HQ Korean BBQ & Hot Pot

Over the past few years there have been many AYCE Korean spots opening up. I have tried many of them from the revolving ones to the hot pot only to bbq only to the combination of hotpot and bbq. I have come to realize I like the combination of hot pot and bbq together. I tend to look for the combination ones now. The basics of most of these type of places are that they have your standard cuts of beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and the marinated meats. What sets these places apart are the condiments, the accoutrements of side dishes, finishing touches, and the specialty items that I look for. I have yet to find the perfect spot for me. However, HQ will be my go to place until I find perfect. Here's what I like and don't like. 1. I always look for Galbi, which is marinated Korean short ribs with the bone. Delicious. I have been to places where what they call Galbi is cut up and not in original form. I question if I'm really eating Galbi. Also with the addition of Galbi, the prices are usually higher than normal or not offered at all. This place has them. 2. I look at the variety of sauces they offer. They had so many to choose from. With the choices, making the any type of sauce is endless. They don't have two things. One is a "house" sauce with their special combination. I like the house sauce on the days I'm not up to making my own. Two is that they don't have fresh Thai chilli peppers. They have jalapeños, but jalapeños are not spicy enough for me. This is not a deal breaker. When I know I'm going, I'll bring my own chili peppers.3. The sweet stuff. I'm not expecting a huge variety. I'm not a super big sweets kind of person. They offer fruit, a sponge cake, ice cream, and a few Asian desserts that I enjoy. Many of the places I go do not offer the Asian desserts, and that was important to me. 4. The variety of meats. I only had a couples prices of Galbi and Filet mignon. Yes they had filet mignon when I was there today. My husband enjoyed the brisket and lamb. There are so many variety, cuts, and marination I didn't get to try most of them. I will have to leave room in my stomach for more. 5. Seafood. I was too busy eating the seafood to try the other cuts of meat. Crab legs, oysters, blue crabs, shrimp, crawfish, mussels, etc. I may have missed a few. They no longer have surf clams. I was a little disappointed but the other seafood made up for it. The other AYCE lack in the seafood department.6. The soup. I got the miso broth and the hubs got bone broth. I'm all about the soup base. Sometimes I don' put anything in my soup and just enjoy the flavor of the soup as I am enjoying the bbq. Having a flavorful soup is important. We both liked what we ordered. They had a few more choices of base soup than other places. I would usually have to added some other seasoning, but I didn't have to here. I am going to try the other flavors next time. Probably will try Tom yum next and then move onto Szechuan. 7. The service. Our server Alice was very kind. She asked us about our experience and what we liked and didn't like. She wanted to make sure we enjoyed our meal. The support staff kept our table clean. The buffet area was constantly being cleaned and replenished. 8. Every AYCE places have something one place may do but another does not. HQ had different things that other places had put into one. For example,HQ had appetizers and included into the pricing. I only ordered two. I got the best of multiple places in this one experience. 9. Pricing. The pricing is comparable and for what you get, it's definitely a good value. Usually AYCE Korean BBQ or Hot Pot is around $29.99. To have both is about $34.99. Some places are $5-$15 more depending on any specialty cut of meat or specialty seafood while HQ has it without the added price. 10. I'm a foody. I want the place to be good and clean. I am there to enjoy the food. This is not a Michelin star place (even some of those places, I question). This is a place to eat to your hearts delights with what ever flavor you want and can change the flavor by changing your sauce or choice of meats. 10. A few things I regret to ask about.....I forgot to ask about steamed white rice (I wasn't in the mood for rice). They had the cheese corn but I didn't see egg custard. Next time. I will be back to check out everything else I missed. This place will require a few trips before I can finish my post. I was so full. My excitement hazed over me and I just went to my favorite items. Till we eat again!!!

This was my first HQ. Second one in Birmingham AL. To start. Staff aren't Korean. I mean, off of pleasant hill??? Come on!! I spoke to my wait staff in korean and he immediately said no. Okay. Nothing wrong with that. But kind of shocking as many of the Atlanta Korean restaurants are Koreans. Now the food. It was okay. My Filipino friend who eats lot of Korean suggested so I tried. It was okay. We did weekend early dinner and wasn't busy at all. Meat was okay and nothing special. That's it. I would go if people want to go. But I wouldn't go out of my way to go.

A good bbq and hot pot.Standard pricing and good qualityWorth stopping in and giving them a try.

Closed. Went by last week :( Was really looking forward to trying, but looks like they're remodeling and rebranding to a Korean BBQ only place

One of my go to hot pot places in town. it's all you can eat hot pot for $30 as of April 2024. $35 if you want the combo of hot pot and kbbq. They serve unlimited blue crabs and some of the freshest, juiciest crawfish ever. Service is great - but for the most part, it's serve yourself as you can grab any of the ingredients you want like a buffet.

