Kaya Restaurant

Worst service I have ever had and that says a lot since I eat out often. Went here with friends on a Friday night and it was not that busy. We put I our order and the food came, things were off to a smooth start. About half way into our meal, we asked for extra rice. We sat there for about 20 minutes before another server even came by the table and we were still waiting for rice. So we asked again. As we were waiting we had a lobster on the self cooking grille and the grille flame went out. We asked for them to relight it and that was ignored along with our rice request. Our lobster sat half cooked and once the server finally acknowledged us (about 30 minutes later) we said we didn’t want to lobster bc it looked like food poisoning on a plate. The server asked us what we wanted to do with it… Ummm take it away bc it looks disgusting. Long story short, we didn’t get an apology from the owner or manager and paid way too much for lousy food and horrible service. If you want Korean or sushi, do yourself a favor and go to the restaurant next door!

I personally don’t like one of the two waitress… she took our credit cards and said she would take care of them. We thought she would only take care of separating our bills. Later we found that she charged 20% tips for us without our permission. In the end, even though we did pay 20% tips, we are not happy with what she did. We gave 20% because of the other servers (waiters).
Also, she presented her «wow you guys don’t order much $$$» look when we (two ppl) ordered two dishes for bbq. Not happy with her.
Other waiters are great, helpful, and friendly. However, me and my friend won’t visit again as food is just on average and customer service is not good. Why bother going back?
I would recommend Minga, higher customer service, better atmosphere!:)

Never again. My wife is Korean, so we’ve eaten at nearly every Korean restaurant in the city. This place was her favorite years ago, but for some reason this place is falling apart and it all starts with their service. Our waitress was painfully slow with taking our order and refilling drinks. The food was nothing to brag about, especially for the high price tag. If you’re in the area and craving Korean, just go to the ones on Bethel Rd.

poor service.
they charge you 18% tips without telling you! and ask you to write tips again!

This place has gone downhill. The first few time we ate year years ago was great. Now they’re running groupons and the overall experience is terrible. Everyone around us was miserable too. Food is decent, service is terrible. Won’t be back.

When I first walk in with my friends, there are no staffs greeting us. All we can see is the staff busy running around and helping take out order from the kitchen or serving the customers. After about ten minutes waiting at the front door, one lady come and ask us how many people to get us situated.
One thing to be cautious is the meal can be very lengthy which due to unresponsive staffs. The restaurant is not full house; however, all of them seems super busy and running around, but we have no idea why they are so busy. When we ask them to refill some lettuce and sauce, they forgot two out of three times. And the staffs also doesn’t seems please to serve us. However, when it comes for check, they are super responsive and seems like they want to rush us out. And no, we came at six in the evening, which is not even their closing time at all!
At last, I think the environment and the food is pretty decent. Unfortunately, bad staff plus no customer service will be a downfall for those who enjoys good food and good service. In the end, if you love to have some unique experiences like this, you could definitely give this a try!

Dine in, Barbeque — Overpriced, so-​so food quality.
Bottom line is, I feel sorry for people who had to choose this restaurant for the experience of Korean barbeque.

We are regulars at Ka Ya, and the food is absolutely fabulous & authentic. Best sushi in columbus by far, and the hot stone Bibimbap is our favorite with hot sake. The service is great and everyone is very friendly! Definitely check it out! :-)

I should have listened to the reviews about the service. We ordered 2 appetizers, 1 never made it. We asked for extra kimchi, also didn’t make it, had to ask twice and wait about 15 min for a box. They also sat us at a table with dirty dishes all over it and just said someone would come clean it. The bus boy was even horrified we were sat there. The server acted like we were imposing on her evening by being there, and we didn’t even have the worst service! The table next to us was sat 3 times while we were there, the first 2 groups just got up and left because they couldn’t get any service from anyone. If we didn’t have a Groupon to use, I can’t say we wouldn’t have done the same. Can’t say we’ll be going back, there’s too many better options in the area.

Ordered carry out sushi here. The sushi was okay, the service was not. The woman who gave me my order barely even acknowledged me and made me feel like I wasn’t welcome. Upon getting home I realized that my order was missing 2 sushi rolls. They didn’t charge me for them but it is 10 degrees outside at the moment and I don’t feel like going outside again. I guess I’ll just have a bowl of cereal since we are missing a third of our food.

The seafood noodles is good and I like their eel avocado sushi. The service is often slow though… and it is a bit pricy.
And there’s no half price sushi Tuesday any more.

