Coriya Bbq

Good:
–Cheap
–nearby
Bad:
–Average in taste
–short ribs had more bone and fat than actual meat
It’s no Palace BBQ in San Jose, but a good substitute of you don’t want to drive far or pay too much. I took my dad here and he was impressed!

Disgrace to korea. Disgrace to food.
It’s self serve but the meats don’t look fresh and are of such low quality that you lose your appetite as soon as you look at it.
They offer a hotpot and grilling bbq option but it’s as if you are choosing which poison pill to take.
Please. Don’t eat this and think bad about Korean food. This is not how it is…

It’s actually a great idea to put hot pot and meat grilling in one meal. All you can eat and everything is self service so not much to complain about. Except nothing is labeled! Didn’t know if it was beef, pork, lamb or chicken. I mean, I can kinda tell but I still asked the waiter since I don’t eat lamb. And the sauces. How do you not label the sauces?! Do I have to pick up each ladle and smell it? So I just used soy sauce, garlic and cilantro.
I asked the waiter why nothing is labeled cuz it didn’t make any sense at all. He basically told me that they’ve mentioned it to the owner but he just didn’t want to do anything about it. Sigh.
Food was not bad though. Sodas at the fountain is not included in buffet price but it’s only $ 1 with free refills. The tables are either too high or the chairs are too low. Or I am just too short.

Came here for lunch with some family. Really not the best place to eat for hot pot and barbecue.
1) Serve yourself and don’t expect customer service
2) The service bell that acts like a doorbell in your table is really useless when there’s only two tables filled with customers in the whole restaurant and it takes the staff 5 minutes to ask you what you want
3) By the way, I set my standards low and was going to rate it at a 3 until…
4) I went to the bathroom and saw a wet toilet paper roll that was set to dry.
Um…you get dropped to 1 star if you’re the owner and are too cheap to toss that toilet roll that fell (God knows where) and expect your customers to use it. Simply in two letters «ew».

Wow!
What happened to this place? The service is horrible, and the food does not even look fresh.

New management. The waiter is nice and attentive to customers. He even switched out the grill. As for the grill, it’s different from the previous management and they included scissors, and other utensil. They have good variety of food. Now for the bad stuff. Unsanitary! I caught one of the workers dropped a utensil and still put it on the trays. No labels on the food selection, and no desserts. Because of it. It’s a minus 2 stars.
This place has potential in being a successful restaurant. And it’s an easy fix by practicing basic food safety.

This place is gross! Very unsanitary! The dishes were dirty with leftover food and grease. I will not go back there again. We asked for hot tea and they served it in a glass cup??? Who does that? That’s a lawsuit in the making. GROSS! DO NOT EVEN ATTEMPT TO EAT HERE!
ZERO STARS IN MY OPINION!

Yikes! This place has a ton of potential to do well, but there are just too many mistakes that can ruin a business, big and small. I can honestly say I won’t be back here by choice if no changes are made.
S E R V I C E — 2 stars
Service was there, but it was one where if you don’t wave your arms in the air like you just don’t care, you’re not going to get anything. I almost had to ask for every, little thing, which is extremely frustrating. I can’t really blame these young highschool, maybe in their early 20’s– looking, dudes. It seems like they’re lost and is left to run the entire restaurant by themselves. There didn’t seem to be any managing by anyone there. I feel like they did what they were equipped with.
A M B I A N C E — 2 stars
Borderlining 1.5 stars. Outside of the restaurant, including the restaurant’s namesake on a sign looks appealing, like this place might be good. Inside had nice set ups and is nicely lit; a little dim for a romantic feel. The set up of the buffet, however, is horrific. NOTHING on the buffet is labelled. So you’ll have 8 different trays of raw meats, 6 of them looking the same, and NONE OF THEM LABELLED! Are we supposed to guess? Is this a game? Label yo shi*t please! Sauces weren’t labelled. You see a bunch of people crowded around the sauces and just sniffing it, pretty disgusting that we have to resort to that (I admit, I did it too).
F O O D — 2.5 stars
Food was ALRIGHT. No real highlights. The only good thing is that you can have both hotpot and KBBQ for the same price. Feel free to make some ramen then add some bbq meats on top. DELISH! You can get a little more creative than usual. Meats were ok, frozen, thick. It wasn’t the best tasting meats, but it’ll pass. A bit of variety for the non-​usual items:
— Shrimp
— Squid
— Ramen and glass noodles
— Corn
— BACON!
— Mussels
— Green tea ice cream
Thank goodness they have all the other sides, they made it feel like I got some money’s worth!
P R I C I N G — 1.5 stars
MEH. It can be cheaper for the crap we are getting, at almost $ 18 a piece (not including drinks, tax, and tip), I can just pay $ 2-​$ 3 more for any other QUALITY Korean BBQ and/​or buffet.