This is now my Vietnamese mother's, favorite Korean barbecue and hot pot spot!It's located where the former Joe's crab shack used to be. They have definitely gutted the whole place and transformed it to appear very industrial. It's mainly a buffet setup with most of your items is self served. You you can find your greens in a fridge. There are some meats that you can only order on the tablet and a robot or server will bring it to you. There's also a large sauce bar that has everything you could really want.Price is very affordable at $25 for both hot pot and cream barbecue for lunch or $35 per person for both for dinner. Our server was fantastic! The issue with eating at buffets is sometimes the dishes can stack up however, our server was always on top of it, and we never had to wait for service. They also had a cute little cart next to your table for you to place excess dishes. In regards to the hot pot, their soup bases are delicious. The Szechwan spicy will make your eyes, water and tongue tingle with all the peppercorn. We also love the Japanese curry as well as the miso broth. The Tom Yum could be a little bit more flavorful.I love the variety of seafood they have here. They had huge large shrimp, clams, squid, octopus, fish, blue crab, and crawfish. Definitely one of the best seafood variety I've seen at an all you can eat buffet.In regards to the meat, it's definitely not the best quality but there's a wide selection and it all tastes decent. I personally love that they have galbi here, which is hard to find at other restaurants. They have a radish wraps for Korean barbecue.Overall, great place to go if you are craving either style of cooking or want to do both. It can definitely be overwhelming when you were trying to manage both but for the price and selection, it would be hard to beat.

Our server Andy(I think that was his name)was very helpful and gave us the skinny on how they did things there. He was busy but made sure to check in and kept our waters full and plates cleared.We enjoyed our meal and there was just enough variety that day to not grow bored with it. Our experience was at lunch, so it was a smaller crowd and everything was fresh since we went on the early side.To us it was pretty standard for AYCE self service/buffet style K-bbq but if you haven't been to one similar before it would be super overwhelming for some. I think we will stick to our standard favs for HotPot and K-Bbq but it was an enjoyable lunch and we didn't get sick-so that's a plus. I do feel like they put additional MSG in their food-which doesn't bother me, but it does my husband when there are larger portions of it used in cooking/marinaded..and he struggled after the meal here. So if you're sensitive to such things be aware.

We were stuck between wanting hot pot and kbbq so we decided to come here. It was only $5 more pp to add the hotpot option. Once we were seated our server was very helpful and helped us get started. They had a tablet at the table to order dishes that were available at the buffet. The base we choose for hot pot was bone broth. It was delicious and flavorful. There was a variety of noodles and sides for the hot pot.I think the whole experience was overwhelming and will opt to do them separately next time. The buffet lacked banchans and we didn't even see the vegetables options for the hotpot until we were leaving. IMO, the quality of the meats were not as high as restaurants that only focuses on kbbq.

If I were to sum up this place with one word it would be: confusing. Not only that, but it wasn't good when my wife didn't feel good after. Yep. Food poisoning is what happened. I think it could be because all of the meat was just sitting there in the buffet trays or what, but overall I probably will recommend not to come to HQ KBBQ & Hot Pot. Even though it's AYCE, I just found the whole experience kind of all over the place. I think the idea of KBBQ and Hot Pot as a combo is interesting, but for me after experiencing it, I just thought it was overall confusing. Now picture it, you have both KBBQ and Hot Pot, you put your food in hot pot, and it's nice and brothy. Then you switch to KBBQ which is dry and right out of a hot pan. The two don't mix. So what you receive is just a mediocre experience of both. If you go to a dedicated KBBQ place, you get high quality meats for the grill and meats that are dedicated for the grill. If you go to a Hot Pot place, you get meats and sides dedicated for Hot Pot. Those two types of meats sometimes overlap, but most of the time they don't and that was the experience here. Finally after our dinner, my wife got sick. So that was kind of a bummer. I don't know exactly what it was but overall my experience was just meh about this place. HQ Korean BBQ and Hot Pot could have been better. Maybe have more meats better stored? Have all of it come out the back. And also more veggie options for hot pot. I think what is out on the buffet hall shouldn't be meats but just veggies for hot pot or options for hotpot and all meats should be ordered from the back. I know KBBQ & Hotpot all at once isn't for me and I'm glad I got to experience it so I can make that decision myself. I'm pretty sure I won't be coming back here or any place that offers both. I rather have one place that focuses on one thing and does it well, rather than a mediocre experience of both. Overall, meh experience for me. I could see this place being good for those who are indecisive in their party and some people want kbbq and others hot pot. Otherwise, if you're just a small party of 2, go to a focused kbbq or hot pot and not a place that offers both.

Food was great and loved the concept of having both hotpot and korean bbq at the same time! Service was great as well, everyone who came by were so nice and helpful. Everything is self except for the things you have to order from the ipad on your table and they will bring it to you.I would definitely come again!