The food was great! I ordered the hot stone bibimbap and my mom had the kimchi soon tofu soup and they were both very tasty! The ambience was very quiet and empty, but I remember rain was pouring, so that’s understandable. The layout was nice. They had booths and tables in the center surrounded by waist/​chest-​high walls.
The only thing I didn’t like was the server. There were two working at the moment, but the one who took our orders was terrible. She was a mid-​aged Korean lady and was as unenthusiastic as a person can be. She came over and asked what we wanted to order and as we were telling her she was bussing the table right next to us. HOW RUDE! Absolutely no smile on her face. I had to believe she had something going on in her life that caused her to be like that. So I just let it go. The other lady who took care of our check was polite and nice though. She thanked us for coming and even stayed around to explain why there was some fluctuations in the ingredients.
Bottom line, the food was great, the service was meh. The price was around the same as any other Korean restaurants. We’ll be back, but it won’t be our top choice.

Unfortunately I can not review the food… we didn’t get that far.
My husband and I had been really excited to try this particular restaurant because they have several vegetarian options.
We chose to dine latish (per our usual), but it was well before they’re closing time.
As soon as we walked in, we felt as if we were a burden… as if they were annoyed we were there.
As we were being seated, a server was cleaning off a table who unfortunately dropped and broke a dish. the person seating us immediately began laughing and making fun of the person… who clearly immediately became embarrassed. As I was looking at the menu trying to decide what to order, and someone came from the back (owner, manager?) to talk to the person about breaking the dish. he was belittling him. in front of customers — he wasn’t loud and yelling, but wasn’t trying to hide what was going on… this happened TWICE by the same person!.. with the last time the manager/​owner guy stating that he was going to charge the sever for the broken dish… I know I have NO idea how many times this particular person has ‘messed up’, but you do NOT reprimand someone in from of customers. that’s horrifically unprofessional.
Once we finally placed our order — which consistent of one BBQ meal, they said that they were going to cook it in the kitchen on the grill… Uh, that defeats the entire purpose of going out of our way to come to this restaurant. With the anticipation of receiving poor service and not having a good time, we cancelled our order and went to another restaurant.
Based on the reviews that brought us here, I am sure that this establishment has great food… unfortunately, I will never know.
I would prefer to give them 0 stars, but alas that is not an option.

This is the first sushi restaurant that I ate till I was stuffed. The staff was extremely attentive. The sushi was ahhh-​mazing (although pricy), but the freshness and amount for the money was worth it imho. It’s smaller, but I noticed that it created more of a family atmosphere. We tried the hibachi — and watching them grill your dish in front of you was pretty cool (but I’m a goofy goober so.)
The reason why it wasn’t 5 stars was the price. If I were you, I’d wait for half price Tuesdays.

This was my first time doing Korean BBQ. I’m sure I’ve had plenty, since the food tasted very familiar, but it was my first time going to one and getting to cook my own meal on the grill in the middle of the table, so that was pretty cool. Would I do it again? Maybe. Honestly, when I go out to eat, I’d rather be brought an already prepared meal, especially if I’m paying $ 30 for it, but my girlfriend seemed to really enjoy it. That’s Korean BBQ for you!
I’ll get one thing out of the way real quick, and that was the service was incredibly slow. It took about 10 minutes after we were seated for anyone to come get our drink order. I’m not sure if it’s always like that, but that kind of sucked. We also put in an order of sushi on the sushi sheet but never got it. In the end, we ordered so much food that we didn’t need it, and we weren’t charged for it, so we got over it.
We started off with fried dumplings and a house salad. I also had a hot and sour soup to start. I wasn’t a huge fan of how much citrus was in the salad dressing, but my girlfriend liked it, and everything else was great. The hot and sour soup was pretty filling.
For the main course, we split the combination BBQ platter which had spare ribs, beef, and chicken included. The lady told me the BBQ dishes were meant for one person, but this was easily split between two. We could barely finish it. The marinades that the meat was in tasted like teriyaki for the most part, but they were absolutely delicious. I ate most of mine over a bed of rice, but they bring you romaine leafs to use to make little salad wraps. You can add some of the bonchon and the onions and mushrooms that come with the plate to make a pretty good lettuce burrito!
For the most part, the food was great here, but I think the price point was a little too high for me to get the BBQ dishes again. They have some pre-​made BBQ plates that were cheaper that I’d probably stick to. Unless you really want to do the whole Korean BBQ experience, I’d probably stick to some of the other dishes on the menu.

I have dined at Kaya many many times. While Min Ga is, and will always be, my favorite Korean restaurant in Columbus, Kaya is the best place if you want to have traditional Korean BBQ. Their prices are very reasonable for the amount of food you are given. The service is steady and they are continuously changing out your grill so that you have a fresh place to cook at your table. The sides are fresh and tasty and being at Kaya feels like being in Seoul. The restaurant also serves regular Korean food as well as Japanese food and sushi. From the outside it looks like it will be a dive but the inside is spacious and clean. I see that many of the other reviews are claiming that the BBQ is expensive but it is actually cheaper than many of the BBQs that I went to IN KOREA. With the sides and ample amounts of meat brought to the BBQ, I think the prices are spot on.

