Hae Jang Chon Korean BBQ Restaurant

Came here on a busy Sunday night, and the line was about a 2 hour wait. Luckily, my party and I called in ahead of time to make a reservation. But even with a reservation, we waited about 25 mins before finally getting seated.
The food here was pretty good! Their marinated meats were on the sweeter side but still tasty. Table service was fairly efficient. However, after a few hours, my stomach wasn’t feeling so great :/​
It was a strange day for them too though! While I was outside waiting, I looked in through the window and saw that a part of the vent from the ceiling fell on a table! The waiters crowded around the table, and the customers were moved to a different table. But poor girl! One of them got hit by that fallen piece, and she had a bag of ice on head for the rest of dinner. I’m not sure how the restaurant compensated for her, but I saw them occasionally check up on her. I’m sure it was a new/​strange moment for everyone.

So it’s Saturday around 2pm, you figure people have eaten lunch already and there should be little to no wait. Um yeah, no. haha. There’s a crowd of people waiting outside and it’s packed inside. Hour plus wait, but IT’S SO WORTH IT AND NO REGRETS indulging in gluttony and eating so much food coma hits before you can walk out of the door.
Venue: clean, stone or maybe it’s cast iron grill/​cook top, aroma of KBBQ fills the air and if you’re hella hungry makes you salivate even more b/​c you want to eat everything on the menu (minus intestines. I don’t like intestines O_​O)
Food: order to your heart and stomachs capacity. It’s all you can eat for 2 hours. Kimchi pancakes are bomb and the fermented soy bean and chili hot sauce. YUM!!! Try the salad they give you, you’d be surprised how nice it is to eat some leafy greens along with all the protein you will consume.
Staff: Are friendly, attentive and prompt. Sometimes I wonder what they are thinking when they see all these people coming in and gorging on so much food and waddling out. Haha.
Parking, if you can find free street parking — awesome, most are metered. there’s a small lot that they force you to valet ($ 2 cash only)

All in all a great experience!
The Great/​Good:
AYCE is always fantastic!
Large selection of meats and proteins!
Servers who are knowledgable and can help with certain dietary restrictions (our group was on the Whole Life Challenge diet)
Servers who were constantly attentive for refills on everything
Quality meats (faves were beef meats, pork was a bit too fatty for my taste… pork fat ends up too chewy)
The not so great but still acceptable:
Wait was around 35 minutes just before 6pm on Sunday
Valet was only $ 2
Some of the sauces were just a little too salty for my taste
No one noticed that the same k-​pop song was on repeat for the entire duration of our meal
Cuts of pork should have fat rendered more
Mushrooms were rubbery even when cooked
Price: $ 22
Would definitely come again if I am in the area!

First time over on this past Sunday night.
Went with a group of 6. Approx wait time: 1 hour.
The meat selection was on point. Large variety to choose from. As well with some sea food options.
The reason why I’m giving this place a –1 is that there isn’t really a waiting area. Aside from the benches outside, if it’s freezing outside, you’ll definitely freeze your fingers off. They should consider having a heating lamp outside. Another point was that our server was really slow and forgetful about our requests. We kept on reminding him to bring us the items that we had ordered. I get that it was busy and he was managing a few other tables, but servers should consider writing things down just so that they don’t forget things.
Aside from that, this place is worth coming to. The beer is great!
No-​self parking to my knowledge. It’s done by Valet.

For me, a trip to LA isn’t complete until I’ve had all you can eat Korean BBQ. Having heard so much about Hae Jang Chon, I knew I had to come and check the place out for myself. The reviews and recommendations were not wrong. Hae Jang Chon has great service and even better food.
We came here on Sunday night and waited about 30 — 45 minutes. Dinner is $ 21.99 per person. Parties are not seated until everyone is present. Also, there is absolutely little to no parking spots available within the immediate vicinity.
We essentially ordered one of everything on the menu to try. Best. Idea. Ever. Highlights for me include: steamed egg, marinated beef short rib, and beef bulgogi. The meats are well marinated. Not only are sliced rice wraps available, there are sliced radish wraps too. The radish wraps provide a refreshing break from all the meat. Servers come to your table to cook the meats for you. This is great because you don’t have to worry about over/​under cooking your meat. Another great thing about this place is that the servers clean the grill frequently. No need to worry about eating charred meat. The kimchi fried rice was cooked at our grill at the end of our meal. It was really tasty.
If I find myself back in LA, I’d definitely come back here for KBBQ.

