. People love it! Yeah, it's damn delicious.

On to the food. The food was good. And with all the places I've been to I can't say that it was extremely excellent. Still though pretty damn good. They had a decent selection of panchan (Korean side dishes), but not the most robust or best I've had.

There was two of us dining, and I asked for the traditional lettuce, garlic/jalapeño, and samjang sauce for wrapping, and I was REALLY surprised they brought out a large samjang bowl that could feed a party of 20! 👀 And same when they delivered the garlic/jalapeño! It was a ton & was enough for a VERY large party. Why?!

Business owners/workers: take notice. This is wasteful for a party of 2. It seemed like their standard size that they were just throwing on everyone's tables. These two particular items are meant to be served sparingly while eating barbecue on a lettuce leaf. Samjang is even LESS of a condiment than kimchee is and they served less kimchi, like a super tiny amount. If you're a party of two, you shouldn't be serving a gigantic bowl of the sauce nor garlic or jalapenos. A party of two would pass out from salt consumption and overly hot garlic breath having to actually eat all of that lol 😆. Who the heck would be able to eat all of that?! Serve the proper amount for a party of two! It should be tiny, like in ramekins. There must have not had any Koreans working that day, or the actual workers or servers themselves do not understand these particular menu items and their proper authentic Korean serving portions etticut.

Lastly, since when did I need to order rice at all you can eat barbecue restaurant that's Korean? In my experience and culture, rice is the first thing that is delivered, without question or asking. We wasn't delivered rice and I had to ask for it while we were in the middle of grilling our food. Thats a no no. 😒 Because with Korean culture you're encoraged to eat before the barbecue gets going with your rice and sides. Oh well. We're not in Korea. Traditions here vary. I'm certain people probably don't even order rice with their Korean food sometimes.

Service 3.5 stars, workers seemed annoyed and joyless.

Will be back though. This was my first impression. And...

This was my first time at a Korean BBQ place like this. For the price, I was highly disappointed. $40 will get you much better service and food that you don't have to cook yourself.

To start, the water at my table was lukewarm and the scissors were filthy. My waitress was disinterested; scarcely stopping by and offering zero guidance or recommendations, even after I said I had never tried Korean BBQ before. And it's not like they were busy either. I went on a Sunday afternoon; there were 3 other occupied tables at most.

You don't get a physical menu unless you ask. There's just a QR code link on a (not even laminated) piece of copy paper taped to the wall next to the table. Rather presumptuous for a place that has neither wi-fi nor any way to charge your phone at the table. Worse, the digital menu is very mobile-unfriendly; requiring lots of zooming and scrolling around. If you ask for a physical menu, you get a single page of plain copy paper (again not even laminated) printed in black-and-white. With the money they save from having most people use their phones, could they not have at least sprung for color?

Once you have the menu pulled up, it is supremely unhelpful. Descriptions are vague and photos (when they exist) alternate between showing the fully cooked version and the raw version. Naturally, the fully cooked versions don't even remotely resemble what you actually end up with. I may well have been cooking things wrong, but this place doesn't care. If they did, the menu would include guidance on how to cook things. You can't get mad at someone for doing something wrong when you don't even hint at how to do it right. Even a simple 'recommend x minutes per side' would have been a huge help. The cooking difficulties are only exacerbated by how dimly lit everything is. This could be forgiven if you were allowed do-overs, but no. The single piece of information that my waitress provided without being asked was that you will be charged for uneaten food.

The food itself—wordlessly dropped off at my table by a different person—was not much better than the service. Most of the cuts of meat were incredibly fatty, but not in a marbled way. Instead it appeared as though they had not been trimmed. By the end of the meal I had filled an entire bowl with trimmings of pure fat. Gristle was another problem. The scissors regularly had difficulty cutting things and in one case I had to spit a piece of meat out because I literally could not chew it.

Halfway through, my grill top was replaced with one that had clearly not been cleaned thoroughly. Eventually I paid (which itself was difficult due to my elusive & uncommunicative waitress) and left. The ice cream was good though, but even that spoke to how slapdash the experience was. The place was so dark and the menu so unhelpful that I only noticed they even had ice cream when I nearly bumped into the machine...

Took the family to try this new Korean BBQ place & wasn't disappointed. FYI...I didn't take pictures of the various foods offered as it was our first time there.

This Korean BBQ restaurant is an all you can eat restaurant, the only catch is it is limited to a 90-minute time frame. They also restrict ordering to only 5 dishes at a time (to prevent waste). Oh, and be aware that with groups of 5 or more people, they automatically add a 20% tip to the total.

It is located in a plaza, and here I was thinking it would be a small style restaurant, but it was quite the opposite. They had plenty of booths, and the air was well ventilated (not smokey or stuffy - all things considered). But the smell when you walk in was indeed enticing.

We waited just a few minutes before being seated and reviewed the menu, via QR scan loacated on a wall within the booth. Also, each booth was designed to make it your own little corner in the restaraunt, even with other diners in the restaraunt.

Moments after being seated, we began to organize our order. The server came over & we began ordering various menu items. I personally thought the food items were smaller in size, but with the all you can eat aspect, it didn't play a factor.

The dishes ordered were of better quality than other places we have visited, and we made sure to try various dishes. We saved the seafood items for last as we didn't want to mix beef/pork items with seafood. *Service does stop by to change the grill tops on occasion, which we appreciated - I am sure you could request a grill change depending on what you order.

Oh, once dinner has been enjoyed, they do have a self-serve ice cream machine. I, of course had to try, and try I did, all three (3) flavors! They had vanilla (which wasn't that good), seemed more ice than cream & not rich or flavorful. I also had the chocolate, which wasn't much better, but again, it was part of the menu. Then I had the vanilla/chocolate swirl, which worked better than either one by themselves. They weren't sweet, but it did make for a better blend than one flavor by itself. I can't complain either as I didn't over indulge the on sugar after the meal and it was a nice way to end the visit.

The only drawback I found was the service. It wasn't bad, but I felt more attention could have made to make our experience better. With this said, we would enjoy going there again as the food was good, and it was all you could eat (within the 90-minute time restriction).

I still recommend this place as a good Korean BBQ place to visit, even with some minor flaws & restrictions. I would, however, suggest a smaller group of 2-3 people so you could enjoy...