+1 star for customer service specifically our waiter because he was really nice.
+1 star for the kinda reasonable price (& we came here during dinner)
+1 star for the green tea ice cream, because that ice cream was booomb
Now the important stuff…
–1 star for the terrible buffet food arrangement. No label on the meat or the sauces! How am i supposed to know what im picking here!
–1 star for the freakin tiny plates! They have no knives. Plus i felt like the table in the back with all the utensils were mixed in with random wrapped plastic forks and shit.
Overall, im definitely not coming back here ever again. 3 stars may seem alot but in all honesty… this place looks unsanitary.

We had eaten at this location at least 20 times in the last 13 years, with different owners. However, this very time made us swear to ourselves that we are never coming back again.
Food: 1
meat was cut into very thick pieces, only had one type that was marinated, the rest are flavorless
Out of all things on the menu, half of the stuff was not there!
Sea mussel tasted extremely bitter, taste like it was leftover from a week ago.
Service: 1.5
Atmosphere: 2
Overall: NEVER COMING BACK AGAIN.

My cousin said they had changed ownership so that was enough to get us to drive out there to check it out again. I should’ve checked here first that’s for sure but since we were going to head shop also, it wasn’t a total disaster. It was a Friday night and there were only 3 active tables.
The food choices was not so good, just didn’t seem fresh. The BBQ stuff was very flavorful and burns really fast if you don’t watch it. And what happened to the dessert station? No more jello, tapioca, etc? They only had green tea ice cream and it was good, the best thing here actually.
Don’t come here with your club fit, you will be smelling unattractively afterwards for sure. Don’t stick your legs out too far under the table, the cooked BBQ will likely drip and stain your converse or burn your toe in your flip flops.

This place has typical Chinese waiters! Completely incompetent and good service is not part of their goal! It was empty when my boyfriend and his cousin was eating there. I thought they would appreciate their 1 and only paying table.
The food quality was terrible. It was sitting inside the fridge for some time. When we cooked it you can see in iridescent coating. Had like a rainbow on the meats. After we ate there we got sick. I actually threw up pretty much half the stuff I ate. I definitely wouldn’t recommend this this to anyone I like.
I thought this place would be better since they re-​opened, but we were completely WRONG! I wish I could give them a worst rating! Don’t eat there! If you’re looking for a food poisoning I would recommend this place.

Went here last night with my PID (Partner In Dining) Jason.
He suggested the spot since we were both pretty famished after a long day of working, studying, and a gym session.
I was also craving meat like a dinosaur.
This spot is located in the Pacific East Mall off of Central. Usually on Sundays the parking lot is relatively packed for weekend dining with the family and grocery shoppers who need to restock for the week.
It was also Chinese/​Vietnamese New Year. We were definitely surprised that the parking lot had readily available spaces.
It was probably 8pm when we walked into Coriya. There were definitely more parties than we expected. Moreover, everyone was in a celebratory kind of mood!
No, it’s not the best K BBQ place to go to. However, it’s much more affordable ($ 17.99 per person)
In addition, it’s AYCE BBQ and HOT POT. I have yet to see this anywhere else!
Now, this is how I go about navigating AYCE KBBQ.
1. Walk in calmly.
2. Put your belongings down and take off your jacket. Make sure you are not wearing anything you think you can get away with wearing the next day. I mean, unless you want to smell like BBQ of course.
3. Divide and conquer. Half of the party gets the very minimal needs for the soup and the other half get all the meat you desire.
The meat is lined up in deep trays on ice. Just load up. You’re going to have to cook for a while!
4. Don’t over do the hot pot. Personally, I just like some veggies to go with my BBQ. Right before the meats are ready, drop those veggies into that boiling hot soup.
5. Roll up your sleeves and get ready to dig in.
6. Slowly sit back after indulging yourself and enjoy whatever little dessert it is, here it’s vanilla ice cream, and smile.
The staff here is very friendly and welcoming. Moreover, they keep everything at your table filled.
More water for the hot pot? No need to ask.
More beer? They’ll ask you.
Did you forget about dessert? Don’t worry, they didn’t!
The 3 stars is really for the quality of the meat. I’ve been to other KBBQ places in the bay area, and this selection was not as good. The marinades definitely lacked flavor.
However, you really can’t beat the AYCE HOT POT and KBBQ for only $ 17.99.
That’s just unheard of.
Until next time, keep your grilling skills up and the fire extinguisher ready!

This place used to be pretty great. They had all you can eat with meats set out buffet style, and you would pile it on your plate and take it back to your table to cook.
Now you order off a menu. The hotpot is gross.
They still have a large selection of meat that is well marinated. Service is subpar.

Ever since this changed to Korean BBQ, I feel like I see a lot less people in this section of the «mall». I remember Hot Pot City being filled with families and having lines for daaaays.
Anyway. We were the only customers that night, which was great since all of the waiters paid attention to us and helped us with the cooking. The food was good. Or maybe we were just really hungry.
The only complaint that I have is that they clean the cooking utensils a little more. Oh, and that they have a thicker cut for the pork belly. It’s so thin that if I overcook it just a little bit, it gets super crispy. Pan chan was mediocre. They only offered kimchi, kimchi bean sprouts, picked radish, and peanuts. Our waters were never empty since the staff constantly filled our cups. And we were able to change the grills by simply asking them to do so.
It is very obvious that the people working there are NOT Korean. We tried to order by saying, «We want bulgogi.» And the waiter looked at us as if we said something totally out of the ordinary.
Three stars for this place.