How funny. Just realized my last review in 2012 was written 2 days short of being exactly 4 years.
Came here for a gathering last night. Still have no idea what the dealios is about this place. $ 20. Tastes standard. My party had a reservation but we still waited 30minutes. Beef tongue was the only memorable cut last night. Everything else was standard. Service decent.
One BIG PLUS was the unlimited rice paper and ssam mu radish.

This place is amazing!
On the weekends it can be really busy around dinner time and the wait would average about an hour.
If you come on a weekday during dinner time the wait is about 30mins, but if u come later like after 9pm you will be seated immediately.
The food varieties is superb, and you can choose which ones you like and for the price, it makes everything better.
The shortribs are nice and thick and the the kimchi fried rice which is made in front of you by one of the servers and to die for. It’s all you can eat also which makes it more better! The squid is huge but if you have three people or more, it’s perfect to share.
The servers are pretty fast and good about grabbing anything you may want, like sauces, extra rice, beverages. Etc.
I highly recommend this place for KBBQ and for sure will come back again.

L.A. L. A L.A city of angles… Sorry, that song is stuck in my head. So me and my friends went to the Lakers game and NO that’s not my team but if I’m getting court side tickets then why not. LOL.
What more can I say about this establishment that hasn’t been said already?
PROS: Customer Service (they come to your table and actually turn your meat over and cut your meat up for you)
Price-​$ 19.99 for Lunch and $ 21.99 for Dinner (that’s cheaper then most places here in Vegas)
Quality– They have quality cuts of meats (their brisket is delish!)
CONS: For me it was ordering the kimchi fried rice and not knowing it comes when you’re done ordering your meats. So each time they came back the table I’d ask about it but it gets lost in translation.
All in all, you can see the good out weighs the bad. This is must try AYCE Korean BBQ Restaurant

Yes yes yes! All type of yes! The best Korean bbq I’ve been to in my life! The wait was long as ever but it was so good that I couldn’t complain about it. There’s a reason for this ridiculously long line is because it’s just that good. If I would want in this line again, I would because it’s just that worth it.
First dinner of the night for my stay in LA and this was the best one yet. You get to choose any 22 items on the menu and there’s a lot of variety for the all you can eat portion. The pricing is pretty far too because compared to Chicago, it’s a lot more for not a lot of options so I’m glad we came here for our first night. But this is THE BEST AYCE I’ve ever been to in my life!

I’m a newbie in the KBBQ scene. While Hae Jang Chon had a nice variety of meat and seafood options, it left something to be desired. We ordered the thick cut pork belly (looked like giant slabs of bacon) and it was more fat than meat. A lot of the meat we ordered tended to taste the same, and unfortunately if you order fried rice it has to be served after all the meat is finished cooking (you can’t order more meat after rice).
It’s all you can eat, so if you really want to go to town you certainly can. But, you’re not allowed to take any leftovers home and they charge you $ 15 for any meat that is left behind. There were virtually no vegetarian items on the menu as well. I would come back, but I wasn’t blown away after leaving.

