Arisu Korean BBQ

I was going to give this place a 3 star but after the unanimous ceramic bowl love affair we all had after going here, it gets a 1! We came here because hell if I’m going to wait 2 hours to eat at Hae Jang Chon at 10:30 at night. The parking lot there was so full valet parking kicked us out!
Anyways, it seems that ban chan is only for entrée ordering customers, not the super cheap $ 13.99 AYCE deal which does come with quite a selection. There are ribs, salted as well as regular pork belly, two types of intestines and the usual brisket and tongue. Meat quality was meh but at least it wasn’t frozen solid.
AYCE came with a plain steamed egg, a spicy kimchi pork dish and a deliciously brothy galbi broth. That was the best part of the meal. Be warned though, this place closes their kitchen at 11:30PM even though they are open until 12. It’s a very mom & pop style of service, hit and miss.
They did change the grill so… yay? The tables were a bit sticky and don’t look at the grill while they change the top– gross. Mediocrity doesn’t get a redeeming star when you have stomach problems after eating here though, so 1 star!

EDIT: This place gave me and my friends mild food poisoning. Eat at your own risk!
Like many who flock here, we came because of Hae Jang Chon’s ridiculous wait (at 10:30 pm mind you).
This review is based solely on their AYCE special.
Pros:
— This place is open until midnight. Last call for the kitchen is at 11:30 pm.
— They have a $ 13.99 AYCE special that includes intestine, pork neck, pork belly, salted pork belly, beef brisket, beef tongue and beef rib fingers). The meat quality is not bad and what you would expect for $ 13.99. There’s also salad, soybean paste soup and steamed egg.
— Service is pretty good here since it’s not so packed. It has a mom and pop ambiance and the owners really take care of their customers with timely grill changes and so forth.
Cons:
— There are no banchans with the AYCE special. It does come with Sul Lung Tang (Beef Bone Soup) and stewed kimchi with pork (which was like kimchi jigae, but not since it wasn’t soupy and was missing tofu. The kimchi was also whole and not sliced). These dishes were great but didn’t really fill the void of not having banchans for me.
— The sesame oil seemed a bit off too me. You also don’t get the soybean paste, radishes or rice paper.
This place is a great alternative if you’re too hungry to wait for Hae Jang Chon. There’s street parking on Harvard and a lot in the back as well.

Wow $ 13.99 AYCE (4 stars for food)
Ok let me be honest.
When I first came here with a bud, and he ordered the $ 13.99 AYCE option I was not expecting much.
He texted his Korean friend and back came a list of the 3 meats to order (Boneless Rib, Marinated Rib fingers (the bomb-​***) and I believe large instestine (Decent and crunchy) I added on tongue (Splash on some lemon and dip in sesame oil and salt and down with beer!!!)
They do have other meat choice for the AYCE like the usual pork belly and brisket (My bud kept us from the brisket and said its cheap meat and a filler true true I thought but usually start with tongue and brisket oh well next time)
Side dishes included
steam egg (You can get more where else some places like O Dae San charges you extra for another order)
Bean Paste soup. A little salty but decent
Salad
Rice pooridge
Bummer is no galbi on the AYCE (To be expected since its only 13.99) and not enough regular banchan (Kimchi, bean sprout, fish cakes etc etc) .Parking is on the side street off of 6^th street and was a little confusing to find and its valet
Pluses
But for 13.99 food is damm good for the money
Also its not that busy and we walked right in on a Friday night.
Service was good.
Owner (Female) was very helpful

