Mr. Kim's — Restaurant in Tulsa

Summary: 10/10 – would absolutely recommend. This was by far the best eating experience either of us have had. The food was excellent, the service was top-notch, the overall energy was fantastic. This made for a great date night but would also be perfect for a group of friends sharing a meal family style. Be sure to make reservations early either way. On Monday we made are reservation for two people for Saturday and had to go around 9pm because they were already booked at other times.

Atmosphere: It was borderline too dark but lit well enough that you could see where you were going and read the menu. The dining area is small, hence the need for reservations. The bar is a small horseshoe shape that sits about 12-15 tightly. Comfortable seating, nice tables w/ a grill in the middle of each, shiny gold colored eating utensils.

Service: This was where our experience really shined, in my opinion. Everything else was great, but our servers really took the experience to the next level with their attention to detail, care, and charisma. Thez (sp?) was very energetic but not overbearing in any way. He was extremely friendly and super helpful. He had us cracking up all night. He explained everything in detail and even offered suggestions on how he’d recommend enjoying the food. We had another server that helped with various things such as cooking the food for us, Jose. He was also a great conversationalist and had some great perspectives and stories to share. Both were attentive, friendly, and never made us feel like we were inconveniencing them in any way. Throughout the night, Elliot, the founder/CEO of the McNellie’s Group, stopped and chatted us up as well. He was also very friendly and answered all our questions. I’m sure he was super busy, but he never gave the impression that he didn’t have time for us.

Food/Drinks: We tried several drinks, all of them were pretty good! My wife loved the Siren’s Song, especially the presentation in the glass in came in. I had the Return of Mogwai. We wanted to try multiple meats and sides to really get a good feel for the food. We didn’t try a single thing here that we didn’t like A LOT.

First, we had the Wagyu Snowflake Dumplings to start. This was easily one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. They were AMAZING. DO NOT SKIP THESE!!!

At our servers’ and Elliot’s recommendations, we tried the A5 Wagyu, Bone-in Galbi Short Ribs, Pork Belly, and Spicy Pork Bulgogi. The wagyu was cooked perfectly by our server and was just phenomenal. It was the most buttery, delicious meat we’ve ever had. The Spicy Pork Bulgogi, while hardly spicy, was very, very good! The pork belly and galbi were both exceptional as well, especially paired with the banchan accompaniment.

For sides, we had: Egg & Butter rice - very rich and delicious, tons of umami in this one Kimchi Fried Rice - absolutely scrumptious. My wife doesn’t care for Kimchi and can’t handle spicy much at all but LOVED this rice Corn Cheese – This reminded me less of an Asian influenced dish and more Tex-Mex but was fantastic. It reminded me of a jalapeno popper with corn mixed in. Very good!

Value: This wasn’t a cheap meal, but when you get the quality of food and service that Mr. Kim’s offers, you wouldn’t expect it to be. The value is 100% there. This is also one of those places where the larger your party is the cheaper your meal can be. Being just the two of us, we could have gotten away with a much smaller bill, but then we wouldn’t have been able to experience everything we wanted to in one visit. This place is perfect for bringing a group of friends, everybody ordering something different, sharing, and then splitting the bill equal ways. That is how you get the best value out of this (or any new) restaurant. As I stated earlier, this was the best overall eating experience I’ve ever had. That in and of itself makes it worth the money to me. Is it something I’m going to do every week? No. (Tulsa has too many great restaurants anyway!) But I will definitely make it a point to come back soon, and I’ll bring some...