Stone grill. Bam! Just named the #1 thing that is popular about this place. Oh and the radish-​cleaning session in between each round of order. OH and the meat oil infused kimchi fried rice. Okay, already named 3 good things. We’re off to a good start!
Hae Jang Chon is a popular AYCE korean bbq joint, and I must say it lives up to the hype. The selection is not much but everything else is just on point that you really forget about them not having the fancy pork neck or pork intestines or beef belly like some other places might offer. For AYCE, the quality is pretty good too. I don’t know if it was from cooking it on the stone grill, but that quality is *almost* on the same level as some non AYCE HD quality places.
If you come during non-​busy hours (like towards the end of lunch/​dinner), they will actually cook it for you. I’m not sure if they still do that during the rush hours because I came an hour before lunch ended. It wasn’t busy so the service was also top notch! You can only order up to 4 things per order. There’s extra charge on any leftover meat so don’t go too crazy. Although, they’re really smart because after a few rounds, they give you less servings of the meat just in case you overestimate your stomach capacity.
I really liked the thin pork belly and the beef tongue. Oh. My. God. Let the pork belly cook until it’s really crispy. and you will be in heaven as you hear that crunch with every scrumptious bite. The beef tongue was also very fresh! It was very tender and was not chewy. That’s how you know they hook you up with them HD beef tongue.
Wasn’t a big fan of their kimchi pancake. It wasn’t crispy, and tasted spongy. I wish they had seafood pancake.
From the banchan provided, the fishcake was BOMB! It had a little spicy kick to it, and that was what made it more amazing than ever. The japchae and fermented radish were also great to put in the rice paper wrap, along with a protein. Hmmmmm. The korean way to eat kBBQ. Try it out! So good.
Be sure to leave some room in your tummy for that kimchi fried rice in the end. Request pork belly (thin or thick, whichever you like) if you want PORK BELLY KIMCHI FRIED RICE. That was the best thing I liked! And I usually don’t like kimchi fried rice! so that must mean this is the best one ever, right!!!
I deducted 1 star because it was so inconvenient to drive here from orange county. They really should open another location closer to the OC. I’m not sure if that drive was worth it because there are similar, if not better, korean bbq joints closer to home.

Oh no… I guess fame finally got to this well-​known restaurant. This used to be me and the boy’s fave meat place of all time… but after a long hiatus, we can definitely say that the quality has dropped and there is a dramatic shift in who the foods are geared towards. Gone are the korean speakers and korean music, in are the tourists and strange, loud clanging/​seizure-​inducing music. The place is extremely loud and bustling, and an hour wait was normal even on a Wednesday night.
It appears that every waiter serves all the tables, as we were consistently asked the same questions repeatedly. On the bright side, that means we were always served and taken care of. It seems that all of the waiters have limited English with the exception of one very energetic and friendly dude who went around all the tables like a host, conversing and helping all of the customers. I think service is probably the highlight of my day, minus the time one of the waiters yelled at the hostess, which was a big no-​no to me. Speaking of no-​nos:
Chadol: One of the most disappointing dishes. Bf and I love to taste the quality of good meat by eating non-​marinated goodies, and what cooks faster and feels more satisfying than a nice, juicy, soft and tender piece of chadol? I pride myself on not burning my food, but even cooked well, the brisket was tough and dry. Chadol at almost any other kbbq restaurant would be better; the quality here is definitely subpar.
Beef tongue: At first I could kind of taste the difference, but the same iffy quality also rendered it dry and in the end, chadol and beef tongue were all the same to me.
Beef short rib (Kalbi): The kalbi we actually enjoyed. The marinated one seems to be softer than the unmarinated one, and provided a light and delicate flavor to the meat. Order lots of this!
Bulgogi: My second biggest no-​no. The meat had good flavor, but it never really cooked well enough to have a good texture (could be the marinate) and tasted like a soggy mess. Trust, I cooked it for quite a while in a sad attempt to get it to solidify. The reason is due to the heavy amount of fat (70:30 fat to meat at LEAST), making us essentially eat fat marinated in sauce.
Thin pork belly: I usually don’t like pork, but I like the thin version as you don’t need to crisp it up to eat. If you don’t like eating cartilage, then you may not like this though.
Intestines: It was very interesting, but delicious! Most places offer pork intestines (Gopchang), but the beef ones are to me, more delicious and has a slight sweetness to it. Pretty cool!
Squid: Not too exciting, but I appreciated that the English-​speaking waiter showed us how to cook it and when it was done.
Ban chan: All the sides were pretty good – especially the spinach and the kimchi pancake!
Overall, the main meats disappointed me, as did their lack of selection. I suppose I’ve been spoiled by Oo Kook in terms of what meats I would like – giant steak, different cuts, etc – and most places I know have better meat quality. Service is good, but so are many of the places I now frequent. Hae Jang Chon will always have their tourists and people who trust the food lists, but us locals know how far it has fallen in comparison to the many of the other joints springing up…