We were looking for a good Korean BBQ that wouldn’t break the bank on a Saturday night. We prefer hole in the wall type places… and this one fit the bill.
We were originally looking at Hae Jang Chon Korean BBQ Restaurant, but they were WAY too busy with well over an hour wait. We walked out to the street and saw a large BBQ sign a few streets away which brought us up the street. So we passed by Arisu with that in mind and walked the next block to the one that had the sign that brought us that way, Chilbo Korean BBQ, but the price was out of our price range, so we headed back to Arisu because they had a sign advertising their all you can eat BBQ for $ 13.99.
We walked in and were seated immediately. They knew we were in for the BBQ and handed us the menu with the choices opened for us to see. We were given «special» water, which was a special barley infused water… very yummy.
Unlike other Korean BBQ places, this one seems to have the server cook the meat for you on the grill, which I thought was great. I am not sure if this is standard, but I liked that they did that for us. Other places I’ve been we’ve cooked our own meat.
The young lady that served us, her American name was Jenny, was wonderful. She was very friendly and helpful. After we chose our first round of meat, we had her pick the rest for us, which was fun and a very good choice. We had great conversation with her, and even though she was busy helping other tables, she made sure we were happy and had what we wanted and needed.
Now for the food… all of it was wonderful! They served us an ox knee tendon/​joint soup, which was so yummy, almost nutty. We also had some egg soup dish… tasty…and a some curry type of soup with some kind of meat… also yummy. The BBQ meat was all delicious. We loved every bit of it.
All in all, we found our new Korean BBQ place and we will definitely be back!

Originally we wanted to go to Hae Jang Chon to eat kbbq but it was Saturday night and we were too hungry to wait for 2 hr so we started walking home until we passed Arisu and saw all you can eat for 13.99 and we thought that’s a good price. The place wasn’t busy so we got seated pretty quickly. The side dishes was really good. I love the beef soup but not a fan of the kimchi, it tasted weird and not the kimchi I’ve had before which was crispy and spicey. Overall this place was really good for the price and would go back again.
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update
I went here last week and they changed the beef soup. The flavor was the same but there was no beef only beef tendon…

I love Korean BBQ, but KBBQ for lunch break during work? Completely unknown quantity to me. But since I was only in L.A. for a few days and my boy works in K-​town, I’m not about to skip out on a chance to get some KBBQ.
Except…it wasn’t quite. But not because I got screwed or anything, I just figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to roll back to work smelling like a grill. So I said fine, give me something I’ve never eaten in a restaurant before: bibimbap. It was pretty good as all the vegetables were fresh and the egg was perfectly cooked. Meat was flavorful, although some of the beef got stuck to the bottom because it was served in a sizzling bowl. My mistake for not mixing it up immediately. For $ 10 after tip it was pretty good.
Only problem is that this place is a bit hard to find because the entrance is in the alleyway at the back of the building. That said, I guess there’s less random customers that come in so no wait for me! Additionally, it’s really close to the Wilshire/​Normandie subway stop (I didn’t even know we had a subway), so for those who can’t drive, it’s easy to walk to.
Will probably have to update this review when I actually eat real KBBQ here, but it was actually nice to eat something that’s really Korean instead of just mowing down cows and pigs.

BEWARE: THEY HAVE MISLEADING PRICES ON THEIR WEBSITE! Their website lunch menu lists a bunch of items for $ 6.99 so I called in and ordered to go. When I arrived, they charged me a higher price saying that the website was incorrect. They also added a $ 1 to go fee, which makes no sense to me. Overall, I paid almost $ 11 for something that should’ve costed a little over $ 7. The galbi jim and nengmyun were so-​so. But right across the street is Chosun Galbee, which has really good galbi and nengmyun, so I would never order those here again. The two times I’ve been here during work lunch hours, it’s absolutely dead. Tells you something about the quality.

Not too many customers. Side dishes are alright. Meat is a little pricey. Lunch menu is affordable; the dolsot-​bibimbap is really good.

A small but roomy Korean bbq joint with new ownership. The service is superb (e.g. numerous grill changes, constantly checking on the customers) and the staff appears to be very accommodating to non-​Koreans as well. The place is a tad pricey, but it’s definitely a big notch over all the mediocre AYCE places that have been popping up lately. Furthermore, none of the meat was frozen and everyone in my group agreed that the meat quality was quite good.
4 – 4.5 stars
Try it, and let TJ (manager) know that you heard about it through Unilocal.I’m pretty sure he will hook you up.

