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I’m skipping dinner tonight as I’m still stuffed from lunch at Seoul Garden (NEX). XD For the Happy Grill Hour, adult diners pay $25++ while students and seniors pay just $19.90++. If you’re a fan of Korean cuisine, I think you would enjoy the food here. As for the service… let’s just say they leave more to be desired and I’ll have some recommendations at the end of this blogpost. Image may be NSFW.
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So… for the good bits first…
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Dessert will be the Melona ice bars (I like the honeydew one) – and it’s one stick per person. They’ll serve you rice as well and before you protest and say “I don’t eat rice!”, try Seoul Garden’s as it’s ridiculously fragrant and flavorful – like they want you to just get full eating rice alone. <- That almost happened to me, even though I really prefer noodles over rice. That’s how good it was!
As I was dining with the fam, we let mom/dad choose the hot pot soup base, and they picked the non-spicy Mushroom Hot Pot over the Kimchi Tomyum Hot Pot which is what my sis and I would totally have ordered otherwise. Well, we made do. (1) We put some soup into our soup bowls then added kimchi Image may be NSFW.
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and (2) we cooked the prawns in the pot and man… the soup was SO flavorful thereafter!
And speaking about prawns, well, don’t expect pricey tiger prawns, OK? The grey prawns are rather small (but I guess that means they cook quickly) and you can ask for as many servings as you’d like. As for the meat platter… the default version has 5 kinds of chicken chop (Spicy Bulgogi, Mala Kimchi, etc), 2 kinds of beef (bulgogi and huchu) and 1 serving of bulgogi lamb shoulder. If there’s anything you don’t / won’t eat, just let the staff know in advance. I’d thought the beef might be the highlight for me, but I found it was just sliced TOO thin and got overcooked way too quickly, and therefore wasn’t as enjoyable. The chicken, however, was not cut/sliced in any way (!!!) so you place a thick slab of chicken thigh on the grill and desperately try to cut it up into smaller pieces… the struggle is real…
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I was really impressed with how well-seasoned the chicken was! Would I come back again? Hmm… NO! ‘Cos I really ate too much today and I don’t wanna be near Seoul Garden again till about a year has passed. LOL. But yes, I would recommend you go try their all-you-can-eat lunches!
OK… so what was it I said about some things they can improve on…
#1: Friendliness / Atmosphere: I felt the lady who received us was a little cold. There was no cheer.
#2: Staffing: The lady who received us was also the one who got us seated around a table, took our order, served us food, served us drinks, changed the grill plate when it got charred, brought us extra servings of food, got us soup refills, brought us the ice bars, etc. You get the drift. Where are the other staff? For sure, there weren’t many customers but Seoul Garden still seemed understaffed today.
#3: When you’re the first customers for the day, and you’re starving, and the food just doesn’t appear on your table quickly, and you can’t get up and get the food yourself, it can be exasperating. It would have been helpful if someone had brought us the drinks first (we picked iced lemon tea instead of the soft drinks which would have just made us feel full faster).
#4: We had to make multiple requests for extra soup and grill plate changes and that meant looking for that lady who might be getting stuff from the back or answering a phonecall or just attending to another table. There was very little attention paid to us. Once again… #2 – understaffing issue.
#5: On the menu, it states that there are “32 refillable items available to choose from” but you’ll never know what those 32 are… as it’s not stated anywhere! LOL. We had to ask, and apparently things like the pickles count as 1 item, kimchi another, along with the other little side dishes. For the meats, it’s what comes on the platter. And prawns. Veggies will be what’s provided in the hotpot. AND… we found that hotdog is an item in the 32! So we ordered that as well. When we last came here for an a la carte buffet (still COVID period), they provided paper slips for item selection + indicate quantity, etc. Now… it’s all a mystery.
#6: Finally, since it’s an a la carte buffet and you cannot choose the exact quantity of food you wish to grill / eat, I think it results in a lot of wastage. For the final round of meat, which my sis had thought she’d be able to finish, the “seasoning” eventually got to her and she wanted to get the last few pieces of meat dabao-ed. Mom went to ask for a box or bag for the meat and her request was turned down. Staff told her that takeaways were allowed only if we’d ordered a la carte items (priced individually). So… oh well… hide what’s left under some prawn shells and tissue, and hope there’s no fine for food wastage. XD Anyway, they didn’t bother to come by. We paid… and left… and no one said goodbye / thanks for coming / how’s the food? It’s just Grill Hour lah… what Happy Grill Hour?
Well, I can see how such a dining experience might be appealing for some people. If you’re the kind who prefers to be left alone, without inquisitive staff constantly hovering around to refill your glass or remove plates and cutlery, THIS is the place to be. XD
If you wish to find out more about the promotions… go pop by Seoul Garden’s website. I can’t really be bothered to include links and stuff here as the food was alright but the whole dining experience really could have been better for us today. Hopefully, yours will be much better! Image may be NSFW.
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*Pro tip: if you suspect you might end up in a situation similar to my sister’s, bring a bag / container along. Dabao your food and shut up about it. It’s unlikely they’ll notice anyway. XD Don’t say I say one hor.