I haven’t been here for a few years but the line is still as crazy as it was before. The wait for 4 people at 6:30 on a Saturday night was a little over an hour. The barchan here is decent but there isn’t a large variety. My friends agreed the kim chi fried rice was better in the past.
Things I would order again:
Thick pork belly
Brisket
Beef tongue
Decent:
Octopus
Skip:
thin pork belly — opposite to what you would expect, the thin pork belly are thick cut up pieces of pork belly while the thick pork belly is a thin slab.
Kalbi — the most disappointing meat of the night. While kalbi is usually the main meat I like, it was a disappointment here both times we ordered it.

PROBABLY ONE OF MY FAV KBBQ PLACES IN KTOWN I honestly haven’t been to Hae Jang Chon for sooooo long! In fact, I haven’t had KBBQ in generally in the past 3 – 4 months since I’ve changed my diet quite a bit and started working out. I used to go to Hae Jang years back but I stopped because of my college budget (ahem, basic Bud Namu). The last KBBQ visit was to Gen and that was super disappointing. Never again to that place. So I kinda had to redeem myself with a really good KBBQ place this time until next time I have it again hehe
The last time I was at Hae Jang Chon was for my 21^st birthday and that was like a year and half ago. A lot has changed since then! They expanded their restaurant, have better equipped ventilation system, and improved their customer service significantly. It’s not your usual ahjumma service LOL All the servers are willing to cook the meat for you and that’s one great feature of this place compared to most others KBBQ places in Ktown. Everything is on point
I came with my cousin from Chicago and other little cousins/​sister and she hasn’t eaten KBBQ for like 2 years. She specially wanted to come to this location since she’s a pretty big eater/​foodie. We went on a Saturday for lunch, the day after Christmas.
The wait time was surprisingly not that long. We waited around 20 minutes before getting seated. We also did street parking. Since it was the weekend, it was dinner price all day. Because of that, my cousin and I decided to order literally everything on the dinner menu (minus hotdog and chicken). Everything was sooooo worth it in my opinion! The meat quality and marination was very good. My favorite was probably the pork belly because I love bacon The kimchi fried rice right after was satisfying! We went through 4 – 5 rounds of ordering food. Damn.
Because of their great service, I don’t feel bad giving them a good tip! Will come back! Thanks, Hae Jang Chon!

It has been such a long time since I’ve been here where I kind of forgot why I don’t come here too often. It was Sunday night and my sister wanted to eat here. The parking lot was jam packed and I was directed to park in the other lot on the other side of the street. After returning from dropping off my car to that valet my sister tells me the wait is really long and maybe we should go somewhere else. It was too late. We were very tempted to just grab some Kyochon but we really wanted to eat here and didn’t want to ruin our appetite for the AYCE by snacking on chicken wings. So we ended up waiting about 1.5−2 hours for our table out in the cold.
The food was delicious! Or was I so hungry that anything tasted good? I guess there’s a reason why it’s so packed here; the meat was good and you get the kimchi fried rice at the end of your meal. There were a few sides; not too many though-​salad, fish cake, potato salad, kimchi, etc. It felt like the workers were rushing us a bit or they were just very attentive; coming over to cook the meat for us every 10 minutes or so and asking us if we wanted more meat. I suppose it was a good thing. But next time if I’m hungry I may think twice about coming here due to the wait time.

Affordable AYCE in the heart of Koreatown for $ 20 during lunch. That’s pretty good. The have a good selection of meats. What’s different here is that they use a cast iron grill so they don’t have to replace the grill. They basically come around once with some vegetable shavings and stir it around and then scrape it all off. Side dishes and sauces are decent. My favorites are the Marinated Beef Short Rib, BBQ Chicken and Bulgogi. The kimchi fried rice looked good but I had no room left at the end. Overall it was a good experience but nothing better than Gen. Maybe it’s a little more authentic here.