My friend told me about Arisu a couple weeks ago and one of my side missions in life is to try as many K BBQ’s in ktown as possible, so I said why the hell not let’s try out this joint.
The restaurant entrance is toward the back of the building so it’s a bit hidden from public view. With that said the place was very clean and bright with modern touches throughout.
They have various combos priced at 40, 80, and 120 (I think) with a wide variety of meats. We had a group of 7 so we ordered the largest combo for 120. When the meats first came out, it appeared to be somewhat small in portion (you have to understand that my eyes are bigger than my stomach since I’ve been spoiled by all the AYCE places) but with that said, it was a really wide range of meats including a raw beef dish, cow neck meat?, instestines, rib eye, brisket, galbi, and more. The meat quality was definitely a notch above all the AYCE places and I’m not into funky meats like intestines, but my friends were chowing them down as if they were tic tacs so it must have been pretty good. Their sides dishes are very well presented and quite good. Service was pretty good too until a group of like 30 korean tourists dropped in… but all good since it was probably not anticipated. Oh yeah, we were all stuffed by the time meat was almost finished, so the portion was adequate. They also serve this light colored soup made of tendons/cartilages…the soup itself was actually spicy although it was clear in appearance… interesting. Quite good though and my friend was digging the tendons/​cartilages, he was saying they were tender and flavorful. I didn’t try the tendons personally though, but I’ll take his word for it.
Overall a solid place and a nice reprieve from the AYCE overload at ktown. If you really think about it, some of us do not eat enough at AYCE to justify the relatively poor service and lower quality meats. One warning though… you will SMELL once you exit this establishment, so don’t wear your fur coat or $ 500 Armani suit.
So if you are down for something slightly different give Arisu a try, you probably will like it.

Came here to celebrate my mom’s birthday.
This review is based solely on food and service because I don’t actually know how much was spent on the meal.
Let’s see… so service was okay. Kind of awkward walking in because everyone stared like we were aliens (probably because my mom’s asian and my step dad’s white, hahaha).
They tried seating us in a corner next to the bathroom/​kitchen, but my mom refused and so we sat in a nice open space.
Anyways, the actual service was fine. Not the best at being attentive, but good enough with a wave of the hand and a raise in your voice. Typical of any Korean BBQ places really.
Food was pretty good.
The banchan (little side dishes) that came out were all pretty yummy.
No complaints there.
The meat was pretty good too, but the pork belly was a bit funky. Probably because they didn’t change the grill for us as often as they should have.
All in all, I think this place is good… but I feel like if I were to have BBQ in LA again, I’d much rather go someplace else.

I had mix seafood bibimbap here. It came with soup, and banchan, of course. There were 7 different side dishes.
My bibimbap was fine, I mean, it’s kinda hard to find bad bibimbap.
They said all their banchan are homemade, and they don’t use MSG.
But kimchi tasted like store bought, even somebody saw that they were actually making it (and it was not Asian), and pumpkin potato salad was bland.
They also said they use good quality meat for their BBQ.

Usually eating KBBQ isn’t fun for me. I cook and others devour the fruits of my labor. At Arisu everything was cooked for me!
Order dishes of raw meats and they are cooked for you while you watch T.V., drink, or munch on the yummy side dishes.
I wanted to try Hae Jang Chon but being very hungry and cold in the rain I didn’t want to wait an hour. So… I walked away to Arisu because it looked less busy. They are NOT AYCE! They are clean, decent, a bit pricey K-​BBQ.
I was told they opened only 3 months ago and business is slow. Their website indicates you need a reservation, but I walked in and was seated immediately. They were friendly but I thought it was weird when they had last call around 9pm. perhaps because they had no more reservations, but they took in another couple as I was finishing up.
Food: My boyfriend and I ordered the $ 40.00 combo which had brisket, duck, pork, boneless short rib, and marinated pork belly. Oh and either hot soup or cold noodles are served at the end.
The marinated pork belly is deeeelishes. The only bad point of the meal was they cooked one set of meat at a time and when it came time for the pork belly I was already full.
They only have a few side dishes but they were good quality: kimchi, bean sprouts, pickled cucumbers, kimchi-​squid, and spicy daikon.
My FAVORITE side dish was a mashed pumpkin with peanuts and raisins, a weird take on the potato salad usually served with KBBQ.
The salad they serve is shredded green onion in spicy dressing. I think you can ask for lettuce but I like onions so it was pretty darned tasty. :)
SERVICE: The waitress was very nice and helpful even though I am not Korean and they were pretty prompt with their refills of my side dishes without me asking. A+ service here!
PARKING: In the rear! It isn’t valet yet since they aren’t that busy… but if they ever are I’m sure it will cost something.