So my friends and I went there because it would be my first time to try a Korean barbecue restaurant and my friends KNOW I'm a Korean fanatic. I watch tons of Kdramas and am an avid Kpop listener and studied about Korea and the language for a while. So for them to know that I haven't been to one, they wanted to take me to one as the both of them have been to multiple authentic Korean barbecue restaurants. When we first walked in, we liked the place and their Halloween decorations. However, when we sat at our table, the only thing that resembled a Korean restaurant was the grill in the middle of the table and the restroom sign that said "restroom" in Korean. Other than that, they tried too hard to make it look classy for a Korean barbecue restaurant and there wasn't much Korean added into the restaurant, when it's a Korean restaurant. It was also disappointing that they didn't play any, ANY, Korean music when it's a, again, KOREAN restaurant. Moving on, the serving sizes were pretty disappointing. We had 3 people eating and thought that it would be like other Korean restaurants that give you a goof amount of serving sizes, like in Korea. That's why most people don't go to Korean barbecue places alone in Korea, since the servings are so large for just one person. In the pictures I have included, the one on the left partially shows the serving sizes that were brought to our table. On the right, the one taken from the top view, is a photo that was provided that shows their serving sizes. Again, very small. The meat was sliced very thinly and we only got 6 pieces of the meat we picked which were spicy pork bulgogi and marinated pork belly. Later on, my friend and I ordered the prime ribeye and the prime strip which were only 4 pieces each. Again, not enough unless you have a very small appetite. And if you do have a small appetite, actual Korean barbecue would not be for you. Another problem we had was the side dishes. The most important thing was KIMCHI. If you go to a Korean restaurant and they can't make or serve kimchi correctly, then RUN OUT. The kimchi that was served was NOT kimchi. It tasted sour and like it was pickled rather than actual kimchi. And yes, we would know what kimchi tastes like as we all eat kimchi. The only good side dish was the potato side dish, but it's not even Korean so. One more thing that was disappointing was when we asked if they had any other sauces, they gave us some but never mentioned that it would be an additional charge. One costed $4.00 and another sauce costed $2.00. Personally, that was too expensive for the other sauces that we asked for that were way too small. The only good thing about this place was probably the staff. They were nice and accommodating, were able to fit us in for an earlier time than for when we reserved, and were nice all around. But personally, for me, I wouldn't go back just for the staff and their service. It was too expensive for the amount they gave us. All in all, very very very disappointing and we'll never recommend or go back there. It's saddening that this was my very first experience at a...

The bartender was fantastic but when you have a reservation for 2 and your server only takes your wine order and everyone else does everything for her. Let me clarify. It was a birthday dinner reservation for 2 people at 8:15 pm a Tuesday, it took 10 minutes to be greeted by someone, then time passes no one comes to greet the table then the bartender phabien comes over introduces himself and asks us some questions and takes our drink order, phabien at this point is done making our drinks and making other peoples drinks, the drinks are sitting there melting, 5 minutes pass our “actual” server Rebekah comes over and introduces her self going through the whole process again we politely told her the bartender had taken our drink our she said “oh okay” and walks away back to the kitchen, she had more tables than the other servers but 2 of them had already paid at this point. Another 10-15 minutes pass and a server with glasses comes over and hands us our drinks and asks if he could start us out with something we asked him some questions he answered throughly and with spunk ( loved it) me and my partner looked at each other confused on who our server was so we decided to just order then and there. 10 minutes later Rebekah walks past us not looking at us, then comes back after being in the kitchen and goes “ so we’re going to order —— and ——“ me and my partner looked at eachother again thinking we had already ordered we said yes and continued on. The bartender brought out our appetizers. We ordered the Chefs choice. We also ordered the fried rice and asked for it first, we had to flag down Rebekah and ask where it was, we were watching the kitchen at this point we were hungry, our server comes out with ice cream for another table sees us staring at her turns around drops the ice cream to another server grabs our rice and brings it to us. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if the service got better as the night died down but nope. We didn’t like our first round of drinks and no one asked to fix it or even asked how they were, once we got ahold of her and asked for a wine menu at this point she got that to us quickly but afterwards we didn’t really see her until the check. We asked the bartender if we got a dessert because Rebekah had only said “I’ll be back with your check” 20 minutes after we asked the bartender about our dessert, it was sitting in the window dying. idk weird vibes. I just wish we actually got served by our server and not...