I’ve been here a couple of times now, and I still don’t get why it’s so popular.
The meat is average at best. No matter how many you have in your party, even if there’s 6, you are only allowed to order 2 types of meat. The portions are pretty small and they still take their time to get your order out to you. I guess I am so used to places like gen who allow your group to order 4 meats at a time.
The ban Chan is limited. Their potato salad and spinach was pretty good. Their egg was just off. When they gave it to us, it wasn’t bubbling and steamy like other places and it looked raw.
I can’t recommend this place. I think perhaps people come here because it’s open until 2am.

All-​You-​Can-​Eat — check
High quality meat — check
Awesome service — check
Affordbale — check
Takes reservations — check
Need I really say much more?
So glad I found this place! The fact that the servers are ALWAYS there when you need them is awesome. They always come to check to see if you need anything. The worst feeling at AYCE-​KBBQ is needing something and trying yoru darnest to get the server’s attention.
The meat was awesome and after tax and tip, we ended up paying just under $ 30 per person (if you don’t drink beer).
Parking is valeted for a few dollars.

THE BEST!!! I need to preface this review with the fact that this was actually the first KBBQ restaurant I’ve ever tried in LA (I’ve been in NYC a few times). However, my experience at Hae Jang Chon ranks as one of the top dining experiences I’ve had.
The food — AMAZING. I came here without really knowing exactly what kinds of meats/​food to get, so I asked the first waiter that came to our table. He recommended the kimchi pancakes, which were chewy, tasty, and overall balanced the rest of the meal pretty well. He also recommended the kimchi fried rice (which we did not end up getting) and the steamed egg, which complemented the spiciness of some of the other side dishes/​meats. As for the meat, we started off with the black angus beef brisket, marinated beef short rib, BBQ beef, and BBQ pork, all of which were great. If I had to choose one that wasn’t as good as the others, it would probably be the pork. We also tried the squid, octopus, shrimp (which is given in portions of ~5), and pork belly. All were great, and I would recommend them especially if you’re a fan of seafood, but I think our first order with the beef was better.
The service — one thing that really struck out to me about this restaurant was how well the servers worked as a team. While the servers didn’t stop and chat a ton with us, they were very efficient, and different servers came to our table throughout the course of our meal to ask if we needed anything (or to help us cook our meat). At one point, one of the servers accidentally tilted the stone (?) plate into the fire/​heat, then shouting for another server to come help her. The other server came over immediately and helped her fix the positioning of the plate.
One last detail — there’s valet parking for the small parking lot outside the restaurant.
Overall, an amazing experience. I’m not a huge meat person, but I left super full and happy. Don’t really have anything bad to say about this place. Definitely try it out if you’re in Koreatown/​LA!

Woo, found a new AYCE KBBQ spot as my #1 on my first try.
Generally i’m not a huge fan of AYCE because I don’t like eating until «I get my money’s worth». Why can’t I just eat my food and not intentionally gain weight? It’s already a problem even if it’s not a buffet!
Anywho, if you’re looking to eat here, I highly suggest bringing 6 or more people so you can take advantage of the reservation system (if you don’t know 5 other people, go make more friends). Me and my group of 7 stopped by on Halloween night and lo and behold, there was a super long line. Luckily for our group, I made reservations a few days before and we were told that there would still be a wait since it’s based on availability considering other reservations in front of us. That being said, the hostess told us that it would take about half an hour for a table (it ended up only being 15 – 20 minutes).
The reason I found this place was because I asked my friend for recommendations for a HQ galbi & bulgogi place. In my opinion, I think it’s difficult to pull off bulgogi in large quantities, but dam, they do a pretty good job. However, the short ribs were definitely still my favorite, can’t go wrong with that!
Valet parking is only $ 2. That’s probably common knowledge for the locals, but this is for the other out-​of-​town folk like me :]