Gen Korean BBQ House

Reviews 6

SA

Sally Elbassir

Gen is a fairly new Korean BBQ restaurant close to my house and boy is it popular! The first time I attempted to go here on a Friday night, the wait was 2 hours for two people. Yikes. Since that time, Ive been twice on Saturdays around 5pm. Ill take early bird dinner over long lines any day! Once we were seated, the waiter explained to us that we can order 3 meats at a time. Over my two visits I sampled: steak, Hawaiian steak, short rib (sans bone), bulgogi, garlic chicken, calamari steak, and Cajun shrimp. Phew. I cant speak for any of the pork options since I dont eat pork, but I thoroughly enjoyed my meals. My favorite is always the beef bulgogi, and here was no exception. The regular and Hawaiian steak were delicious (especially with that side of pineapple). The garlic chicken was an interesting addition, as it came with a little cheese fondue you can dip it in - fun! I did like the seafoods, but the shrimp was unpeeled (huge pain) and the calamari was just so-so in terms of flavor. I didnt repeat order those. I was disappointed in the amount of side dishes. I know that you really arent there for side dishes but we had maybe 4 options (none of which were too great) and the mashed potatoes were way too sweet. The service here is really good and the servers are particularly attentive, which was a refreshing change. I really liked the ambiance - it was well ventilated (yay for less smelly clothes!) and has an overall sleek, clean feel to it. The meat itself was also high quality, and you could taste it. Overall, its really good considering $20 all you can eat and its location to me. However, I still think cham soot gol beats out this place by a slim margin.

---

DO

Don N

Downgrading review from 5 to 2 stars. Pros: Great variety of meats, clean and nicely decorated. Staff really friendly and service good. Cons: Ive downgraded my review from 5 to 2 stars since eating here a year ago and heres why. Notice the portions they serve now in my picture, unbelievable!! they give you a saucer of meat thats essentially a bowl with a huge a$$ rim. We enjoy cooking food, eating it, and cooking some more. NOT cooking, taking 3 bites, and then flagging down waiter to order more food. I dined with 6 people and we literally did this over 10 times!! This goes for their short rib as well, two slices of short rib??? And the shrimp, 6 people are going to share 4 shrimp??? WTH ... Now i understand this strategy of portion control to allow peoples bodies to realize theyre actually full preventing them from ordering more.... but COMMON, i wana eat til I BLOW!! Next thing the sides, wish i took a picture but would estimate the portions at 4 spoons of potatoe salad per dipping saucer. Rice paper as well, 1 inch of rice paper split among 6 people! Can they just give us the dang box, we kept flagging them down because there was just never enough. And finally the water, how do you not have ICE in your water when its 90 degrees outside, hope this isnt another way to cut on expenses. We decided to order a coke and indeed it came with ICE...... Conclusion: Place was great over year ago, plates were full, water was cold, now seems theyre trying to capitalize on their popularity. There are plenty of 10-15 dollar KBBQ spots in artesia/cerritos and for their price I expect more then just fancy decor. BTW price also went up to $20.99...

---

ST

Stephanie Han

This particular location is probably one of their newest ones--its huge and has cool decor, all white upholstery and blue lights; I kind of felt like I was inside one of those Asian mod racing cars, lol. Anyhoo, since it was only like 5:30pm on a Monday night my friend and I had no problems getting a table right away. We started things off with brisket, my favorite, and then moved on to bulgogi, spicy pork bulgogi, galbi and more brisket. I thought the meat quality was very good for an AYCE--I dont really go for anything super-fancy or weird anyway. We also ordered a plate of their chap chae, which was hot and fresh but kind of meh (no other veggies than some slivers of onion and green pepper, and the noodles were way over cooked). Their banchan selection isnt that great either but theyre prompt about bringing out whatever more of what you want (rice sheets!). That was one of the things that really impressed me about this place--the service. Gaggles of very nice young guys are ON it, always checking up on you and making sure your grills are changed out, youre good with your banchan and drinks etc. I thought the price was reasonable for what you get, and the next time Im hankering for AYCE near the hood Im coming back!

---

AB

Abe Kim

My experience at Gen was interesting to say the least. Not great but interesting. We were seated very quickly and a friendly waiter took our orders and I thought to myself, "this is going to be a great meal." This is a play by play of how our night went. We ordered two portions of the brisket but received 17, which we didnt complain about in the beginning. Then we ordered the tongue and then two portions of the premium steak. We were waiting for the steak to come out when a waiter approached us. Waiter: Heres more brisket. Did you guys order this? Us: No A few minutes later Waiter: did you guys order the Cajun shrimp? Us: No A few minutes later Waiter: did you guys order the Cajun shrimp? Us: No. were just waiting for our steak A few minutes later we received our steak! Then more steak...then more...then more...in total we got 6 extra orders of unwanted steak! The rest of the night was filled with missed orders and/or a lot of EXTRA of what we ordered. The waiters were friendly but perhaps needs a bit more communication to get the orders right. All in all, I just left there in a bit of shock but with a full belly.

---

DA

Darren Galindo

Simply put, this is a very good Korean BBQ. Quality meats, the service is excellent. You can tell the staff really wants you to enjoy your time there. Our first time here the waiter made sure to fill us in on the details to make sure we knew what we were doing. The orders came quickly and they changed our frying plate regularly. They have a great set up. The decor is top notch. Very modern. The restaurant is located in a nice plaza. Your overall experience here will be great. Of course with all things this good, people will notice. So if you want to come here for dinner, or basically anytime after 1pm, prepare to wait a while. But once you are in it is fantastic. I recommend coming within the first hour of opening, thats when there is little no wait. They have a lunch menu which is different than the dinner. Basically the dinner menu has more options and is of course a little more expensive. The parking is a little tight. I dont think it was designed big enough to accommodate the kind of restaurants/stores that are in the plaza. One time we had to park across the street it was so bad. The restrooms are clean.

---

GE

Genesis Frontino

I really like the selection of meats, but the portion size isnt great per order. I know its all you can eat which is good, but I feel like if the server would have brought bigger portion size per meat than we wouldnt have had to request so many refills. Same with sides. Their selection with sides isnt that awesome either compared to other kbbq houses. The selection of meat, however, is pretty legit. Well it should be for 20 bucks per person lol it was Valentines Day so makes sense. I like the atmosphere and ambiance. Really cool look. I was mentioning that they should have a dance floor so we can work off all we ate haha The service itself was a bit mixed feelings. The main guy taking our meat order seemed either overwhelmed, stressed or agitated. I dont think I saw him smile once. There was another server who brought the sides out and would bring out items that our main server would direct him to do. He was nice! 4 stars goes to him. I probably wouldnt go back anytime soon due to the price, when down the street I can find very similar food for have that. But its a cool experience to go every once in awhile.

---

---