Let me preface by saying that this is one of the few times I will get a really freaking expensive restaurant a good rating. Although, now that I think about it, you could probably come here and not murder-​ize your wallet, but we came for the first time for a special occasion and had the Korean BBQ.
I’m a bit abashed to say what I had because of how much it cost, but I will do so for posterity’s sake: My family shared a bowl of hot pork belly and squid bimbimbop; a bowl of tempura udon; and korean bbq with kalbi beef (for the longest time, I thought this was synonymous with kobe beef, but it’s not), seafood platter, spicy pork, and beef tongue.
It was all fantastic. I like to undercook everything to leave it a bit rare (the server said you could do this, even with the seafood and the tongue), except with the pork. They give you lots of sauces — some sort of peanut or maybe wasabi-​tasting sauce, some sesame oil sauce, and a sweet sesame oil sauce that comes with the seafood platter. Each BBQ dish comes with complimentary things of lettuce which you can grill and wrap the meat in, or just eat on its own with sauce.
The BBQ works like Chinese Hotpot in the sense that you have raw dishes and you put them in a central cooking area, then dip them in sauce. But instead of a big boiling pot of water or broth, you stick it on a grill. Just don’t put a ton of stuff on at once so you don’t make things too smoky.
What can I say? It was all really delicious. The meat was so tender, the lobster and other seafood things were tender and juicy — better than the lobster I’ve had on occasion throughout the period of my life. The bimbimbop was great too, as was the udon.
Here’s the catch: I remember the bimbimbop/​udon being reasonable prices, but if you get the korean BBQ, EACH dish can run you about $ 20 – 25. Like I said, murder-​ize your wallet. We came here for a special occasion.
That said, the service was absolutely fantastic, always changing our grill, showing us how to eat the food, giving us suggestions, patient when we were deciding what to eat, and putting up with my Asian parents’ insistence that he be in our family photographs with us.
Again, if I recall correctly, you could probably come here and order a meal that wasn’t frightfully expensive and still be satisfied. But the BBQ, as great and fun as it is, is really expensive.

Came with a group of 4, all ready to devour Korean BBQ. Being in the Midwest, I knew it would end up being an expensive dinner, but we were pleasantly surprised to find a specials menu. We shared 3x of bulgogi, Soju, banchan, ddukbokki (rice cake), kimchi jiggae, and dumplings for a total of $ 25/​person. To me, this was less than expected AND we were completely full.
We had no issues with the service, as it appears others have had. The food came out fast, even with a busy restaurant. Our servers were friendly and accommodating with our requests.
The banchan was a conservative portion size, but overall I found the food delicious and filling. Definitely a solid place for Korean food.

Kaya is a great place for Korean food and sushi, and a spot to try out Korean BBQ with friends. If you have familiarized yourself with Korean food, you’ll find all of your favorites here, along with box dinners and many varieties of jigae and other stews. This place can get busy a little later in the evening, but they can accommodate large groups and the service is conscientious.
Be aware, however: if you are an adventurous eater, you may have to be firm about your order. If your server feels you are ordering a dish that «most Americans don’t like,» they will try and talk you out of it. I’ve had to stand my ground a couple of times to get what I wanted to order. Obviously, they’ve had experience with Western diners who think they know what they’re getting (fish eggs, tripe, cow’s blood) but have no idea how it will taste in a stew. Be kind, but firm. And, don’t complain if your dish is served the way it’s supposed to be but you didn’t realize that boiled fish eggs taste like boiled liver.
Tables are about half BBQ-​ready (with a covered gas grill in the center) and half regular. I ordered sushi and soon tofu stew on this trip, while the spouse picked out a fried chicken dish that was essentially General Tso’s meets katsu. My stew was filled with both tofu and seafood, and tasted as great as it looked; their sushi offerings are fresh and well-​made. Their take on General Tso’s was a well-​balanced blend of texture and flavor that is part of all their dishes — exactly as they should be.
Kaya does not skimp on their portions or their ingredients. Their bon chon is huge, too — for two people, we got nine dishes the first time, and six more when we re-​ordered. I like their kimchi best of any local Korean restaurant. We left full and happy from Kaya, as usual.

Came here for a friend’ birthday dinner. I was the first to arrive in our party of like 14 and no one helped me while I awkwardly stood there for a minute or so. The lady was standing there attending to her recipes and it wasn’t until one of the waiters came over that I was given a «hi, but I’ll just let you wait another couple minutes before I ask you why you are here.» So I sited until he finished processing his orders before they asked me, «how many.» Eh. Could have been better.
The service during the actual meal was fine and the waiters and staff were very friendly and attentive. The food took long to arrive but it was okay because the company was good. The meal, however, was not good at all. I ordered the kalbi tang, which is basically a soup made with the bones and meet. Usually they make the broth and give you the bones with hefty chunks of meat on it. Well, all I got was literally what looked like scraps from the rat of their dishes. It wasn’t disgusting but it wasn’t great.
So I probably will not come here again, because the food is pricey and not so great, bout I do them them a shout out for having great service during out meal.