Is there an option for NO STAR???
So…roommate and I were craving some good Korean bbq one night, and unfortunately we happen to live very close to this fairly new bbq place in El Cerrito. We were kind of lazy to drive all they way to Oakland for some good Korean food… then that’s when it all began.
At first, we were a bit hesitant to go inside because we were kind of debating between Chinese food or Korean bbq. Nonetheless, we decided to give it a try and sat down. There were about only two more groups besides us. They were playing SNSD on a big ass screen, «very Korean».
We got the AYCE options and ordered briskets, intestines, samgyupsal, squid, and other shit.
Hot Pot: tastes like shit. there is no depth of flavor. very bland. Idk if I’m drinking water or eating hotpot.
Meat: SHIT. literally. They served fucking bacons as samgyupsal. excuse me? Yes they might all be pork belly, but traditional Korean samgyupsal ain’t bacon. When it was cooked it was so thin and crispy, it was like eating a thin strip of tree bark. No comment on other parts of the meat.
Conclusion: They all taste like shit. even water was bad.
I don’t know if it’s because they are trying to rip ppl off by saying oh this is Korean BBQ!!! But this shit was baaad. Normally I eat A LOT at AYCE BBQ but I couldn’t take no more so we had to leave. I was so mad and I am mad as I am writing this review.
Lesson learned: don’t be lazy and drive to Oakland for good legit K BBQ. Coriya BBQ good for nothing.

Worst quality meat. Hot pot is tasteless. Servers dunno English.
Uncomfortable seats. No banchans. Iono man. I can go on and on and on. This place is just a no-​no. I almost feel bad writing this. Goodbye forever.

Been here twice in the past month already. I’ve also been here since it was Coriya Hot Pot & BBQ, never made it out when it was Young’s Hot Pot & BBQ, came a couple times when it was Liang’s Kitchen & Hot Pot (SO GOOD… wish they didn’t go awayyy), and now twice when it’s back to Coriya BBQ.
Likes:
— the entertainment: big screen in the center back of the restaurant showing concert DVDs (Celine Dion and Justin Timberlake when I went)
— AYCE for $ 20/​person, includes BBQ AND Hot Pot!
— Quite a large variety for both BBQ & hot pot, which is great b/​c I get tired of BBQ pretty quickly, but can eat from the hot pot almost indefinitely
— Delicious hot pot broth… someone here said it tasted medicinal. That’s probably because it contains goji berries, dates, and ginseng. These are the same ingredients that go into the delicious Korean cure-​all soup samgyetang. The broth here is so delicious, but maybe not for Western tastes. Beware if you’re not traditional Chinese or Korean.
— Pretty good service. It’s not as attentive when they’re busy, but go at a non-​popular time and you’ll get very attentive and courteous service.
— The special order dishes, like the kimchi fried rice with overeasy egg on top — MMMM!
— Make sure you ask for satay sauce to go with your hot pot. It doesn’t come by default.
Dislikes:
— the tables are really high for short Asian people. wth?
— service is spotty if it’s busy… they appear to be understaffed and will take forever to come out with things you order. We just kept ordering the same thing over and over again until it finally came.
— they NEVER have ice cream left! two out of two times!

I am Korean and as a Korean I always crave korean food esp korean bbq. I stopped by 99 Ranch to get some salon pas for my back and then I saw it. CORIYA BBQ. I went in and immediately was seated. The prices arent bad for 19.99 for all you can eat meat.
FYI KOREANS: there are no banchans, the brisket isn’t the unmarinated chadol that we know of (its more like brisket with some kalbi marinade), the pork belly (super thin like bacon style), the kimchi fried rice (has no kimchi but it still very delicious)
Overall, it still satisfied my korean bbq craving until I go back to socal and eat some good olé honey pig ( Unilocal it!)

After closing and re-​opening what seems like half a dozen times, what used to be Coriya Hot Pot City, is now just Coriya, which scraps it’s history of hot pot and just sticks to good old Korean bbq. It’s hard to beat all you can eat Korean bbq for $ 20. The format isn’t a traditional grab-​everything-​you-​can buffet. You order and they bring out the raw meat to you, which can be somewhat annoying for groups because you find yourself constantly ordering food.
Order these:
–Short rib
–Spicy Pork
–Special BBQ Chicken
–Fried Rice
They start you off with some korean small plates, which were nice, but very very small portions. The biggest surprise of the night was definitely the fried rice. It was basically kimchi fried rice and they even topped it off with a sunny side up egg. Tasted great and was included in the price. You get complimentary ice cream at the end of your meal, and your first soda is also free. The waiters were extremely attentive, possibly because we were one of the only groups there late at night. I really hope this place can stay in business longer than its predecessors because the food is actually good here and the price point is reasonable.