I often decide to try a place based on 4-5 stars and then I read the negative reviews before going to see if they fixed their issues.. Our personal experience for a party of 6 at 5pm on a weekday was excellent. The service was well paced, the food quality was excellent, the side dishes were always filled, the water was refilled promptly, and the pitchers of beer were nice and cold. I thought for sure there would not be enough food especially since they recommended we only order 2 of the 2 person combos even though we were are party of 6. I was fully prepared to add more food. We were pleasantly surprised that there was the perfect amount of food especially with the extras that came with each combo. The steamed egg and tofu soup that came with the combo were yummy. I've had better kimchi pancakes, but it was still a nice extra. The person cooking the meats for us was very attentive and cooked everything nicely. As she cooked, she kept an eye out for getting our side dishes refilled. She told us which meat she was cooking each time. The variety of side dishes were great. The seasonings on the beef and pork were not overwhelming since there was no need to hide poor quality meat like some places. I didn't have to drink a ton of water like the cheap places that season heavily. The presentation of the single person dessert (kind of a snow ice) in a martini glass was cute but $7.50 is a little steep. It tasted pretty good though..
We made reservations and it was great to walk in with the table set up with all the sides already on the table. The range hoods were not super loud and worked as best as any of the bbq places can. Yes it's a little pricey but we felt it was worth it. Maybe because it was not busy or maybe we lucked out with our server, but we had great service. A lot of people like Hobak, but we had terrible service there and we didn't like the sides at Hobak. The quality of the meat is the same.